Hands-On English

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Summary: An update on Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" for Y2K
Review: For decades Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" rallied us to write our best English, no more and no less. Each of its sentences demonstrated to the listening ear that good writing was a matter--not of Baroque gilding, Gothic loftiness, or Romantic breathlessness--but of Yankee economy, craft, and precision.

Now the lessons that Strunk & White made clear to anyone with ears to hear have been given a visual and tactile dimension by Fran Santoro in "Hands-On English." This is an important enhancement for those of us whose best appendage for learning is not the ear but the eye or the hand--I mean you, joy-sticking Webmaster, and you, number-crunching Engineer, and even you, paint-spattered Marketer . . . Step up and feel with your own hands the difference between the lumpen cube of a noun and the coiled spring of a verb! Admire the tongue-and-groove snugness of a well fitted sentence. For a mind-blowing effect, line up a series of verbs and watch them spring forth like so many slinkies tumbling down the stairs.

See an adjective--with one daub of its paintbrush tip--transform that noun-cube before your very eyes! And then marvel at the transformation of that adjectival paintbrush, in its turn, by one dusting from an adverbial magic wand! Let your fingers grope beneath the noun-cube for the hooks from which you can, if you have need, suspend one!--two!--three!--prepositional magnets, each securely supporting a corresponding object of the preposition.

In short, Fran Santoro succeeds where many others have failed: laying bare the mechanics of "grammar" so that that dread word will shake off forever its Dali-esque surreality. For this we all owe her "Hands-On English" a Siskel-and-Ebert-style two thumbs up!

If you are a parent, a teacher, an employed person of any kind, buy a copy of "Hands-On English": you know someone in desperate need of this book. And if you mastered all this years ago--even if you spent your down time as a kid diagramming sentences!--buy this book for the wicked pleasure its stick-in-the-eye precision of language will bring you. It's a new-and-improved Strunk and White in Furby clothing.

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Summary: Harvey F. Fletcher, San Antonio, retired cartographer
Review: Hands-On English definitely belongs in every home library. It has been a quick reference for me and a tremendous help in putting together the text for my historical atlas.

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Summary: Valuable learning tool about how to write.
Review: Hands-On English is a well-organized, carefully thought out introduction to how the English language works and how it can be used to help one communicate more effectively. The author discusses the basics of grammar, usage, writing mechanics, and the writing process in straightforward language anyone can understand. At the same time, she has developed a set of illustrations that effectively demonstrate how the parts of speech or parts of a sentence interrelate and that wonderfully enhance this book's value as a learning tool.

This book could help anyone who wants to know how to communicate more effectively-especially anyone who missed, or has long since forgotten, the grammar taught in school. I have recommended Hands-On English to my graduate communications students at a local university, and the ones who have used it have found it beneficial. This book is particularly appealing when one compares it to the many lame and carelessly written "how to" writing books currently on the market. Even though it is apparently aimed at junior high school students, Hands-On English is still an excellent tool for businesspeople, engineers, or anyone else who would like to write more effectively