I don't know if Antisthenes the Sophist is the earliest authority quoted in this pocket‐sized Bloomsbury Guide, but his quip that “The investigation of words is the beginning of education” is no bad starter. The numerous other quotes which introduce the various chapters are equally enjoyable and show the reader to be in the hands of a wise and cultured guide.
The first edition of this Guide was published in 1993 and was written for “the average reader”. In the intervening 14 years, author Gordon Jarvie has clearly been disturbed by the “decline in the ability of students to construct coherent, well organised and grammatically correct essays” so “The book … is aimed at those generations of readers who have passed through the British school systems without being able to say quite what a verb, or a presupposition, or a clause, is”. Author Jarvie now dedicates the book to “You, the student”. I'm not sure that the publicity blurb proclaiming that “This book provides [a] necessary reference for teachers, students, writers and anyone who needs to know about dangling modifiers, infinite clauses and subordinating conjunctions” will tempt students to read! – though they would assuredly benefit if they did so. I rather doubt that reading books on grammar is high on their agenda – though I could be wrong. Truss (2003), Humphrys (2004), and the riposte from Crystal (2006) are all best sellers, so there is clearly an interest in writing and speaking good English.
In this clearly structured book, chapters treat of Words and Phrases; Sentences and Clauses; Word Formation; Punctuation; Figures of Speech and Literary Devices; Common Errors and Confusibles (my Spellcheck says “confusables”!); and Check‐Up Pages. Typically the chapters start with the aforementioned quotes which attract attention, a list of the topics to be covered, and an introduction. Then the topics are treated with numerous examples and test pieces. The end‐of‐book Answer Pages to the in‐text tests underline the didactic intent of the book. The topics treated in Chapter 3, Word Formation, give a flavour of coverage: Acronyms, Analogy, Back Formation, Blending, Borrowing, Clipping, Coining, Compounding, and Reduplication, followed by an impressive list of common prefixes and suffixes.
As the Truss/Humphrys versus Crystal debate demonstrates, there is an issue of how prescriptive to be about grammar. I would place Jarvie in the formers' traditionalist camp, for even though he allows e.e. cummings his lower case preference, I note the index entry reads: Cummings, E.E.! And he features no irritating little boxes or pop‐up study aids! All the usual topics are here, including synecdoche, trochaic foot, and dear old zeugma, which were mercilessly drilled into me in the days of rote learning.
The highly structured nature of this book marks it out as a textbook rather than an easy read, designed to be worked through, though the frequent lists, good use of sub‐headings, and clear index, will make the book work well as a reference resource. Such teasers as the ‐ible/‐able endings, I and Me, and the Oxford comma (not named as such here), are all points on which/that people need help. Though the which/that dilemma per se, I couldn't find, and likewise, Americanisms. I did find the typeface a touch dull and the use of italic rather than bold to indicate the object of a comment, especially for individual letters, was rather disconcerting, as in “A fair field of folk found I between” (the f's illustrating alliteration in this quote from Piers Plowman). “I hope this example survives the copy‐editor and printer's programming!) And do we need to know what Anacoluthon is? Some of the prose and examples are rather wordy: “The prefix assimilates before certain consonants”; “commas to mark off vocatives and interjections”; and “pellucid” and “obfusticate” as examples. Did the author have a classical education by any chance? But this book will serve as a detailed and reliable low‐cost book on English grammar for UK reference shelves.
