National Grammar Day

Today is National Grammar Day, hosted this year by Mignon Fogarty (a.k.a. Grammar Girl). Click here to join in the festivities which include a special Grammar Day song.

Naturally, my favorite part was the links to a grammar noir series written by writer and editor John MacIntyre on his blog, "You Don't Say."

Part I, 2010

Part II, 2010

Part III, 2010

As for myself, I plan to celebrate by curling up with a nice grammar book today. But which one? My trusty copy of Warriner's English Grammar and Composition? (I picked it up at a church rummage sale for only 10 cents and it has given me decades of useful service.) My massive copy of Writing Handbook by Bernard J. Streicher, S.J.? It's my go-to source for when to capitalize religious terms. One of Karen Elizabeth Gordon's slim, light-hearted volumes such as The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. Or perhaps the granddaddy of them all, The Elements of Style by Strunk & White. I think that may have been my very first grammar purchase, either at the end of high school or the very beginning of my freshman year at college.

I suppose there is something pathetic about admitting that one enjoys reading grammar books. How much worse it must be to admit to having two shelve's worth of books about words, grammar, and writing. Can we say, "doesn't have a life"? But given my love of reading, is it surprising that words and the use of words are the very breath of life to me?