When Bad Grammar Happens To Good People

Discover an easy way to polish up your English with this guide to avoiding common mistakes people make when writing and speaking. Good news—you’re definitely not the only person who struggles to keep “who” and “whom,” “affect” and “effect,” or “lay” and “lie” straight. Bad news: Frequent grammatical errors can affect (not effect) your success at work and in other areas of life. This comprehensive, easy-to-use reference is a program designed to help you identify and correct the most common errors in written and spoken English. After a short, simple review of some basic principles, When Bad Grammar Happens to Good People is organized by error type, such as Mangled Modifiers or Mixing up Words that Sound the Same. You choose how to work your way through, either sequentially or in the order most relevant to you. Each unit contains tests at the end to help you reinforce what you’ve learned. Best of all, the information is presented in a clear, lively, and conversational style—unlike your eighth-grade grammar textbook!

Ever stumble when choosing between "who" and "whom," "affect" and "effect," "lay" and "lie"? Are you worried that how you speak or write is holding you back at work? Do you fear you're making frequent conversational errors, but just aren't sure what's correct? How you use language tells people a good deal about who you are, how you think, and how you communicate. Making simple errors in written and spoken English can make you seem less sophisticated -- even less intelligent -- than you really are. And that can affect (not effect) your relationships, your friendships, and even your career. This comprehensive, easy-to-use reference is a program designed to help you identify and correct the most common errors in written and spoken English.

Anxious about apostrophes? In a pickle over pronouns and prepositions? Fear not—Mr. Gwynne is here with his wonderfully concise and highly enjoyable handbook. Within these witty, opinionated, and astonishingly useful pages, adults and children alike will find all they need to rediscover the neglected science of writing good English. Mr. Gwynne believes that happiness depends at least partly on good grammar—and Mr. Gwynne is never wrong.

"Pinker has a lot of ideas and sometimes controversial opinions about writing and in this entertaining and instructive book he rethinks the usage guide for the 21st century. Don't blame the internet, he says, good writing has always been hard. It requires imagination, taking pleasure in reading, overcoming the difficult we all have in imaging what it's like to not know something we do know."--Publisher information.

MORE missspellings! MORE badder grammar! MORE than 150 photos of laugh-out-loud funny signs from the creators of the smash-hit book (and Facebook group) I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar. After the success of her first hilarious collection of poorly worded signs—and with 430,000 members on her Facebook page—Sharon Eliza Nichols returns with an all-new assortment of the most ungrammatical, outrageous, and ridiculous mistakes ever put into print. Featuring actual photos of actual signs in actual locations, these billboard blunders are sure to delight grammar groupies, punctuation sticklers, and pretty much anyone who can read. Whether you groan in frustration, shake your head in disbelief, or howl with laughter, this wonderful humor book will convince you that it's just a sign of the times.