Graham King - Collins Good Grammar

What is Grammar? Why use it? This will not take long.

And then, finally, in the quest for even greater economy, the newly-invented apostrophe was brought into play, saving yet one more word:

What is Grammar? Why use it? This won’t take long.

And, having recognised that the promise following the original question is now history – in the past – our grasp of grammar’s immense potential allows us to write:

It hasn’t taken long, has it?

None of this should really surprise you, because if you are a native user of English you are also an intuitive user of its grammar. Although you may have either never known or have forgotten the difference between a common noun and a proper noun; are a little uncertain about using semi-colons and possessive apostrophes; are sublimely unconscious of piling on clichés and couldn’t recognise a split infinitive even if you were offered a fortune, you have always managed to be understood, to get your point across, to enjoy reading newspapers and magazines, to write letters and cards to your family and friends, to deal adequately with the demands of the workplace.

But ask yourself: am I cringing along in the slow lane, grammatically speaking, aware of the ever-increasing traffic in the faster lanes?

More than at any time in history, you are judged on your communication skills, whether in speech or in writing. The successful development of your personal life, your relationships and your career is now more and more dependent upon the way in which you express your thoughts, your insights, knowledge and desires into language. How well you accomplish this is just as dependent upon your understanding of grammar. In so many ways you are only as good as your grammar.

Few would dispute that this is the Age of Communication. Its message is that the media are expanding exponentially. You can respond to the challenges and demands, or you can allow it to pass you by.

By reading this far, you appear to have chosen the former course. That’s courageous, and you should feel encouraged. If, however, you remain unsure or sceptical, proceed to the next section which should demonstrate to you that you probably know quite a bit more about grammar than you ever imagined.

And that will be a great start to mastering this essential and exciting skill.

Yes, you really do know more about grammar than you think. You may not know what a prepositional complement is or what it does, and may never have heard of subordinator conjunctions or modal auxiliaries – and why on earth should you?

But from an early age you acquired a knowledge of grammar that saw you through your elementary and primary schooling. Whether your memories of what you were taught about grammar are fresh or distantly hazy, pleasant or mordantly painful, a surprising amount of grammatical know-how is parked somewhere in your memory. By reading and listening to others, you added to your knowledge and developed further grammatical skills. Thus you will find that this book will often merely explain and clarify what you already intuitively know about the principles and usage of grammar.

To prove this to yourself, try the following test, consisting of twenty examples of right and wrong use of the language. Record your answers by ticking the appropriate boxes. And here’s a tip before you begin: although some grammar rules may seem harebrained, most follow logical, commonsense principles. Rather than try to analyse the examples, try to ‘listen’ to what is being said.

If you are interested to know where you stand in your knowledge and use of English grammar, you should have attempted to answer all 20 questions. If you’ve made a guess at some of them, don’t feel too guilty; some guesses will be right while others will be wrong.