Oh wow! That was quite a hit :-) Going by the speed, quality and tone of responses received, I'd say one drew a six and another a four! Okay, now you guys who are specially fond of me, don't go about nailing me to a cross for allegedly sending across "flame-baits"!
To answer Cornel, in my ungrammatical language (and I'll safely pass JC's bouncer, before passing-out on it... must have got carried away by the influence of Rev Fr Catao and his passing-out-parades too, imported to Mapusa from St Vincent's, where else...): On 27 March 2010 03:54, CORNEL DACOSTA <[email protected]> wrote: > Now, I ask Frederick Noronha to enlighten me > please about any English grammar book that > I can use that is better than the original > 1935 Wren and Martin. If vintage is in fashion, how about trying something even better? Strunk and White, 1918! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style You could find a free online version downloadable too. Apparently, Wren and Martin didn't meet their Geoffrey Pullum: Edinburgh University linguistics professor Geoffrey Pullum has criticized The Elements of Style, saying: QUOTE [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style] The book’s toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules . . . It’s sad. Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write 'however' or 'than me' or 'was' or 'which,' but can’t tell you why. UNQUOTE Another quote: Descriptive grammar (definition #1) refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers. Prescriptive grammar (definition #2) refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used. http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/a/grammarintro.htm But see what Flipkart.com is pointing to: http://www.flipkart.com/search.php?query=english+grammar+for+india Rather interesting discussion here: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/talk/questions/teaching-grammar http://eltweekly.com/more/2010/01/45-research-paper-teaching-grammar-through-situational-approach-by-prashant-mishra/ Someone like Brian "Last Bus To Vasco" should be an ELT expert in these issues... editing texts on related fields in Nova Dilli. FN PS: Like the 'active' others on Goanet (and cc lists) who dislike being proven wrong, let me continue with arguing my case: SEE THIS: These references (this one, for example) to Wren & Martin sicken me. I used to have (do I still have it?) a copy of this all-too-famous grammar, and my opinion of that dumb, uninspired, and outmoded, work should become clear by the end of this post. It is true that the volume I had was the one hundred and seventeenth edition, edited by some guy called N. D. V. Prasada Rao, the original authors being long dead, but the copies these other people have must also be recent editions. My intention is only to argue that the book is bad. ...I would say that the book only celebrates that such a thing as grammar exists and that it uses such a stunning mass of special vocabulary. In doing so, it succeeds in being staid, voluminous, possibly a little wrong, and undoubtedly useless. http://ashokgurumurthy.blogspot.com/2006/08/english-grammar-and-wren-martin.html -- Frederick Noronha Books from Goa :: http://goa1556.goa-india.org
