Have You Eaten Grandma?

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Have you Eaten Grandma’ is a comprehensive guide to all those things we were taught by our parents and in English lessons at school and have now forgotten. An informal guide to punctuation, spelling and good English for the twenty-first century Strong Words Whether you are obsessed with getting grammar right, baffled by grammar or (like us) just in love with words, you are going to love this. A hilarious and definitive guide to 21st-century language * Newcastle Evening Chronicle *

This is what we call anecdotal evidence. One schoolboy on one bus in one city on one day and in one sentence is given as evidence that like “has become the go-to linguistic filler of our times”. I know you think you’re good with language, Gyles, but that’s not how linguistics works. Many competent writers can do everything Brandreth recommends in the book, but would be hard pressed to enunciate the rules in a clear and entertaining fashion. This is where Brandreth excels: he is brilliant, for instance, on the difference between the semicolon and the colon. “Look at the colon and think of it as a pair of binoculars placed vertically on the table,” he advises. “It is there to help you look ahead.” He is sound, too, on dashes and apostrophes; on the difference between “may” and “might”; on how to form unusual plurals (“lord lieutenants”, “attorneys general”). I was especially pleased to see him insisting that you need a comma “to separate two independent clauses when they are linked by a coordinating conjunction” (like “and” or “but”), since one person who used to have the misfortune to edit my writing systematically removed all the ones I put in, which was a dagger to my tiny heart every time. Brandreth insists that beginning a letter ‘Hi, Gyles’, with a comma between salutation and name, is ‘sinister’ Prove it, Brandreth. Because these kinds of comments are not made by people who study language. Linguists don’t rank languages in terms of how “rich” they are – because that doesn’t make any sense. You can like a language more than another, but that’s akin to liking one kind of fruit more than another. It’s doesn’t make your favorite fruit better or worse than others. And your opinion matters about as much as a rotten banana. He is married to writer and publisher Michèle Brown, with whom he co-curated the exhibition of twentieth century children’s authors at the National Portrait Gallery and founded the award-winning Teddy Bear Museum now based at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon. He is a trustee of the British Forces Foundation, and a former chairman and now vice-president of the National Playing Fields Association. This is an amazing reference book for people, who care about correct language usage and auto-correct people when they write something wrong (grammar/spelling/punctuation police such as myself). It can be irritating for some but language is one of the most valuable assets of humankind, and I do not think that we should take it for granted. We're losing important cultural values due to misuse of the language, and technology is usually the one to blame for this. Gyles Brandreth beautifully highlights the most common mistakes that we make when we speak English/write in English. Thus, it's not a book to read and leave it to collect dust on the shelf but it should be treated as a timeless reference guide.If you are from one of the nations that England colonized and got through that without cringing, here is more. And this is about the name of the book. Pedantic about punctuation or scrupulous about spelling? You'll love this hilarious and definitive guide to 21st century language from grammar-guru Gyles Brandreth

Chapter one, ‘Basic Punctuation or Have You Eaten Grandma?’, begins the foray into punctuation, followed by ‘Dashes, Hyphens, Slashes and more’, and ‘Apostrophes, Possession and Omission’. Brandreth also covers spelling in this book, with common (and sometimes less than helpful) rules, guides to prefixes and silent letters. There are also chapters on British English versus American English, abbreviations with a fresh inclusion of many that are commonly used today and on social media (some with a very humorous twist), slang, and rules for good communication. There are also fun sections that keen wordsmiths will enjoy, such as the A to Z of useful Scrabble words, and new words. The problem with the good parts in this book are that you have to wade through the garbage to get to them. You will literally learn wrong things on your way to the good things. And this is knowledge that you can get other places – where it’s not sandwiched between two slices of moldy bread. Have you eaten grammar? A former Oxford Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester, Gyles Brandreth’s career has ranged from being a Whip and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major’s government to starring in his own award-winning musical revue in London’s West End. A prolific broadcaster (in programmes ranging from Just a Minute to Have I Got News for You), an acclaimed interviewer (principally for the Sunday Telegraph), a novelist, children’s author and biographer, his best-selling diary, Breaking the Code, was described as ‘By far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and revealing than Alan Clark’s’ ( The Times) and ‘Searingly honest, wildly indiscreet, and incredibly funny’ ( Daily Mail). He is the author of two acclaimed royal biographies: Philip Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage and Charles Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair. In 2007/2008, John Murray in the UK and Simon & Schuster in the US began publishing The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries, his series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde as the detective. Overall a fun and informative read that's already come in useful at work (it settled a discussion on the plural of clerk of works?)

I love that this book is written for current society and that the author holds to conventional rules and still embraces modern language. From text speech and new abbreviations and initialisations, to the mistakes make in Tweets or statements by past or current politic leaders, as well as the embracing of gender neutral language. My particular favourite is the new ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) for older generations, ROFLACGU (rolling on floor laughing and can’t get up).

Another handbook for those who love precision in language and who are not going gentle into that good night.

Hobbies

It’s a shame, though, that Brandreth also feels he needs to pay lip service to the idea of “political correctness” as some kind of dark language-inhibiting force, perhaps because the market for such books skews to an older demographic. “You can have lots of fun with political correctness,” he says brightly, before hoping to demonstrate his point by making up a list of things that literally no one has ever said, eg: “Don’t call them ‘dead’ – say ‘they’re metabolically challenged’.” But it’s clear his heart is not really in it, because elsewhere he writes: “The Brandreth Rule is simple: at all times avoid racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic language – and, when in doubt, err on the side of sensitivity. In my book, bigoted language, and language that can be perceived as bigoted, is bad language [...] Good communication is about courtesy and kindness as well as clarity and getting your message across.” Which new words are acceptable? Which aren’t? It’s a minefield, particularly when you add political correctness to the mix. Qantas, the Australian airline, recently advised flight attendants to avoid using the terms “husband” and “wife” and “mum” and “dad” as “they can reinforce the notion that everyone is in a heterosexual relationship and make many families feel excluded.” “Slobkabobs” is in; “mum” and “dad” are out.

Ok, forget that. We’re starting off with the bad stuff in this book. Because it’s mostly bad. The bad Lies, lies, lies

Multibuys

Then do not despair, Have You Eaten Grandma? is the definitive (and hilarious) guide to punctuation, spelling, and good English for the twenty-first century.