Overview

"What do suicidal pandas, doped-up rock stars, and a naked Pamela Anderson have in common? They’re all a heck of a lot more interesting than reading about predicate nominatives and hyphens. June Casagrande knows this and has invented a whole new twist on the grammar book. Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies is a laugh-out-loud funny collection of anecdotes and essays on grammar and punctuation, as well as hilarious critiques of the self-appointed language experts.Chapters include: I’m Writing This While Naked—The Oh-So Steamy Predicate Nominative Semicolonoscopy—Colons, Semicolons, Dashes, and Other Probing Annoyances I’ll Take ""I Feel Like a Moron"" for $200, Alex—When to Put Punctuation Inside Quotation Marks Snobbery Up with Which You Should Not Put Up—Prepositions Is That a Dangler in Your Memo or Are You Just Glad to See Me? Hyphens—Life-Sucking, Mom-and-Apple-Pie-Hating, Mime-Loving, Nerd-Fight-Inciting Daggers of the Damned Casagrande delivers practical and fun language lessons not found anywhere else, demystifying the subject and taking it back from the snobs. In short, it’s a grammar book people will actually want to read—just for the fun of it."

Full Product Details

Author:   June Casagrande
Publisher:   Penguin Putnam Inc
Imprint:   The Penguin Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.00cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 18.10cm
Weight:   0.164kg
ISBN:  

9780143036838

ISBN 10:   0143036831
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   28 March 2006
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

"Grammar Snobs Are Great Big MeaniesIntroduction: Grammar Snobs Make Good Prison Brides 1. A Snob For All Seasons—Shared Possessives 2. For Whom The Snob Trolls—""Who""/""Whom"" and Why You're Right Not to Care 3. Passing The Simpsons Test— It's ""Till,"" Not ""Til"" 4. To Boldly Blow—Only Windbags Fuss over Split Infinitives 5. The Sexy Mistake—""To Lay"" versus ""To Lie"" 6. Snobbery Up With Which You Should Not Put—Prepositions 7. Is That A Dangler In Your Memo Or Are You Just Glad To See Me? 8. An Open Letter To Someone Who Knows I Once Tried To Be A Grammar Snob But Failed—""Dreamed"" versus ""Dreamt,"" ""Preventive"" versus ""Preventative,"" and Similar Pairs 9. Anarchy Rules— ""Adviser""/Advisor,"" ""Titled""/""Entitled,"" and Other Ways to Be Right and Wrong at the Same Time 10. The Comma Denominator—Good News: No One Knows How to Use These Things 11. Semicolonoscopy—Colons, Semicolons, Dashes, Hyphens, and Other Probing Annoyances 12. The O.C.: Where The '80s Never Die—Lessons on the Apostrophe from Behind the Orange Curtain 13. Go Ahead, Make Up Your Own Words—Prefixes and Suffixes and Why the Dictionary Thinks You're Wrong 14. Hyphens: Life-Sucking, Mom-And-Apple-Pie-Hating, Mime-Loving, Nerd-Fight-Inciting Daggers Of The Damned 15. I'll Take ""I Feel Like A Moron"" For $200, Alex—When to Put Punctuation Inside Quotation Marks 16. A Chapter Dedicated To Those Other Delights Of Punctuation 17. Copulative Conjunctions: Hot Stuff For The Truly Desperate—Conjunctions to Know and Conjunctions That Blow 18. R U Uptite?—Shortcuts in the Digital Age and the Meanies Who Hate Them 19. Literally Schmiterally 20. How To Drop Out Of High School In The Ninth Grade And Still Make Big Bucks Telling People How To Use Good Grammar—""That"" versus ""Which"" 21. Well, Well, Aren't You Good?—Adverbs Love Action 22. Fodder For Those Mothers—""Irregardless"" and Other Slipups We Nonsnobs Can't Afford 23. I Wish I Were Batgirl—The Subjunctive Mood 24. Mommy's All Wrong, Daddy's All Wrong—The Truth about ""Cans"" and ""Dones"" [25. The Kids Are All Wrong—""Alright,"" Dropping ""The"" Before ""the The,"" Where to Put Your ""Only,"" and Other Lessons from the World of Rock 'n' Roll 26. How To Impress Brad Pitt—""Affect"" versus ""Effect"" 27. And You Too Can Begin Sentences With ""And,"" ""So,"" ""But,"" And ""Because"" 28. Your Boss Is Not Jesus—Possessives and Words Ending in ""S,"" ""X,"" and ""Z"" 29. The Silence Of The Linguists—Double Possessives and Possessives with Gerunds 30. I'm Writing This While Naked—The Oh-So-Steamy Predicate Nominative 31. I Wish I May, I Wish I Might For Once In My Life Get This One Right—""May"" versus ""Might,"" ""Different From"" versus ""Different Than,"" ""Between"" versus ""Among,"" and Other Problematic Pairs 32. A Backyard Barbecue In The Back Yard, A Front-Yard Barbecue In The Front Yard—The Magical Moment When Two Words Become One 33. How To Never, Ever Offend Anyone With Inadvertently Sexist Or Racist Language 34. Complete Sentences? Optional! 35. It's/Its A Classroom Ditz—Or How I Learned to Stop Fuming and Love the Jerkwad 36. Eight, Nine, 10, 11—How to Write Numbers 37. If At First You Don't Irk A Snob, Try And Try Again—""Try To"" versus ""Try And"" 38. Express Lane Of Pain—""Less Than"" versus ""Fewer Than"" 39. Agree To Dis A Meanie—Subject-Verb Agreement, Conjugating Verbs for ""None"" and ""Neither,"" and Other Agreement Issues 40. The Emperor's New Clause—Pronouns That Are Objects and Subjects, ""Each Other"" versus ""One Another,"" and More Evidence That the ""Experts"" Aren't All They're Cracked Up to Be 41. Satan's Vocabulary 42. You Really Can Look It Up Acknowledgments Sources"

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"June Casagrande writes the popular and very humorous ""A Word, Please"" grammar column for four Los Angeles Times community newspapers. She has written over 900 articles for various newspapers and magazines and has four years of improvisational comedy training."

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