Says who? : a kinder, funner usage guide for everyone who cares about words /

A kinder, funner usage guide to the ever-changing English language and a useful tool for both the grammar stickler and the more colloquial user of English, from linguist and veteran professor Anne Curzan. Our use of language naturally evolves and is a living, breathing thing that reflects who we are...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Curzan, Anne (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Crown, [2024].
Edition:First edition.
Subjects:
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Part 1. Who's in charge here? : Inner grammando vs. inner wordie showdown ; Ain't: what get's into dictionaries, and how ; Double negatives: how rules become rules ; "PC" language: why emotions run high
  • Part 2. What does that word mean? : The funnest chapter ; Verbing ; Feeling hopeful about hopefully ; Quite literally ; Because like ; Gender-neutral chairs
  • Part 3. What's the difference? : Ask, aks, and asterisk ; Counting less/fewer things ; Data and other disputed plurals ; Different from/than between and among ; Driving safe or safely ; Well, I'm good ; Having proved or proven it
  • Part 4. Which pronoun to pick? : The singularity of they ; For who(m) the bell tolls ; Between you and me/I/myself ; None is/are confusing ; Which-hunting
  • Part 5. Where does that punctuation go? : Commas, commas, and commas ; Rolling stops with semicolons ; The wild west of dashes and hyphens ; When it's its and other apostrophe conundrums ; Bequeathing capital letters
  • Part 6. How stylish is that sentence : To boldly split infinitives ; Prepositions not to end a sentence with ; When and can start a sentence ; The perceived danger of danglers ; Passives were corrected ; Why writing doesn't "flow"
  • Epilogue: navigating grammandos and good sense.