Many of us were put off the rules of grammar and puntuation for life, by dreary teaching. There are however, some passionate people who believe not only that "English is a beautiful and subtle language and should be encouraged to stay that way", but also that "grammar is the rules for paradise, writing is the paradise". The first quote is from authors Caroline Taggart and J.A.Wines who wrote My Grammar and I (Or Should that Be "Me"?): Old School Ways to Sharpen Your English, and the second is from Mark Tredinnick, an Australian poet and essayist who describes his book The Little Green Grammar Book as more of a lover's guide than a textbook. The first title is available through Consortia libraries and the second is in the ERL collection.
As I have mentioned previously in this blog, the author who several years ago successfully stimulated interest in these neglected subjects was Lynne Truss, with her book Eats, shoots and leaves : the zero tolerance approach to puctuation. It was so concise and so humourous that she has since produced two books for younger readers, Eats shoots and leaves : why, commas really do make a difference and The girl's like spaghetti : why, you can't manage without apostrophes. To emphasise the point that punctuation can be funny, we heard Victor Borge's skit Phonetic Punctuation from the CD The hilarious Victor Borge.
As I have mentioned previously in this blog, the author who several years ago successfully stimulated interest in these neglected subjects was Lynne Truss, with her book Eats, shoots and leaves : the zero tolerance approach to puctuation. It was so concise and so humourous that she has since produced two books for younger readers, Eats shoots and leaves : why, commas really do make a difference and The girl's like spaghetti : why, you can't manage without apostrophes. To emphasise the point that punctuation can be funny, we heard Victor Borge's skit Phonetic Punctuation from the CD The hilarious Victor Borge.
We continued our nostalgic music tracks theme with Dean Martin singing That's Amore from Dino : the essential Dean Martin. This song was used with great effect as the theme to the movie Moonstruck. More next week.
---- Lesley
I'm reminded of the following blogs:
The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
Apostrophe Abuse
Cheers, Maryanne
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