Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies

June Casagrande

Running a small, largely internet based nonprofit, I used to find myself, on a weekly basis, sending out our newsletters with virtually no editing or proofing. Rushed deadlines and 70 hour weeks meant that I had to get our message out immediately, and there just wasn't time to convene a committee to make sure I'd crossed every i and dotted every t.

Consequently, even after the most important communications were sent, I'd periodically receive emails which said something like:

"Thanks for your work which is really important for the future of our country. But how can we possibly take your organization seriously when you abuse the English language by substituting 'that' for 'which' as you did in the fifth paragraph of your communication sent this morning. Remove me from your mailing list, immediately."

That's why "Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies" by June Casagrande caught my eye at the bookstore the other day.

The book is actually a disguised primer on basic rules and how to use them, and does a fairly good job explaining some of the more obscure points. But I've never had a book on English grammar cause me to laugh out loud.

The chapter headings, storytelling and especially the examples left me entertained to point that I can't remember anything she wrote about grammar, although I do vividly recall the chapters titled "Copulative Conjunctions: Hot Stuff for the Truly Desperate" and "I'm Writing This While Naked: The Oh-So-Steamy Predicate Nominative."

If you need a brush up on sentence construction or where your hyphens belong, (or you just need a good laugh) this might be the right book.