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"Former New York Times Book Review editor and linguistic expert O'Conner...updates her bestselling guide to grammar, an invigorating and entertaining dissection of our ever-evolving language." - Publishers Weekly
In this new edition of Woe Is I, Patricia T. O'Conner unties the knottiest grammar tangles and displays the same lively humor that has charmed and enlightened grateful readers for years. With new chapters on spelling and punctuation, and fresh insights into the rights, wrongs, and maybes of English grammar and usage, Woe Is I offers down-to-earth explanations and plain-English solutions to the language mysteries that bedevil all of us. "Lighthearted and funny . . . It's like Strunk and White combined with S. J. Perelman-none of whom would have had the slightest objection." -The New York Times Book Review
"Possibly the most popular book on grammar ever published." -Writers.com
"Extraordinary . . . I'm keeping this book by my keyboard." -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Invigorating and entertaining . . . As vital as a dictionary for those who wish to be taken seriously in speech, in print, or on Facebook." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A nifty guidebook to modern grammar that affectionately elbows the reader on every page." -San Francisco Chronicle Patricia T. O'Conner, a former editor at the New York Times Book Review, has written for many magazines and newspapers. She is the author of two other books on language and writing, Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing and You Send Me: Getting It Right When You Write Online.
Chapter 1
ij
Woe Is I
Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety
When a tiny word gives you a big headache, it's probably a pronoun.
Pronouns are usually small (I, me, he, she, it), but they're among the biggest troublemakers in the language. If you've ever been picked on by the pronoun police, don't despair. You're in good company. Hundreds of years after the first Ophelia cried "Woe is me," only a pedant would argue that Shakespeare should have written "Woe is I" or "Woe is unto me." (Never mind that the rules of English grammar weren't even formalized in Shakespeare's day.) The point is that no one is exempt from having their pronouns second-guessed.
Put simply, a pronoun is an understudy for a noun (a word for a person, place, or thing). He may stand in for "Ralph," she for "Alice," they for "the Kramdens," and it for "the stuffed piranha." Why do we need them? Take the following sentence: Ralph smuggled his stuffed piranha into the Kramdens' apartment, sneaked it out of his jacket, and was slipping it into his wife's curio cabinet, when suddenly Alice walked into their living room, clutched her heart, and screamed, "You get that out of my house!"
If no one had invented pronouns, here's how that sentence would look: Ralph smuggled Ralph's stuffed piranha into the Kramdens' apartment, sneaked the stuffed piranha out of Ralph's jacket, and was slipping the stuffed piranha into Ralph's wife's curio cabinet, when suddenly Alice walked into the Kramdens' living room, clutched Alice's heart, and screamed, "Ralph, get the stuffed piranha out of Alice's house!"
See how much time pronouns save?
Simple substitutions (like his for Ralph's) are easy enough. Things get complicated when a pronoun, like any good understudy, takes on different guises, depending on the roles it plays in the sentence. Some pronouns are so well disguised that you may not be able to tell one from another. Enter that and which; it's and its; who's and whose; you're and your; who and whom; everybody and nobody; and their, they're, and theirs.
Now let's round up the usual suspects, as well as a few other shady characters.
The Which Trials: Which or That?
Bite on one of these: Buster's bulldog, [which or that] had one white ear, won best in show.
Pretty easy, right? The pause in the middle, set apart by commas, probably told you to choos
In this new edition of Woe Is I, Patricia T. O'Conner unties the knottiest grammar tangles and displays the same lively humor that has charmed and enlightened grateful readers for years. With new chapters on spelling and punctuation, and fresh insights into the rights, wrongs, and maybes of English grammar and usage, Woe Is I offers down-to-earth explanations and plain-English solutions to the language mysteries that bedevil all of us. "Lighthearted and funny . . . It's like Strunk and White combined with S. J. Perelman-none of whom would have had the slightest objection." -The New York Times Book Review
"Possibly the most popular book on grammar ever published." -Writers.com
"Extraordinary . . . I'm keeping this book by my keyboard." -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Invigorating and entertaining . . . As vital as a dictionary for those who wish to be taken seriously in speech, in print, or on Facebook." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A nifty guidebook to modern grammar that affectionately elbows the reader on every page." -San Francisco Chronicle Patricia T. O'Conner, a former editor at the New York Times Book Review, has written for many magazines and newspapers. She is the author of two other books on language and writing, Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing and You Send Me: Getting It Right When You Write Online.
Chapter 1
ij
Woe Is I
Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety
When a tiny word gives you a big headache, it's probably a pronoun.
Pronouns are usually small (I, me, he, she, it), but they're among the biggest troublemakers in the language. If you've ever been picked on by the pronoun police, don't despair. You're in good company. Hundreds of years after the first Ophelia cried "Woe is me," only a pedant would argue that Shakespeare should have written "Woe is I" or "Woe is unto me." (Never mind that the rules of English grammar weren't even formalized in Shakespeare's day.) The point is that no one is exempt from having their pronouns second-guessed.
Put simply, a pronoun is an understudy for a noun (a word for a person, place, or thing). He may stand in for "Ralph," she for "Alice," they for "the Kramdens," and it for "the stuffed piranha." Why do we need them? Take the following sentence: Ralph smuggled his stuffed piranha into the Kramdens' apartment, sneaked it out of his jacket, and was slipping it into his wife's curio cabinet, when suddenly Alice walked into their living room, clutched her heart, and screamed, "You get that out of my house!"
If no one had invented pronouns, here's how that sentence would look: Ralph smuggled Ralph's stuffed piranha into the Kramdens' apartment, sneaked the stuffed piranha out of Ralph's jacket, and was slipping the stuffed piranha into Ralph's wife's curio cabinet, when suddenly Alice walked into the Kramdens' living room, clutched Alice's heart, and screamed, "Ralph, get the stuffed piranha out of Alice's house!"
See how much time pronouns save?
Simple substitutions (like his for Ralph's) are easy enough. Things get complicated when a pronoun, like any good understudy, takes on different guises, depending on the roles it plays in the sentence. Some pronouns are so well disguised that you may not be able to tell one from another. Enter that and which; it's and its; who's and whose; you're and your; who and whom; everybody and nobody; and their, they're, and theirs.
Now let's round up the usual suspects, as well as a few other shady characters.
The Which Trials: Which or That?
Bite on one of these: Buster's bulldog, [which or that] had one white ear, won best in show.
Pretty easy, right? The pause in the middle, set apart by commas, probably told you to choos
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- EditionFourth Edition