ALL THE RESEARCH!!! Does Brandreth cite any of all the research? No. Of course he doesn’t. You’ll just have to trust him that all. the. research. says this. 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. Brandreth is many things, but linguist or language professional is not one of them. This will be important later when he talks about grammar. I’m a language obsessive and a punctuation perfectionist. (That doesn’t mean to say I always get it right, but I always aim to.) My mother was a teacher; my father was a lawyer; they brought me up with a love of words. And they sent me to good schools. I was educated by teachers of English who knew their grammar and the value of it. As a child I read dictionaries at breakfast and asked for a copy of Fowler’s Modern English Usage for my tenth birthday. I have loved word games all my life. When I was twenty-three, I founded the National Scrabble Championships. Since then, whether as a journalist or a broadcaster, an actor or a member of parliament, words have been central to my life. I am proud to be the longest-serving resident in Countdown’s Dictionary Corner on Channel 4, the host of BBC Radio 4’s Wordaholics, a regular on Just a Minute, a reporter on The One Show on BBC1, and the Chancellor of the University of Chester. Words are my everything. Suspiciously absent from that list are words like “linguist” or “language professional” or even “person who reads books on linguistics and grammar”. Also, how come Brandreth’s family – if they brought him up with a love for words – didn’t already have a copy of Fowler’s?

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. I once met a lovely man who told me, with pride and a happy smile on his face that he had eaten his grandma. And his grandpa, too. He belonged to the Gadaba people who live in the Indian states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. He explained that it is a Gadaba tradition to absorb the best of your grandparents' generation by eating them as soon as you can after they have died. It isn't as grisly as it sounds. First, you feed your dear departed to the fish in the local river, and then you eat the fish." 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. A witty and well-informed guide to the vagaries of English grammar. Heed his words; you won't regret it Country & Town House, (Best Books to Go Under the Christmas Tree) I think that, at points, this book is a hit and miss with specific sections, parts and chapters. Brandreth keeps the mood and tone light and with a little bit of wit and humor, but there are specific parts of the book that drag on a little and others that are entirely skippable. I think also the reader should be warned that there are some expressions in here that do include crude language a few times.There are a few places where Brandreth manages to not completely step in it. He tells us not to be which hunters but also says who has to be used for humans (p. 194). So it’s a wash. He also has a surprisingly good explanation of plurals in English – except for the end where he says words like government need to take a singular verb (p. 125). This isn’t the case, especially when the collective noun is made of people. So, again, ups and downs. 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? The Queen is British, of course, though partly of German heritage. Her husband is British, too, though born in Greece and brought up in France and Germany. They both speak good English, as do their children and grandchildren. Because the sovereign is the head of state and traditional fount of honor and wisdom in the land, good “correct” English has been called “the Queen’s English” (or “the King’s English”) for at least six hundred years. Shakespeare used the phrase in his play The Merry Wives of Windsor. But to speak good English you don’t have to sound like the Queen. Good English isn’t about your accent: it’s about your ability to communicate—clearly, effectively, and (when you want to) passionately. He makes the same mistake with the syntactic element Object – he says they have to be nouns or pronouns and he recognizes them with a semantic definition.

He went from presenting Puzzle Party in the 1970s, to appearing in Countdown’s Dictionary Corner for over 300 episodes. His career has since encompassed becoming an MP and appearing regularly on TV and radio, but writing is his true passion. A witty and well-informed guide to the vagaries of English grammar. Heed his words; you won't regret it * Country & Town House, (Best Books to Go Under the Christmas Tree) * In a recent survey, four out of five teachers expressed concern about the vocabulary range of their teenage pupils. Apparently, “many are unable to understand questions in GCSE [single-subject exams] and SATs test papers, leading in some cases to low self-esteem.” Some eleven-year-olds did not know words such as “complete,” “replace,” and “insert.” Some sixteen-year-olds struggled with “explain,” “identify,” and “analyze.” Another survey revealed that while nine out of ten primary school children in the UK could identify a Dalek, only a third could recognize and name a magpie. The world is changing and words are disappearing. The majority of primary school children these days are city-dwellers, and up to two-thirds of them, it seems, are unfamiliar with such lovely words as these: All this bluster leads into what we’re really here for: language hating. (Full disclosure: I read this book knowing I was going to probably hate it. And I did, so I guess we’re even.) Brandreth says that his mission in writing this book is “to anatomise some of the linguistic horrors of our time”. Linguistic horrors. I saw that one coming. (Another thing I’m sad to say that I saw coming: The chapter with linguistic horrors ends on shaming a young woman. Because of course it does.)It is a little daunting to write a review for a book dealing with the importance of correct punctuation, grammar, and good English - but I like a challenge, so here goes… Brilliant, clear, entertaining, very funny and often outright silly. Brandreth excels . . . in all his linguistic joie de vivre and amusing self-awareness * Guardian * Of course, such basic decency and consideration for others’ feelings is all “political correctness” really means. So he is, happily, on the side of the angels, in all his linguistic joie de vivre and amusing self-awareness. Indeed, if this Brandreth Rule were not more honoured in the breach than the observance, the world today would be a much better place.

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. Best thing ever, laugh-a-lot, spanning everything. Great book, I'm loving this Chris Evans, BBC Radio 2 Our language is changing, literary levels are declining, and our grasp of grammar is at a crisis point. From commas to colons, apostrophes to adverbs, there are countless ways we can make mistakes when writing or speaking. But do not despair! Great Britain’s most popular grammar guru has created the ultimate modern manual for English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic. PDF / EPUB File Name: Have_You_Eaten_Grandma_-_Gyles_Brandreth.pdf, Have_You_Eaten_Grandma_-_Gyles_Brandreth.epub

Table of Contents

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’ An informal guide to punctuation, spelling and good English for the twenty-first century Strong Words And that’s acceptable, too. “End of” as a complete, two-word sentence has even appeared in Hansard, the official record of proceedings in the British Parliament. In 2018, a minister of the crown finished an official statement with a definitive sign-off. “End of,” he said, and sat down. Ok, forget that. We’re starting off with the bad stuff in this book. Because it’s mostly bad. The bad Lies, lies, lies

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. Our language is changing, literacy levels are dwindling and our grasp of grammar is at crisis point, so you wouldn't be alone in thinking WTF! But do not despair, Have You Eaten Grandma? is here: Gyles Brandreth's definitive (and hilarious) guide to punctuation, spelling, and good English for the twenty-first century.Some readers might not have predicted that a former Conservative MP would be so liberal and happy about modern changes in usage. He counsels his audience to read “the rappers” as well as Jane Austen, and enjoys the possibilities of expression represented by new terms for sexual orientation, or online initialisms such as FML and YMMV. Even with a usage he personally finds irritating, such as “bored of” (rather than “bored with”), he consults “my friends at the Oxford University Press”, who tell him it is now very common. Only occasionally does he put a fogeyish foot down, insisting that “Can I get?” (the coffee-shop version of “Can I have?”) is “wrong, wrong, WRONG”. It’s hard to see why, since no misunderstanding is possible, and I suspect that “Can I get?” might even be an adorably polite display of diffidence, an unwillingness to focus on my own greedy desire to have something. Language is also what makes us human. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell remarked, “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest. Only language can do that.”