The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

Written across my t-shirt this morning as I write this review is “I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you”. I always think twice about spoken and written sentence structures and the ways I manipulate the content and syntax of my native language. I am a stickler. When I learned that, for example, “literally” has a listed definition in the Oxford English Dictionary announcing (denouncing?) it as meaning as “figuratively”, I grew noticeably annoyed at the English language. Literally literally means figuratively? Declaring (decrying?) myself a purist, I publicly denounced to anyone who cared that colloquialisms should...