Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed - Softcover

Gordon, Karen Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0727820737 ISBN 13: 9780727820730

Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd, 1985

Synopsis

Here now is an enlarged version of the only handbook of grammar you will ever want to read. With this special edition, Karen Gordon gives the reader more illustrations and even more examples of confusing appositives, the many uses of gerunds, the complicated matter of agreements. "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire" spins a lively gothic narrative with such characters as the Debutante, famous courtesan, wolf, bat, vampire, mastodon, pizza chef, lummox, lamia, and trilingual solitary. Gordon conjures up this eccentric cast with a uniquely wicked, witty and playful style. Yet every rule is explained with great clarity and precision. While entertaining the reader with the unexpected, she makes the most intricate and impossible usages clear for the first time. "You will not find a more charming or constructive companion than Karen Gordon", Kenneth Auchincloss reported in "Newsweek" when Ms. Gordon's punctuation book, "The Well-Tempered Sentence", first appeared. "How rare it is to laugh as one studies a grammar text", Doris Grumbach exclaimed on "National Public Radio". And in the "New York Times", Herbert Mitgang warned, "[Karen Gordon's] sentences might make the Edwardian Brothers Fowler blush and, perhaps, Professor Strunk and Mr. White wince". For any reader who finds the rules of grammar irregular and confusing, this book should guide him with confidence through the maze of linguistics.

About this title

About the Author

KAREN ELIZABETH GORDON is the author of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, The New Well-Tempered Sentence, The Ravenous Muse, The Red Shoes and Other Tattered Tales, The Disheveled Dictionary, Paris Out of Hand, Torn Wings and Faux Pas, and Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness. She divides her time between Berkeley, California, and France.

From the Inside Flap

Playful and practical, this is the style book you can't wait to use, a guide that addresses classic questions of English usage with wit and the blackest of humor. Black-and-white illustrations throughout.

Edition details

• Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0727820737
• ISBN 13: 9780727820730
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160