Comments | adscion: Help.

adscion

Help.

Oct 19, 2006 10:19

i am sorely in need of grammar basics. my formal education in the english language ended in elementary school, and i barely remember a thing from it. over the years i pretty much scraped by with whatever i gleaned from reading ( Read more... )

Comments 9

superbagman October 19 2006, 16:52:21 UTC

Oh how I hate Strunk and White. I wouldn't suggest Elements of Style at all, I had a pretty bad semester of Public Speaking that involved reading that and listening to one of OJ Simpson's lawyers...ugh.

I would, however, suggest checking out Woe Is I by Patricia O'Conner. The subtitle of the book SHOULD sell you on it (the full title is "Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English"). I picked it up about five years ago because I though it was pretty funny and it's a good read. Check it out.

adscion October 19 2006, 19:13:00 UTC

Do you hate Elements of Style because you associate it with a terrible class, or do you hate it because you actually hate it?

...but it's only $10 bucks and under 100 pages! *sniff*

superbagman October 19 2006, 20:09:04 UTC

Honestly, it's not a bad book but I don't like how it's written. Woe Is I is not only a good book for English but an awesome read.

superbagman October 19 2006, 16:54:38 UTC

Writers Inc is another decent English book. One of my teachers,Sister Jim, swore by it at my highschool.

adscion October 19 2006, 19:13:23 UTC

Sister Jim? Is there an inside joke that I'm not getting here?

superbagman October 19 2006, 20:08:19 UTC

She was a nun, when you take on the habit you take on a different name, I think it's supposed to be a Saint's name or something like that...at least I think...anyways, Sister Jim was short for Sister James Francis. She was like 80 and just north of four feet tall. And totally cool unlike most other nuns I have met.

oreofuchi October 20 2006, 02:55:12 UTC

Out of context of this post, today I recommended the Elements of Style as an almost biblical reference material for writing. It doesn't get better than that. I swear by it.

So not only pick up the elements of style, but live by it.

Your writing doesn't annoy me though, so I don't know if you'd benefit a lot from it.

adscion October 20 2006, 17:09:51 UTC

i had already ordered it from the Strand, but your recommending it makes me feel mad good. thanks!

adscion October 20 2006, 17:19:23 UTC

well, i have serious problems with comma placement and prepositions, among other things. and until recently i liked to think of a gerund as some sort of cheese.