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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.
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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.
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Summary: Who wudda thunk it!
Review: I never imagined I could learn so much, and laugh so hard, from reading a grammar book. Yes, "Woe Is I" is a lot of fun. More important, it's the most helpful grammar book around. Unlike all other grammar books I've seen, "Woe Is I" is written in plain English. That means you don't have to know a single grammatical term to understand it. I keep the book on my desk at work, and hardly a day goes by without my checking it.
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Summary: Quick "non-boring" grammar guide..
Review: I have always found grammar to be dull and boring in large part because my teacher in high school killed the subject and I was'nt good at it in the first place. I managed to just make the grade. This book meets my needs. You will not find long, dry, pedagogy on sentence parsing and so forth. What you will find here are succinct explanations of common grammar rules. The index and glossary are surprisingly good. I like the chapter breakdowns which are short and deal with one or two topics. This makes it easy for one to quickly find a specific rule. The jokes are quite good and do help liven things a bit. At times the humor is a tad overdone and comes across as forced. All in all, this book fills a void for folks like me who just want the grammar quick and as painlessly as possible.
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Summary: Humor Has Its Places
Review: I didn't like this book at all. I couldn't cut through the "humor" the author tried to portray to see what points she was actually trying to make. Was difficult reading. Not recommended.
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Summary: Great book for the grammar-poor.
Review: I do a considerable amount of writing for my job. Grammar has always been a weak point for me. I had little hope that this book would amend that. I already own "Elements of Style," and that has been my main helper in the past. Wow! I was blown away by this useful book. Its or It's? Now I know. Who's or Whose? Now I know. The writing style of this book is breezy and fun, yet the information is solid. The book can be read straight through, or kept on the shelf as a reference. I recommend both approaches. I read the book in it's entire first, and now I check back on it when needed. I am not sure how good this book is for those who already have a strong grasp of grammar. For people like me, it is the best resource I have seen.
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Summary: The best Grammar book I ever read
Review: This is the best grammar book I ever read. It is very easy to understand, with very funny titles for each chapter. I bought also her second book on writing and it is very very good also. I would recommend all of her books to anyone who would want to write better, or improve their English skills. It is very clear and comprehensive, this is certainly a five star book.
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Summary: Woe is I- not ME!!!!
Review: Right off the bat she makes that clear- in a fun way. This grammar book is the funniest piece of incredibly useful information. When to use which or that- what its and it's is- when to Sally's and Joe's, or Sally and Joe's- (first you will need to know Sally and Joe) and she makes it fun, easy and understandable. Trust me- this book is great, you will enjoy it while you learn grammar.
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Summary: Bravo!
Review: I'm a high-school English teacher who used to dread explaining grammar to my students, until I discovered "Woe Is I." With the help of Patricia O'Conner, I can now discuss grammar in plain English without having to resort to the technical jargon that puts so many students to sleep. I've even managed to get quite a few laughs from my students, thanks to Ms. O'Conner. I can't imagine a more useful and entertaining book about the English language. Bravo!
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Summary: conventional advice
Review: This book is in the genre of conventional advice presented in a demotic manner. This results in jokey chapter titles such as "Plurals Before Swine". This is either engagingly witty or really annoying. The tone of the book is that of a person who will insult you to your face but words it as a joke. Then there are the errors, which are numerous. As an example, in the section of who and whom we find "'Nathan wouldn't tell Miss Adelaide {who or whom} he invited to his crap game.' First strip the sentence down to the basic clause, '{who or whom} he invited.'" Whatever "the basic clause" of the sentence means, in this case its verb is certainly "tell". This is a minor point. Even the casual reader can easily figure out what the author meant. But the novice unsure of the difference beween a sentence and a clause will come away from this knowing less than before going in. Another example is comparing "Lou sees what appears to be ghosts" with "Lou sees what appear to be ghosts." The author's point is that "what" can be either singular or plural, which is correct. She concludes that in this case it is plural, so the second sentence is correct. This is not right. Either can be correct, depending on how Lou perceives his vision. If he perceives discrete ghostly entities then "what" is indeed plural. If he perceives a eerie cloud which appears to consist of ghosts, then "what" is singular. There are any number of similar errors, but they are minor. They mostly show that the author should have gone through a couple more drafts and would have benefited from a good editor. My biggest objection to this book is that it is disingenuous. It makes a great show of accepting language change, of appearing to be progressive, while being in fact very conventional. For a fin de siecle writer to admit that "media" can be used as a singular noun is not progressive. It is merely not being a reactionary crank. The rejection of the sex-neutral singular "their" includes "But until our language has a sex-neutral possissive to use instead, we are stuck with his, or her, or the clumsy compound his or her." This pretends to leave open the possibility that the language will change, but rejects the change actually occurring. Any such change would start out as an "error", so how can this new construction ever enter the language? In other words, when the author writes of accepting that language changes she really means that she accepts that the language has already changed (which is a good thing, as my proto-Indo-European is rusty) but not that it will continue to do so, while of course without actually admitting this. For those who want a basic guide to good style, Strunk & White's The Elements of Style is, for all its being dated, still the best choice.
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