Were you one of those nerdy birds who loved doing grammar at school? In Form 4 (think St. Trinian’s), I loved parsing lines under the lead of our English mistress, “Creepy” (Mrs Crawley). I’ll never forget how Creepy had us girls chanting “subject-verb-object” while she kept time with a ruler. She taught us to look words up (not just the naughty ones), which started my love of dictionaries and, later, of style guides and other books on writing.

Like many other word lovers, I’ve got shelves of books on language, words, and the crafty art of writing. I dip into these real books for the hands-on pleasure of looking things up and to enjoy the side benefit of serendipity: accidentally discovering unexpected treasures.

I’ve delved into my shelves to share a few of my favorite resources that I’ve relied on to try to write good well. 😊

Pleasure in English, or PIE as we called it, was a tasty dish indeed. Based on the successful UK original for pupils sitting English O Levels,  it was adapted for New Zealand schools, given that good Kiwi usage often altered the dictionary meaning and emotional tone of many UK terms. PIE preserves the links of a common language but the references are local. I never thought about any of this when I did the exercises. I just loved this book. Besides teaching me grammar, it introduced me to the stories of Katherine Mansfield.

Back when I was a corporate journo at Elsevier Science Publishers (now RELX, formerly Reed Elsevier) I used to read The Economist for free at lunchtime (lots of other expensive magazines too). That’s how I came across this wonderful Style Guide. “Indispensable. The best guide of its type,” reckons Bill Bryson. And I couldn’t agree more with its general advice: “Clear thinking is the key to clear writing. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible.” I tried to follow its advice when I was editor of Elsevier Science World. And still do in my fiction now.

BBI was another bible when I became a freelance editor (“English editor for Dutch writers”). One of the downsides of being bilingual is that your first language can get quite spotty when it comes to pesky prepositions. I can’t tell you how often BBI saved my neck when I no longer knew the proper English preposition. For example, is it follow-up ‘on’ or follow-up ‘to’? Answer: can be both, it depends on the context which BBI gives in both cases. It’s a treasure trove of word combinations that has never let me down.

Can’t remember where or when I found Plain English, a universal guide to the fundamentals of English, explained in readily understandable terms. It presents the essentials of grammar and syntax (slightly technical but still readable) and deals with the conventions of both English and American spelling and punctuation too. I  love the section on vocabulary. Did you know that celibate only means unmarried? Not necessarily chaste.

Mrs Byrne gives preposterous pleasure. A favorite entry is ‘sacramentarianism’ (n. belief that the sacraments have supernatural properties). My Dutch mum would have loved it. For starters, Mum believed in the supernatural (ghosts were her friends) and secondly, being well-brought up, she was not allowed to curse in Dutch. So, in moments of stress she’d yell SACRAMENTO instead. I had moved to the Netherlands as an adult before I learned that it was not the worst Dutch swear word evah!

There are oh sooooo many books called something like On Writing but imho one of the very best is this “part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time.” There’s nothing horrifying about Mr King’s book: he just gives his personal, very practical view of the writer’s craft. I swallowed it whole, and regularly nibble at it for his tasty advice.

Came across this enticing Writer’s Digest Handbook in 1988, while I was on a business trip to New York back in my corporate journo days. Truth to tell I was sold by the back cover blurb by Deborah Purcell (fiction editor, Redbook): “This handbook is as delicious and satisfying as a perfectly crafted short story. Such impeccable prose, such generous offerings of wisdom.” Too right. I’ve gained such a lot by indulging in the chapters by such biggies as John Updike and Lawrence Block, alongside many others by names unfamiliar to me. Big or small, all these writers make good writing sense.

I was lucky enough to meet the esteemed linguist Geoff Pullum, co-author of this compilation of dispatches from Language Log, when he was a keynote speaker at the 25th-anniversary jubilee conference of SENSE, (Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors) in the Netherlands. Pullum spoke as well as he writes, which fine fact you may discover for yourself when you dip into this “exuberant, tart, and totally addictive” work that wittily debunks many a myth about English. It’s so entertaining, you won’t even realize you’re learning something new on the way.

A famous copy editor and author of children’s books I’ve only met on email (alas) is Carol Fisher Saller, who for many years edited the Q&A page at The Chicago Manual of Style Online. I love the catchy title of her book, which  contains answers to questions selected from the many thousands submitted to Q&A since it began in 1997. But, as Saller says herself “…at the risk of disappointing my more twisted readers” she only calls herself subversive because (1) she “overthrows the popular view that the writer is a natural adversary” competing for power over the prose with the editor and/or publishing house and (2) “because to live a good life as a copy editor, [she] must occasionally think outside the rules” to develop an optimal relationship with the author. Although her book is directed at editors (like I was in a bygone life), it’s tremendously useful for writers too. And she has a lovely light touch.  A real delight.

Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur. Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out…. Especially when I’m trying to show off (ahem).  This handy volume has hundreds of everyday English expressions rendered into grammatically accurate, idiomatically correct classical Latin. As a frivolous fourth former I would have cribbed from it to amuse my lovely Latin mistress, Miss Cornes (aka ‘Horny’; look it up!) on whom I had an ineptum crush, but alas, I had to wait for this book to be published in 1985. Abeo!▼

Making mistakes accidentally on purpose

Did you notice that ‘good’ in the headline and think it was bad writing? I know it should be ‘well’, and so do you. Using intentional errors in spelling and/or grammar is one of the oldest tricks in the marketing handbook. Gets your text noticed and increases reader engagement. Well, that’s the theory. But if you’ve read down to here, I’d say it works… wouldn’t you? Let me know what you think in a comment.

Yrs trly,
The Bashful Blagger
Seen here (on the right) as a feisty fourth former in love with the English language, and all its wonky words and weird grammar.▼