Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #336678 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Synopsis
An expert on contemporary copywriting offers clever and innovative advice on up-to-date writing styles, showing how to break through conventional modes to achieve a striking and hip style. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Customer Reviews

Useful but annoying
When it comes to the structure and usage of English, there's no faulting 'Sin and Syntax'. The book has clear and pertinent examples to identify the different parts of language, and to demonstrate where writers can easily misuse them. Constance Hale explains the rules coherently without being prescriptive, remembering that good writing favours clarity over correctness. Section by section, the author builds a comprehensive picture of how written English works. This book could be a valuable reference tool if you can cope with its single fault.

That single fault is a big one - it's the author's style. It's so irritating. She seems to be aiming for a 'wise-cracking zany' voice but it soon becomes forced and repetitive. Straining to be funny, Hale writes every joke to the same formula. Before long, you can see them coming a paragraph away. And then there's the problem of how quickly 'hip' styles look dated...

Word-nerds want more from a modern grammar than just reference; we want to enjoy reading it too. This one grated on me. If you haven't already, scroll up to the search box and find Strunk & White's 'Elements of Style' and Zinsser's 'On Writing Well'. Add them to your shopping basket, your bookshelves, and your prose.

Good but...
...as the author admits in the final sentence, it'll only take you so far. Sure, it's easy to read and full of entertaining examples but (and this applies to all grammar books) you can't hold all this stuff in your head as you write, so it's of limited practical use. The sub-head ("How to craft wickedly effective prose") is rather wide of the mark because it's basically theoretical. I did enjoy it though, and I leared a thing or two, so four stars despite the lack of "how to" material.

Grammar . . . and so much more!
It's not often that a grammar book causes grins, giggles, even guffaws, but Constance Hale's Sin and Syntax is not an ordinary grammar book. The entertaining examples, from sources as diverse as Mark Twain, the Bible and wine bottle labels, illustrate the "bones," "flesh," "cardinal sins," and "carnal pleasures" of each grammatical point. After Sin and Syntax, I read children's books from a new perspective. Good preschool books are often peppered with action verbs, strong adjectives and elegant simplicity. Best of all, this grammar book inspired me to start writing again! Choosing the right word is now a puzzle to be solved, and creativity oozes from every email I send.