Can you recommend an interesting book on grammar?
March 29, 2022 8:34 AM Subscribe
I'm interested in an accessible and engaging book on grammar, that explains features like tense, case, prepositions, phonology and complex things that I don't even know I don't know about yet. Needs to work for a mainly monolingual English speaker.
In common with most people who went to school at the same time and place as me, I have never had formal lessons in English grammar. I did however, have an Usborne book about punctuation and grammar that I think I absorbed a lot from. But I find eg Wikipedia articles difficult to follow because I haven't internalised any technical terms, and I have very little experience of languages other than English (GCSE French is not heavy on grammar either!). I'm interested in how language works, including languages that have different features to English, and would like book, or other written media, recommendations.
The ideal book in my mind would be written in an extremely engaging style, take a descriptivist approach philosophically, use examples that are familiar to a native speaker of English - or at least not assume fluency in any other language. I'd also prefer British English rather than other varieties if possible.
I'm not looking for a text book per se, or to do grammar exercises. I don't want to improve my own use of English, but to improve my understanding of how languages in general and English specifically "work". The history of English language is tangentially interesting but not my main focus. Anecdotes about the history of linguistics or arguments within the discipline might also be of interest.
Do you have any good suggestions?
In common with most people who went to school at the same time and place as me, I have never had formal lessons in English grammar. I did however, have an Usborne book about punctuation and grammar that I think I absorbed a lot from. But I find eg Wikipedia articles difficult to follow because I haven't internalised any technical terms, and I have very little experience of languages other than English (GCSE French is not heavy on grammar either!). I'm interested in how language works, including languages that have different features to English, and would like book, or other written media, recommendations.
The ideal book in my mind would be written in an extremely engaging style, take a descriptivist approach philosophically, use examples that are familiar to a native speaker of English - or at least not assume fluency in any other language. I'd also prefer British English rather than other varieties if possible.
I'm not looking for a text book per se, or to do grammar exercises. I don't want to improve my own use of English, but to improve my understanding of how languages in general and English specifically "work". The history of English language is tangentially interesting but not my main focus. Anecdotes about the history of linguistics or arguments within the discipline might also be of interest.
Do you have any good suggestions?
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss was written just for you!
posted by hydra77 at 9:13 AM on March 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by hydra77 at 9:13 AM on March 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Eats, Shoots and Leaves is very funny but definitely from a prescriptivist view.
posted by pangolin party at 9:26 AM on March 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by pangolin party at 9:26 AM on March 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would just say that Eats Shoots and Leaves definitely doesn’t take a descriptivist approach, and Truss is an entertaining columnist but not an actual linguist, AFAIK. I can think of a few entertaining books which are written by linguists, like Because Internet or The Prodigal Tongue, but I’m not sure they cover the sort of ground you’re looking for.
Honestly, despite having done English at university and read quite a few popular books about language, nothing taught me as much about how English actually works as a two-week course preparing to teach English as a second language. I’ll be interested to see what recommendations people have.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 9:33 AM on March 29, 2022
Honestly, despite having done English at university and read quite a few popular books about language, nothing taught me as much about how English actually works as a two-week course preparing to teach English as a second language. I’ll be interested to see what recommendations people have.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 9:33 AM on March 29, 2022
Professional copy editor advising against Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. It is weirdly full of errors. A New Yorker review when it came out pointed out dozens.
posted by FencingGal at 9:51 AM on March 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by FencingGal at 9:51 AM on March 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
NativLang - YouTube probably has enough interesting videos on the whole "including languages that have different features to English" part.
Back in the early 90's I just started by going to the library and reading through the 400 section looking for interesting things. Dewey Decimal System – A Guide to Call Numbers – Information Sciences Virtual Library – U of I Library. Sorry, haven't read anything in a decade that tries to cover everything. I pretty much consider most of your desires tend to go in various different books.
Sorta second Bloxwoth Snout on the true IMHO that second language learners quite often have better syntax/grammar on a language just by starting out adult. I could imagine going back and reviewing your elementary school English Grammar book again and diagramming sentences and all that stuff you hated all over again might help.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:55 AM on March 29, 2022
Back in the early 90's I just started by going to the library and reading through the 400 section looking for interesting things. Dewey Decimal System – A Guide to Call Numbers – Information Sciences Virtual Library – U of I Library. Sorry, haven't read anything in a decade that tries to cover everything. I pretty much consider most of your desires tend to go in various different books.
Sorta second Bloxwoth Snout on the true IMHO that second language learners quite often have better syntax/grammar on a language just by starting out adult. I could imagine going back and reviewing your elementary school English Grammar book again and diagramming sentences and all that stuff you hated all over again might help.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:55 AM on March 29, 2022
There is a series of Books that are "English Grammar for Students of X"; see, e.g., for French here.
All Things Linguistics has a round up of books for laypeople; see also the Book Reviews tag there for a bunch of books on linguistics. You'll see that most of them aren't going to get into nitty-gritty detail about like, here are all the parts of speech, here are all the tenses, but it's more general...here's how languages work.
posted by damayanti at 10:12 AM on March 29, 2022
All Things Linguistics has a round up of books for laypeople; see also the Book Reviews tag there for a bunch of books on linguistics. You'll see that most of them aren't going to get into nitty-gritty detail about like, here are all the parts of speech, here are all the tenses, but it's more general...here's how languages work.
posted by damayanti at 10:12 AM on March 29, 2022
Best answer: The books I see listed in this thread so far don’t have what you’re looking for, and I know this because I’ve read them or had them around my workplace at some point. My suggestion is a teacher book called The Grammar Book, and a copy of Linguistics for Dummies because some of what you’re calling grammar is going to be found there.
The Teacher’s Grammar of English is good as well. Most of the engaging general audience books are about writing better (Eats, Shoots and Leaves) or pop linguistics (Because Internet) and they aren’t going to go into topics like case or tense.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:30 AM on March 29, 2022
The Teacher’s Grammar of English is good as well. Most of the engaging general audience books are about writing better (Eats, Shoots and Leaves) or pop linguistics (Because Internet) and they aren’t going to go into topics like case or tense.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:30 AM on March 29, 2022
One of the books that made me decide I wanted to study linguistics was A Mouthful of Air: Languages and Language, Especially English by Anthony Burgess (yes, that Anthony Burgess). I haven't read it since studying linguistics (so I can't vouch for its accuracy), and I recall it being a little heavier on phonology, but it is the kind of book you are describing: a book written in an engaging style for English speakers by a speaker of British English for an audience of interested laypeople.
A slightly more off-beat recommendation is The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language by Geoff Pullum. This one is pitched at linguists, as it's a collection of columns that originally appeared in an academic linguistics jourbal in the 1980s. So some of it will almost certainly go over your head but if you want to get a sense of what linguists in the 80s cared about in a humorous way, and learn an assortment of facts. it's worth a read. He was also one of the founders of the blog Language Log if you want more stuff that is like this. He's also the coauthor of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, which you might want to take a look at if you actually want a reference grammar of English.
You don't have to do the exercises -- and they won't be "grammar exercises" anyway -- but you might like to take a look at the kind of textbook that an intro to linguistics class would use. My recommendation here is O'Grady's Contemporary Linguistics, but there are a lot of options.
It sounds like you might like to read something about typology but unfortunately I don't know any books about typology for people who aren't already linguists.
posted by sineala at 10:30 AM on March 29, 2022
A slightly more off-beat recommendation is The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language by Geoff Pullum. This one is pitched at linguists, as it's a collection of columns that originally appeared in an academic linguistics jourbal in the 1980s. So some of it will almost certainly go over your head but if you want to get a sense of what linguists in the 80s cared about in a humorous way, and learn an assortment of facts. it's worth a read. He was also one of the founders of the blog Language Log if you want more stuff that is like this. He's also the coauthor of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, which you might want to take a look at if you actually want a reference grammar of English.
You don't have to do the exercises -- and they won't be "grammar exercises" anyway -- but you might like to take a look at the kind of textbook that an intro to linguistics class would use. My recommendation here is O'Grady's Contemporary Linguistics, but there are a lot of options.
It sounds like you might like to read something about typology but unfortunately I don't know any books about typology for people who aren't already linguists.
posted by sineala at 10:30 AM on March 29, 2022
Best answer: I think you would enjoy one of the many books David Crystal has written for a general audience. For an engaging but also wide-ranging and detailed option, I suggest his Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (amazon link; bookshop link). It covers a wide range of phenomena, from a genuinely descriptive perspective. It is English-oriented (obviously), but I think you'll find it a good way in.
posted by redfoxtail at 10:31 AM on March 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by redfoxtail at 10:31 AM on March 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I don’t know if it quite fits - it’s a reference book, rather than following any kind of narrative - but I think you might like Michael Swann’s Practical English Usage.
Why?
It’s written very clearly and engagingly;
It’s descriptivist in approach, predominantly dealing with British English;
The section on swearing is (unintentionally?) very funny.
I bought it as a recommended text for my CELTA course. As an TESOL teacher, you’re constantly called upon to explain - or at least describe - English grammar rules and so I used it a lot. But I would also leaf through it for pleasure, or look up aspects of language that I was curious about*. I stopped teaching TESOL years ago and nevertheless I’ve kept the book with me over several career changes and relocations between at least four continents.
*In my third edition copy I just looked up 452: Prepositions (5): at the ends of a clause. There’s two pages on this, but the relevant parts are 3, relative clauses and 7, formal structures. These tell me that when a relative pronoun is the object of a preposition, the preposition often comes at the end of the clause, especially in informal usage, but in a more formal style it’s often put earlier, before the relative pronoun (or question word). There’s also a whole slew of examples, comparisons and explanations.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 10:32 AM on March 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Why?
It’s written very clearly and engagingly;
It’s descriptivist in approach, predominantly dealing with British English;
The section on swearing is (unintentionally?) very funny.
I bought it as a recommended text for my CELTA course. As an TESOL teacher, you’re constantly called upon to explain - or at least describe - English grammar rules and so I used it a lot. But I would also leaf through it for pleasure, or look up aspects of language that I was curious about*. I stopped teaching TESOL years ago and nevertheless I’ve kept the book with me over several career changes and relocations between at least four continents.
*In my third edition copy I just looked up 452: Prepositions (5): at the ends of a clause. There’s two pages on this, but the relevant parts are 3, relative clauses and 7, formal structures. These tell me that when a relative pronoun is the object of a preposition, the preposition often comes at the end of the clause, especially in informal usage, but in a more formal style it’s often put earlier, before the relative pronoun (or question word). There’s also a whole slew of examples, comparisons and explanations.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 10:32 AM on March 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Old style: The Mother Tongue (1964) by Lancelot Hogben [1895-1975] one of the great leftie popularisers of science. Lots of lists and quizzes in this history of English.
New style: Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language (2009) by Bill Bryson. More knock-about fun than previous?
Uncle: David Crystal is quite accessible on all things Englistic
Podcast: I carry a torch for Gretchen McCulloch [whose Because Internet cited above] and Lauren Gawne at Lingthusiasm; . . . Episode list.
Episode 54: How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:38 AM on March 29, 2022
New style: Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language (2009) by Bill Bryson. More knock-about fun than previous?
Uncle: David Crystal is quite accessible on all things Englistic
Podcast: I carry a torch for Gretchen McCulloch [whose Because Internet cited above] and Lauren Gawne at Lingthusiasm; . . . Episode list.
Episode 54: How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:38 AM on March 29, 2022
"Kind of" and "sort of" are perfectly proper grammar. Seems to be a lot of confusion here among grammar, diction, and style.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is very technical, but perhaps you could look at it and see if it's what you have in mind?
posted by praemunire at 11:12 AM on March 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is very technical, but perhaps you could look at it and see if it's what you have in mind?
posted by praemunire at 11:12 AM on March 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style is quite engaging. I don't know if it will go into as much detail as you are looking for, but I encourage you to start with it, as it will probably provide good background for more technical books. (It's been years since I read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, but I believe Dreyer's is more detailed and generally better than ES&L.)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:45 AM on March 29, 2022
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:45 AM on March 29, 2022
Fowler's Modern English Usage and The King's English. Ongoing classics on the subject, a century or so later and still in print. Hilarious and full of snark. If you're gonna read English people talking about English, it needs that dry wit. (note: from Anglo viewpoint, so American styles are mentioned but not the focus).
posted by ovvl at 2:53 PM on March 29, 2022
posted by ovvl at 2:53 PM on March 29, 2022
Grammar Girl podcast and maybe books?
posted by stormyteal at 6:51 PM on March 29, 2022
posted by stormyteal at 6:51 PM on March 29, 2022
There's The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. I recall it being somewhat engaging, but not always accurate or factually correct.
EDIT: I just saw BobtheScientist listed this book, missed that.
posted by Snowishberlin at 7:53 AM on March 30, 2022
EDIT: I just saw BobtheScientist listed this book, missed that.
posted by Snowishberlin at 7:53 AM on March 30, 2022
Another vote for The Transitive Vampire--it's got this naughty, gothy vibe that's fun to read, and it explains with a lot of clarity too, with examples; lots of memorable sentences like "We complied but spat on our captors' shoes."
posted by Nibbly Fang at 5:20 PM on March 30, 2022
posted by Nibbly Fang at 5:20 PM on March 30, 2022
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