English Grammar Essentials For Dummies®
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ISBN 978-0-730-38472-4
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Chances are you’re reading this book because you’re not confident about what constitutes ‘proper grammar’. Perhaps you went to school in an era when teachers didn’t believe in worrying kids about pedantic things like correct spelling and complete sentences. Or, maybe you did study grammar but you found it boring, switched off and have forgotten most of the rules. Now, you may feel that your language skills aren’t as good as they need to be. Feeling that you are being judged on your communication can be stressful and make you feel self-conscious. And it’s worse if everyone else seems to understand, or if you find to your horror that the boss or tutor is one of those people who even uses perfect grammar in text messages.
English grammar is not that scary. You don’t have to memorise all of the technical terms and, once you get started, you’ll find that most of it is pretty logical. In this book we present you with strategies and tips that help you make the right decision when you’re tossing up whether to use who or whom, or trying to remember if you should put the apostrophe in its. We explain what you’re supposed to do when, tell you why a particular way of doing things is correct or incorrect, and even show you how to revise your sentences if your grammar checker puts a squiggly green line under some part of your sentence. Once you understand the reason for a particular grammar choice, you’ll pick the correct option automatically.
In this book, we concentrate on common errors and tell you what’s what in the sentence, in logical, everyday English, not in obscure terminology. When we do use a key term, you’ll generally find it in italics with a definition or example (or both) close by. You don’t have to read the chapters in order, but you can. And you don’t have to read the whole book. Just browse through the table of contents and look for things that have always troubled you.
We assume that you, the reader, already speak English (although you may have learned it as a foreign language) and that you want to speak and write it better. We also assume that you’re a busy person with better things to do than worry about what a relative clause looks like. You want to speak and write well, but you don’t want to get a doctorate in English grammar. (Smart move. Doctorates in English don’t move you very far up the salary scale.)
This book is for you if you aspire to
Throughout this book you can find useful icons to help you note specific types of information. Here’s what each icon means:
Have you ever been confused by the message your grammar checker gives you when it puts a wiggly line under a possible problem and asks you to ‘consider revising’ some part of your sentence? Your days of confusion end here. This little fellow appears at the same points that a wiggly line would appear, and the information alongside it tells you exactly how to revise those troublesome sentences.
Wherever you see this icon, you’ll find helpful strategies for understanding the structure of the sentence or for choosing the correct word form.
Not every grammar trick has a built-in trap, but some do. This icon tells you how to avoid common mistakes as you unravel a sentence.
Before you get started, one last word. Actually, two last words. Trust yourself. You already know a lot. You’d be amazed how much grammar can be absorbed by osmosis from day-to-day language, even if you don’t know the technical terms. So be brave. Dip a toe into the sea of grammar. The water’s fine.