Re: a prescriptive grammar of English?

Bill Swears wrote:
Ben Crowell wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reference book that gives a prescriptive grammar
of English? I would love something that would do for grammar what Lynn
Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to
Punctuation does for punctuation, but would also be thrilled with
something that did for grammar what Strunk and White does for style.
One thing that's nagging at me like a blowfly is how to use "was" and
"were" in contexts where Spanish and French would use the subjunctive.
My only intellectual (as opposed to subconscious) understanding of the
subjunctive is in Spanish, and my wife the Brilliant Teacher of French
has cautioned me against trying to make analogies across languages about
this kind of thing.

You might try a combination of things. The Complete Idiots guide to grammar and style is a start, and you can google specific problems like "past tense of "To Be."

I liked this result:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/to_be.htm. Also, on that page, link to "Subject Verb Agreement," for more information. A look at the Online Writing Lab at Purdue will essentially tell you that you need to be familiar with the english language to make those sort of value judgments, which is hardly useful information. OWL at Purdue is good for summarizing APA and MLA requirements, but I'm less impressed with their approach to conjugating verbs.

Anyway, Was is singular past tense of "To be" and Were is plural past tense, with one exception. "You were" is correct usage whereas "You was" probably ought to be, in the singular tense. :-)


Thanks, Bill -- good link.


--
Cheers,

Gray

---
To unmung address, lop off the 'be invalid' command.
Now blogging at http://goat-in-the-machine.blogspot.com/
.

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