Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English<\/i> by Patricia T. O’Conner<\/p>\n
I picked this book up several years ago, but had not gotten very far in it, for as much as I wanted to improve my writing, I was not necessarily interested in reading about improving my writing, but since I am taking a course on editing, I decided that this would be a good book to read.<\/p>\n
This is a good book on grammar, and is set up as a reference as well. She writes about grammar rules clearly, although her examples are not always as clear as I would hope. I also disagree rather strenuously with her on one or two points. She is of the group that does not believe that “they” and “their” should be substituted for him\/her or his or her or whatever convoluted combination we currently need to use as a gender non-specific pronoun. Bah humbug! English doesn’t have a gender neutral pronoun, and people are already using they and their in this manner, so why not accept this as a development of the language to compensate? <\/p>\n
Regardless (not irregardless!) this is an informative book, and one that should make a good reference as I attempt to become a better writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner I picked this book up several years ago, but had not gotten very far in it, for as much as I wanted to improve my writing, I was not necessarily interested in reading about improving my writing, but since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-paper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-h","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2366,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2366","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":0},"title":"Folk Tales from the Russian","author":"Michelle","date":"May 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Folk Tales from the Russian (1903) Verra Xenophontovna Kalamatiano de Blumenthal I love folk tales. I have two shelves of them, and discovered when I got my Kindle there are lots of collections available out there FOR FREE. Free, of course, means the books are from the public domain, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/folk-tales-from-russian.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":23,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/23","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":1},"title":"A Bad Beginning","author":"Michelle","date":"May 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (1999) I really liked this book. It may have only taken me 45 minutes to read, but it was a very enjoyable 45 minutes. A Bad Beginning begins the tale of the Baudelaire children, who, in the first few pages of the book, are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Kids"","block_context":{"text":"Kids","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/kids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/05\/The-Bad-Beginning.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":26540,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/26540","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":2},"title":"A Marvellous Light","author":"Michelle","date":"April 8, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A Marvellous Light (2021) Freya Marske (The Last Binding #1) Set in England in 1908 \u201cYou\u2019ve been cursed, and you think this is a time to make jokes?\u201d Blyth shoved his sleeve down again. \u201cI\u2019ve been cursed, so I\u2019ll make all the jokes I please.\u201d A chauffeur was not needed.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"A Marvellous Light","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/A-Marvellous-Light.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25925,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25925","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":3},"title":"The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association","author":"Michelle","date":"March 8, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association (2025) Caitlin Rozakis Vivian discovered magic existed when her daughter was attacked and changed into a werewolf. Now they've moved to Veilport and Aria has a scholarship to The Grimoire Grammar School and Vivian is even more overwhelmed. She wasn\u2019t weeping. That was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/The-Grimoire-Grammar-School-Parent-Teacher-Association.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/The-Grimoire-Grammar-School-Parent-Teacher-Association.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/The-Grimoire-Grammar-School-Parent-Teacher-Association.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11274,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11274","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":4},"title":"Whispers Under Ground, Audio Edition","author":"Michelle","date":"December 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Whispers Under Ground, Audio Edition (2012) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith The third book finds Lesley May moved into the Folly, having become the newest apprentice (it's understood this is allows only because of the damage done to her in the first book). A body is found in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Whispers-Under-Ground-e1510886372845.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4482,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4482","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":5},"title":"Where Serpents Sleep","author":"Michelle","date":"March 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Where Serpents Sleep (2008) C.S. Harris Now we reach the point where I started buying this series in hardback. And I hate hardback books. The fourth Sebastian St. Cyr book discovers Sebastian working with someone entirely unexpected: Hero Jarvis. A home for reformed fallen doves (ie women who want to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Where-Serpents-Sleep.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}