Grammar In Your Pocket — just for you!

Heave a sigh of relief. Grammar help is on the way! Now you can find instant answers to your grammar questions by downloading any one of the 24 parts to the new series: Grammar In Your Pocket. Then pack away the information on your pocket electronics to keep it handy.

The series is available on www.kindle.com where you can search by subject. Order on amazon.com. There are 24 of them and each costs only 99¢. What? You say you don't own a Kindle? You can order a physical reader (so you can read in bed or on a bus), or you can download a Kindle reader FREE to your computer. Check it out! These are the subjects you can choose:

Parts of Speech: 
Introduction • Nouns • Pronouns • Verbs • Adjectives • Adverbs • Phrases & Clauses • Conjunctions • Prepositions • Articles & Interjections

Punctuation: 
Commas • Colons, Semicolons, & Periods • Parentheses, Brackets, Quotation Marks  •  Question Marks & Exclamation Points • More Dots & Dashes

Help For Writers: 
Putting It Together • Words • Sentences • Paragraphs • Spelling • Numbers • Unbiased Language • Writing Style • Grammar Glitches

You’ll never have to worry again about whether to say “between you and I” or “between you and me”. Plus, your spelling will improve enough for you to win any spelling bee!

Pick up one or more titles at a time until you have the entire series. And you’ll never need another grammar book to keep your writing and grammar usage impressive. Your friends, family, bosses, and business associates will swoon to hear you referring confidently to nouns, adjectives, semicolons, writing style, and even participles with confidence. And always keeping things between you and me!

Bizzy, Bizzy, Bizzy

Do you agree? Too much to do in so little time! I’ve learned that you can do only so much; then you have to take a breather; go for a walk; go to a movie, pick up groceries; plant a garden; take pictures of your grandkids…

So I took a breather. And what did I do? Worked on a new project! (Of course I don't listen to my inner critic. Who does!)

A primary project has been put on hold… again. I’m putting together a series of short grammar articles for eBooks, called Grammar In Your Pocket. Each article focuses on a part of speech or punctuation or writing problem. Each is short. Each tells you all you need to know — or want to — about that subject. Plans are to put out one article a week. If you download the complete set, you’ll have everything you need to know about grammar, right in your pocket, easy to carry around with you and access as you need it.

Let’s say you’re wondering about a word to capitalize. Open the series marked “Nouns” and go to the “Capitalize” section and… there you have it.

My problem? I’m learning to fine-tune work for easy reading on electronic readers. Fun and confusing. With a good wind and a lot of luck, you can look for the Introductory article next week (before Easter) and every week thereafter.

Lay Back and Tell No Lies

Such consternation, even in the world of comedians. One recently quoted (or misquoted) on national television: “…lions laying down with lambs”. Oooh! That hurt.

In the comics pages — which incidentally are written by artists well-versed in the use of U.S. language — one slipped up last week and let the character talk about “…laying around all day, doing nothing”. Oh my!

Many comics writers work “proper English” and “grammar” into their strips, and not always in the standard lie/lay usage conundrum. One strip about golf included the following dialog: “That was a short shot.” The reply: “I was laying up.”

Another use of lay appeared recently: “The cuckoo bird likes to lay its eggs in the nest of other birds.” See? You learn stuff from the comics pages.

So what’s the real skinny on lie/lay? And how can we remember which to use… when? Simple!

Remember that lay is a verb that needs an object — something to lay down or… p-l-A-c-e. Notice the “a”; just like the one in “lay”. 

If you can’t think of that, recall that lie is a verb meaning to… r-E-c-l-I-n-E. See the “i” and “e” that also appear in “lie”?

Forget about laying up golf shots and laying eggs — those are completely other meanings. Just remember you need to lay something down (lay the taco on the plate) and it will lie around until somebody eats it (recline in leisure—yet two other “i/e” words).

Your friends will ooh and aah over your expertise in language when you conquer these simple guidelines. Promise! Would I lie to you?

Why Grammar?

As a grammarian and word person, I am constantly asked why grammar is important. “Why do I have to understand what words go together and which ones don’t?” “What's the difference if I use double negatives?” “Why do we even have apostrophes — much less, how do we use them?”

Having order to the way we communicate by mouth and writing is as important as having some order to the way we communicate via the Internet and email. Sure there are different systems, or styles. But computer-ese makes communication between computers — and therefore between people — possible. If your computer cannot talk to mine, we cannot get together on anything.

Grammar is like the coding in computers, in that knowing how it works makes it work better. Read a good book about language: The Anarchist’s Guide to Grammar, by Val Dumond, or The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker. I guarantee you’ll come away with more respect for the guidelines offered through the order of language.

No, it’s not British English or Australian English or Canadian English — not in the good old US of A! Which is why we in the U.S. have the most beautiful and flexible language in the world. Why? Because it is composed of all the other languages — with all their styles and systems in one room, together.

Bless us all, everyone, for our language and knowing how to order it!

What is this thing called love?

Where would you place a comma? Depends on your meaning, doesn’t it, love! The Grammar Anarchist loves to play with words. Play along with The Anarchist's Guide to Grammar. You can take it with you on your Kindle or recline under a shade tree and open a book. But rush out now to pick up your copy. Especially if you are a writer too.

TODAY’S THE DAY!

I chose this special once-in-four-years day to release my new book, The Anarchist's Guide to Grammar.

This hot guide for writers is available through Amazon Books/

Be the first to write a review! You’ll love the approach that screams, “Banish the rules! Create your own style manual!” Happy reading!

You Did Not Choose Your Grandma

Even if you can’t choose your grandma, you can choose your grammar! If you’re looking for the best book to guide you, choose v-e-r-y carefully. Look at the Table of Contents: are all the elements of U.S. language there? Look up the guidelines for something you’ve been wondering about: does it give you a usable solution? How often is the word “rule” used (without the quotation marks)? Does this grammarian claim to have “all the answers”? BEWARE!