Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian -- Ellen Jovin, Hardcover

For fans of Mary Norris and Benjamin Dreyer, an unconventional guide to the English language drawn from the cross-country adventures of an itinerant grammarian.

When Ellen Jovin first walked outside her Manhattan apartment building and set up a folding table with a GRAMMAR TABLE sign, it took about thirty seconds to get her first visitor. Everyone had a question for her. Grammar Table was such a hit--attracting the attention of the New York Times, NPR, and CBS National News--that Jovin soon took it on the road, traveling across the US to answer questions from writers, lawyers, editors, businesspeople, students, bickering couples, and anyone else who uses words in this world.

In Rebel with a Clause, Jovin tackles what is most on people's minds, grammatically speaking--from the Oxford comma to the places prepositions can go, the likely lifespan of whom, semicolonphobia, and more.

Punctuated with linguistic debates from tiny towns to our largest cities, this grammar romp will delight anyone wishing to polish their prose or revel in our age-old, universal fascination with language.

About the Author
ELLEN JOVIN is a founder of Syntaxis, a communication skills training consultancy. She holds degrees from Harvard in German and UCLA in comparative literature, and has studied 25 languages just for fun. She lives with her husband in New York City.