Grammar: A Pocket Guide

If you've ever wanted a quick and easy guide to verbs and adverbs, commas and apostrophes, clauses and prepositions, then this is a must-have book for you. Easing readers gently into the study of the structure of English, Grammar: A Pocket Guide covers common questions such as:
Is it "10 items or less" or "10 items or fewer"?
Should I say "If I were you" or "if I was you"?
Can you start a sentence with "And" or "Because"?
When do you use "whom"?
What is the difference between "lie" and "lay"?
Is it "I feel bad" or "I feel badly"?

Using examples from everyday speech and writing, this handy book "cracks the code" of off-putting grammatical jargon so that readers can enjoy learning how to think and talk about grammar. With practice exercises, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading, Grammar: A Pocket Guide is the perfect foundation for anyone wanting to improve his or her writing and communication.

Part I: Language, Education and Cultural Change

1. Language Variation: Students and teachers reflect on accents and dialects, Susan J. Behrens and Rebecca L. Sperling

2. Speech Communities: Language as a mediator of messages and perceptions, Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth

3. Teaching Pronunciation: Using phonology in the ESL and foreign language classroom, Joanna Labov

Part II: Literature, Translation and Computers

4. Lexicography: What dictionaries reveal about language and lexicographers, Paul Fallon

5. Text Translation: Approaching otherness, Mary Boldt and Esperanza Roncero

6. Machine Translation: The challenge of ambiguity, Nan Decker

7. Transgressive Language: The 'n- word' and the 'f- word' in popular culture and all that Jazz, Carmen Gillespie

Part III: Language, Power, and Identity

8. Language, Power, and Sexual Assault: Women's voices on rape and social change, Judith A. Parker and Deborah Mahlstedt

9. Gender, Language and Power: Surname or sirname? Diana Boxer

10. The Possibility of Linguistics as a Forensic Science: The case of author identification, Carole E. Chaski

Part IV: Forms of Language and Communication

11. First Language Acquisition: Developing native linguistic competence, Janine Graziano-King and Helen Cairns

12. ASL: A visual language, Miako Villanueva, Deanna Twain, and Laura Wood

13. Animal Communication: The "language" of honey bees, Wyatt Mangum

Part V: Language and Communication Science

14. Communication Disorders: A personal perspective, Ann Jablon

15. Analyzing narratives: An example of cross cultural research methods, Cecile Stein

16. Neurolinguistics and Psycholinguistics: Contributions to healthy aging and dementia, Yael Neumann, Linda Carozza, and Anastasia Georgiou

17. Autism and Language: The two worlds underlying verbal communication, Marion Blank and Mary Beth Cull

Susan J Behrens is Professor of Communication at Marymount College, USA. She is the author of Language in the Real World: An Introduction to Linguistics (Routledge, 2010).