By Steven Carroll
Making Sense: The Glamorous Story of English Grammar
David Crystal
Profile, $29.99
Just after the teaching of grammar went out the classroom window in the late '60s, David Crystal, a popularising grammarian, was giving a lecture to undergraduate students when he used the term "preposition". "What's a preposition?" one asked. Another piped up, "I think I know. Is it something to do with getting on a horse?" This accessible, often amusing history of grammar not only harks back to classical usage, bringing us up to the age of Twitter and SMS, but incorporates case studies of two girls in the process of acquiring knowledge of grammar and how to put together a sentence – without realising that's what they're doing. As Crystal demonstrates, contrary to popular perception, the rules that govern language – through which we refine our thinking – are really interesting.