Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English

Rating:
Summary: Quirkiness,ambiguity and irregularities in English beware!
Review: "Quirkiness, ambiguity and irregularities that make natural language so exasperating also makes it so wonderful" is one of the sentences that Patricia O"Conner uses to start her grammarphobe's guide to better English. This is one hilarious way to re-learn the better part of grammar that we may have mis-placed back in high school. Have no fear, there is no diagraming of sentences. A refreshing new way to look at how our language works and doesn't work. Most of what Paricia O'Connor tells us is not new. It is written in a manner that delights us and with such wit. One chapter is "Plurals Before Swine: Blunders with Numbers". How can you not want to read this and figure out how you have been blundering with the plurals. The chapter that meant the most to me is the one about cliches,"Do cliches deserve to die?" for the most part yes. I love cliches, but if you overuse you flunk. The most helpful chapter was "Saying is Believing"'How to write what you mean; great suggestions to help us. Someone can read what we have written and really understand us. She gives us 13 principles to follow for graceful writing. Patricia O'Connor says that if you find a technique that works steal it- someday others may be stealing from you. A book for everyone and so much fun to read.

Rating:
Summary: Lessening one's woe...
Review: Patricia O'Conner has produced a jewel of a book in 'Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English'. Perhaps the greatest strength in the book is the recognition that language is ever-changing and evolving. Thus, her rules are tempered with the reality that sometimes, that which is wrong today might not be wrong tomorrow.

To those of you in the know, 'normalcy' is one of those words that (which?) is actually an improper construct, made to be a viable choice by the fact that a lofty person (in this case, I believe it was a President) used it in public.

This book is filled with tidbits of information for any who are interested in the playfulness of language. I particularly appreciate the part of the book that talks about modern trends -- that which was once improper but is no longer, and those things which might be used but are still suspect.

Amusing stories and examples are scattered about the stories -- I would that my original English grammars would have been so light-hearted and easy to read. Perhaps that is the greatest strength of this book -- that it amuses while it teaches.

It is a short book, so don't be put off by the fact that you're actually reading something of the subject 'grammar', and be relieved to know that even the best of authors succumb to the occasional lapse. And I have praise for the author's resistance to hyper-correctivity, i.e., the tendency to correct oneself or others when the correction adds nothing to the meaning and questionable value in construction.

As Winston Churchill said, 'there are some things up with which I shall not put!'

One person I know recently wrote to me, referencing this book, 'Its best attribute is that it is an extremely pleasant book to read when it's about a topic with which we've been Pavlov-ed to find excruciating.' Below I describe a few of the chapters.

--Woe is I--
Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety
In this section, one learns the proper use for which and that, a problem that continues to plague me. Or is it which? The difference and confusion of it's versus its; it's a problem played out many times daily on Epinions. O'Conner goes into great detail about the most common and lesser known pronoun difficulties. It is something that I myself learned something from (or is that, from which I learned something -- well, that is the subject of another chapter).

--Plurals Before Swine--
Blunders with Numbers
In school it was relatively easy. To make something plural, simply add an 's' to the end. Or sometimes an 'es'. Or sometimes... And the rules kept getting more complex. What happens with irregular words (of which English is full to the brim -- oops, cliches are yet another chapter...). Some words and singluar and plural! Egad! You will also learn enough to be Vice President and then some -- how to you spell the plural of potato? Make sure you have your data straight. Ah, that kind of plural is covered later, too.

--They Beg to Disagree--
Putting Verbs in Their Place
One of the commonplace problems is in verb agreement. Sometimes it can feel like a major negotiation must take place for this happen, and the more complex the sentence and paragraph structure, the longer the negotiations can take simply to agree on a suitable venue for talks. Because verbs constitute such a major part of language, this is the longest chapter of the book. However, you will cover it all, past, present and future, active and passive. This is the heart of the matter.

--Verbal Abuse--
Words on the Endangered List
Words can be endangered for several reasons. The first reason is through constant misuse. O'Conner gives the examples of unique -- which technically means 'one of a kind' and is now a substitute for the word 'unusual' -- and the couplet affect/effect, which tend to be used interchangeably more and more. On the other hand, some phrases like live audience now make sense to us, whereas prior to the advent of recording instruments, it would have been redundant. O'Conner lists commonly misused words like dilemma, literally, and presently, couplets like accept/except, ago/since, and good/well. This section is actually quite long; there is a lot of confusion in the use of the English language. Additionally, there are sections for commonly mis-spelled words, words that could be one or two words, and other common bloopers like alot, which is used a lot.

--Death Sentence--
Do Cliches Deserve to Die?
We can all talk in cliches until the cows come home, but does that make them a bad thing? Sometime a well-reconfigured cliche is the best kind of writing. However, given that language is itself a symbolic and representative construct, to layer on additional symbols to that can create more trouble than it is worth. A well-devised metaphor can be a welcome thing, but be careful not to be excessive, and avoid mixing your metaphors! If you let the cat out of the bag too often the whole ship will go off the rails!

--The Nitty Gritty--
Particia O'Conner is an editor at The New York Times Book Review. She has taught grammar courses, and has 'subbed' for William Safire as a guest columnist while he was holiday. She has a style and wit about her that makes the study of grammar actually fun. This book is for an educated person who has trouble remembering some of the rules; it will make the reader feel good at knowing most of the rules, and enable the reader to laugh at common mistakes made personally and by others.

This book makes grammar fun - a near impossible task. It is a good gift for the person who has everything (save flawless command of English).

Rating:
Summary: Actually fun
Review: It's hard to make the subject of grammar entertaining, but P. O'Conner does her best, and it's a very good job indeed.
My only caveat is that it's sometimes difficult to find an answer to a specific question, but it's a great book to pick up and browse through.
Keep it handy near your writing desk, pick it up when you're between paragraphs, and learn something during your down time.
It's really great.

Rating:
Summary: Good for the system!
Review: I commented to my "Teaching of Writing" professor that I felt somewhat unarmed in the battle of grammar, having learned to trust my instincts in my past writing, but not necessarily able to define the terms and instruct people in their usage. She recommended this book as an aide. I recommend it to you.

The best part of this book is Chapter 9, "The Living Dead," which talks about grammer "rules" that people have mistakenly assumed as valid. This includes splitting an infinitive, a holdover from the 1800s when a pedant decided that English should follow the Latin in this area. Nevermind that the words "to love" and "amare" are entirely different in the two languages (the infinitive is the "to" in front of the verb--in Latin, it is impossible to separate this, while in English it is often left out entirely). Another "rule" is that you should not end a sentence with a preposition, for the mistaken assumption that all prepositions must be followed by their object.

However, one item that she calls a dead rule is still being contested, I think, and that is "data" as a singular or plural noun. In common usage, data has become a synonym for information, but in scientific literature, data is still the plural of datum. The scientists will probably lose out on this one, but I wouldn't use data as a singular in an important paper.

The examples are witty and O'Conner makes a fairly dry subject even readable. I don't think I'd want to make a regular meal of this type of book, but a little roughage every now and then is good for the system.

Rating:
Summary: Where Opposites Converge
Review: Grammar and fun. How odd those two words look in such close proximity to each other. Granted, Fowler can be amusing at times, particularly when he's in full peevish mode and attired in full curmudgeonly armor. Mencken certainly summons up a fairly regular chuckle, when dealing with topics related to English/American usage.

But if you're like me, you tend to gloss over those exceptions and hearken back to 9th and 10th grade English classes, featuring Messrs. Strunk & White, supplemented by the latest book of torture published by McGraw Hill, with an exercise book on top of that. Ugh!

I wish now that Ms. O'Conner's witty, 227 pg. text had been available at that time and that I would have had English teachers enlightened enough to use it, even if only as a supplement.

"Woe is I" is a pleasure to read. She accomplishes that rare deed of sallying forth against the convulsive, recalcitrant, obfuscating, hydra-headed monster that is English Grammar and actually coming out of the battle victorious.

She accomplishes this through sheer force of wit. This is not your typical handbook of style, as you might glean from reading over the sample pages. That will give you an idea of the charm and humor that Ms. O'Conner brings to bear on various grammatical bugaboos. Some of my favorite examples: "Back to the drawing board. 'Back to Roget's Thesaurus.'" "Agree to disagree. 'People never really agree to disagree. They just get tired of arguing.'" "Bite the bullet. 'Save your teeth.'"

This book is helpful, no matter what your level of English proficiency. I recommend it to students, writers, lovers of language, Reference book junkies, word-freaks, ESL teachers, English teachers, teachers in other disciplines who need help in grading papers or to anyone else who wants to brush up his/her grammar.

BEK

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Clear, straightforward and humorous, this little book provides easy access to the questions I need answered in the middle of a writing task. When I'm about to send an e-mail, I don't want a treatise on style; I just want to know what's correct in the instance at hand (and why).

O'Conner isn't overly pedantic, but forthright and highbrow enough to make you feel a little elevated, yourself, for just having joined the ranks of the grammatically righteous.

Rating:
Summary: Grammar made fun
Review: Ms. O'Conner has a gift for smoothing the spikes in English grammar. Well written, fun book. I hated grammar in school, and still do (even after writing one novel and dozens of articles and short stories), but I actually found myself reading Woe is I just for the fun of it! My only objection is it can be difficult to quickly locate a specific useage if you're in a hurry. Highly recommended, especially for adults who may have had other things on their minds during high school English.

Rating:
Summary: O'Connor provides mediocre book.
Review: O'Connor oversimplifies the grammar she is attempting to teach. Just how many times does she have to write about they're, their and there? It seems that she repeats herself throughout many of her chapters. I expected this book to provide a challenge for me, instead it was just confirming things I already knew. This is truly for the grammarphobe, one who has little grasp of writing correctly. She does point out some good things though. One example is that someone can get away with more errors in speaking than in writing. She also addresses the fact that some of us learned incorrect English as spoken English.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you, Patricia O'Conner
Review: I've had a pretty good education (high school, college, and some graduate school), but I've never been taught the basics of grammar. For whatever reason, teachers weren't teaching proper English when I was in school. What I've learned, l've learned on my own. No wonder I sometimes think twice (or maybe three times) when I have to choose between "who" or "whom," "which" or "that," "it's" or "its," "me" or "I," etc. I don't consider myself stupid or uneducated, just handicapped by a typical 1990's high-school and college education. In fact, I had resigned myself to being handicapped until I discovered "Woe Is I" a year ago. Wow! It's the only grammar book I've ever seen that really explains good English in plain English. That means it's perfectly understandable to someone like me who's never been taught all the grammar terminology: gerunds, indirect objects, dangling modifiers, whatever. You don't have to know any of that stuff to read and understand this book. A friend of mine once heard Patricia O'Conner say on a radio show that you don't have to know all the parts of a car to drive one, so why should you have to know all the parts of speech to speak correctly? "Woe Is I" is proof of that. In addition to being easy to read, it's also entertaining. Who would have believed that a grammar book could be funny? Oh, and if I've made any grammatical mistakes, don't blame Ms. O'Conner. Blame me, or all those teachers who never taught me.

Rating:
Summary: You don't have to hate grammar!
Review: This little book is easy to read, and easier to understand. It may be lacking for those who seek a definitive and comprehensive guide to grammar, but it manages to cover the basics well. This book is definitely for those who have difficulty discerning when to use "who" and "whom." Without exhausting the rules and their exceptions, O'Conner manages to provide simple explanations of some of the more complex "problems" we frequently encounter. Next time you are confronted with the plural for "octopus," you will know whether to use octopuses, octopodes or octopi. With tasteful humor, O'Conner exposes many grammatical fallacies that have been taught in shools for decades. She exposes the quintessential truth about English: It is a living language, and as such it is bound to change.