Unlike The Truth About Grammar’s mock rage (or raging mockery), Roy Peter Clark’s The Glamour of Grammar takes a witty, sometimes humorous, approach to teaching us what we have forgotten or never learned about “practical English.” Clark crams fifty essays into approximately 260 pages in an attempt to cover the gamut of grammar including words, punctuation, meaning, and standards. I would have liked less discussion about etymology (on which Mr. Clark could dedicate an entire book or three) and more about rules of composition, but I understand that part of grammar’s magic depends on knowledge of words’ evolutions.

Some essays are quite short (fewer than two complete pages) as if Mr. Clark ran out of time, energy, or space to further develop the cogitation. Most essays are illustrated with an example from his own or another’s writing. A few bulleted points (what the author calls keepsakes) hang at the end of each essay but seem like something a C-average business student would add to the end of a PowerPoint presentation in order to cram in as much information as possible whilst mumbling to himself, “Good enough.” Edward Tufte be damned.

I agree with most of his advice. A user of bad grammar is an ineffective community member–but! if the rules can be broken in a creative or whimsical fashion without muddling the message . . . . A community depends on effective communication; effective communication depends on common language; and understanding that language requires all participants play by the same rules.

I disagree with other recommendations: Page 182 keepsake: “Do not be afraid to . . . end a sentence with a preposition.” No, no, no! Nicht gut! “Where are you going to?” And I ask, “To what? To dance, to live, to pitch the tent?” Do not keep this for the sake of my sanity!

On one subject dear to me he disappoints. Essay 16, “Let your ear help govern the possessive apostrophe,” restates the simple applicable rules but doesn’t mention the growing tendency of adding an apostrophe when pluralising nouns that end in vowels (e.g., example’s). I need all the help I can get to admonish offenders, Mr. Clark.

I appreciate Mr. Clark’s take on social networking sites and tools and their impact on grammar. He optimistically views Twitter as having its own grammar and filled with potential for new forms of creativity and expression. Not everyone, he cautions, will get it or accept it. I believe new technology has always presented a challenge to the proper grammar of the time (think telegrams and instant messaging) but our language seems able to absorb and flourish with the new grammar in part by imposing the old rules on the new techniques and allowing some new conventions to take hold (such as the use of foreign words in formal and informal writing).

Here are a few essay titles from each chapter to give you an idea of what tools are in this box: “Take a class on how to cross-dress the parts of speech,” “Enjoy, rather than fear, words that sound alike,” “Let your ear help govern the possessive apostrophe,” “Reclaim the exclamation point,” “Learn to lie or lay, as well as the principles behind the distinction,” “Show what is literal and what is figurative,” “Switch tenses, but only for strategic reasons,” “Learn the five forms of well-crafted sentences,” “Unleash your associative imagination,” and “Harness the power of particularity.”

The Glamour of Grammar has fierce competition: in the last thirty days, six English grammar and writing books have been released, according to Amazon.com. This book will have a place on my reference shelf, and I’ll use it for informal writing but not in my work as a technical writer/editor. I have not yet found any spelling errors, though I did see some questionable punctuation that I must investigate in more detail (i.e., it could be a style issue). I thank Mr. Clark for teaching me the origin of “boycott” (page 43), and I think I’ve finally learned the distinctions between lie and lay (Essay 23).

[The publisher provided me a free copy of The Glamour of Grammar for review.]

Poor Howie doesn’t seem to understand the industry in which he claims to be a professional. Worse is that any credibility he may have is decimated by his poor spelling and grammar and angry reaction to a benign story. Any client that hires a marketing firm whose employee(s) can’t spell “you’re” deserves whatever it gets; and any client that does not vet this guy’s claims of being a marketing specialist (simply one look at SPM’s website speaks volumes) is a moron.

Grammar matters! It reflects your knowledge, professionalism and credibility. Nothing says amateur, idiot or unprofessional quite like “your an idiot” or “Apple’s for Sale!”

Case in point:

Get up to 80%? Of what? Or is it whom? Cash back? Or taxes paid for by Adobe?

At first glance this post from an alleged ex-Apple Store employee looks reasonably intelligent. There are a few problems with punctuation but nothing too bad for a blog comment. That is until you read the second-to-last sentence: “Heir of superiority.” Does that mean a person of superior genes? Were his parents superheroes? I kid.

Son, it’s “air of superiority” as in “putting on airs.” A figure of speech, “put on airs” is defined as: “to act better than one really is; to pretend to be good or to be superior.”

I might as well point out to L’avventura that the phrase is “might as well” not “minus well.”

Finally, I might as well tell you that the state of good grammar is at its lowest I’ve ever seen. I fear I am losing the war. I am attending a well-known university in Boston, MA, and not only are my peers horrible, but one of my instructors shocked—shocked! I tell you—me with his horrible writing. To make matters worse, he taught a science class, a discipline that demands accuracy and precision. Despite his ineptitude, I passed with an “A” (and I grabbed many juicy screenshots of his work which I’ll put up soon). Thanks for sticking around.

This one surprised me because it was so, so bad . . . and I found it on my personalized Google News page. How? Why? I was at a loss for words. Count the errors!

I love it when people offer up their humble opinions with the careless regard for spelling and grammar as evidenced by “crazyflanger” over at Consumerist.com. Listen, if you can’t form coherent sentences with appropriate syntax and correct spelling, I don’t care about your IMHO. [But keep at it because I need more fodder for this blog.]

“I don’t know a lot . . .”
At least you didn’t type “alot.”

“I’ve been amazed on how . . .”
Amazed on? No. Amazed by.

“They obviously don’t appreciate there employees.”
You obviously don’t appreciate the difference between there and their.

“A good business is a three way street.”
Come again? That’s got to be Tom Tom’s nightmare.

” . . . loose . . . loose . . .  loose . . . “
Really? This again? Do you have a hearing problem?

“I can’t walk down an isle . . .”
Which isle? Maui? Or, perhaps, Bermuda?

” . . . the greeters are always retarded or disabled people [not important people like ceo's [sic] or store managers.]”
You’re offended that the Best Buy CEO doesn’t greet you at the door of the particular store that you patronize, so you offend the sensible and mature among us by denigrating the people who are only doing their jobs to the best of their abilities.

My friend, I will look forward to being greeted by you at Best Buy soon.

Could they go down to -85°C? (Yes.) Then would not that be less hot than -80°C, and, therefore, should not that sentence read “temperatures can go down to less than -80°C”?

According to this site, this video is: “An Italian singer wrote this song with gibberish to sound like English. If you’ve ever wondered what other people think Americans sound like, this is it.”

I’ve often believed that people who use poor grammar have hearing problems.