Language columnist June Casagrande presents a fun and breezy guide to everything a grown-up interested in grammar needs to know. When it comes to grammar, it seems like everyone—even die-hard word nerds—feel they "missed something" in school. The Joy of Syntax picks up where sixth grade left off, providing a fresh foundation in English syntax served up by someone with an impressive record of making this otherwise inaccessible subject a true joy. With simple, pithy information on everything from basic parts of speech and sentence structure to usage and grammar pitfalls, this guide provides everything you need to approach grammar with confidence.

The only fun, friendly, and surefire defense against the grammar snobs Having already made a name for herself with Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies, now in its fifth printing, June Casagrande returns with Mortal Syntax, taking on the 101 most frequently attacked usage choices. Dedicating one short chapter to each, Casagrande brings her subject to life, teaching English usage through lively and amusing personal anecdotes. Mortal Syntax includes such chapters as: ? "I wish I was taller" ? "I am continuously watching Simpsons reruns" ? "Was it Horton that heard the Who?" Casagrande's clear and concise lessons-with entertaining titles and themes-make a potentially prickly subject go down like a spoonful of sugar.

Language columnist June Casagrande presents a fun and breezy guide to everything a grown-up interested in grammar needs to know. When it comes to grammar, it seems like everyone—even die-hard word nerds—feel they "missed something" in school. The Joy of Syntax picks up where sixth grade left off, providing a fresh foundation in English syntax served up by someone with an impressive record of making this otherwise inaccessible subject a true joy. With simple, pithy information on everything from basic parts of speech and sentence structure to usage and grammar pitfalls, this guide provides everything you need to approach grammar with confidence.

Today’s writers need more spunk than Strunk: whether it's the Great American e-mail, Madison Avenue advertising, or Grammy Award-winning rap lyrics, memorable writing must jump off the page. Copy veteran Constance Hale is on a mission to make creative communication, both the lyrical and the unlawful, an option for everyone. With its crisp, witty tone, Sin and Syntax covers grammar’s ground rules while revealing countless unconventional syntax secrets (such as how to use—Gasp!—interjections or when to pepper your prose with slang) that make for sinfully good writing. Discover how to: *Distinguish between words that are “pearls” and words that are “potatoes” * Avoid “couch potato thinking” and “commitment phobia” when choosing verbs * Use literary devices such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, and metaphor (and understand what you're doing) Everyone needs to know how to write stylish prose—students, professionals, and seasoned writers alike. Whether you’re writing to sell, shock, or just sing, Sin and Syntax is the guide you need to improve your command of the English language.

What do suicidal pandas, doped-up rock stars, and a naked Pamela Anderson have in common? They’re all a heck of a lot more interesting than reading about predicate nominatives and hyphens. June Casagrande knows this and has invented a whole new twist on the grammar book. Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies is a laugh-out-loud funny collection of anecdotes and essays on grammar and punctuation, as well as hilarious critiques of the self-appointed language experts. Chapters include: I’m Writing This While Naked—The Oh-So Steamy Predicate Nominative Semicolonoscopy—Colons, Semicolons, Dashes, and Other Probing Annoyances I’ll Take "I Feel Like a Moron" for $200, Alex—When to Put Punctuation Inside Quotation Marks Snobbery Up with Which You Should Not Put Up—Prepositions Is That a Dangler in Your Memo or Are You Just Glad to See Me? Hyphens—Life-Sucking, Mom-and-Apple-Pie-Hating, Mime-Loving, Nerd-Fight-Inciting Daggers of the Damned Casagrande delivers practical and fun language lessons not found anywhere else, demystifying the subject and taking it back from the snobs. In short, it’s a grammar book people will actually want to read—just for the fun of it.

Summary The Joy of Clojure, Second Edition is a deep look at the Clojure language. Fully updated for Clojure 1.6, this new edition goes beyond just syntax to show you the "why" of Clojure and how to write fluent Clojure code. You'll learn functional and declarative approaches to programming and will master the techniques that make Clojure so elegant and efficient. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology The Clojure programming language is a dialect of Lisp that runs on the Java Virtual Machine and JavaScript runtimes. It is a functional programming language that offers great performance, expressive power, and stability by design. It gives you built-in concurrency and the predictable precision of immutable and persistent data structures. And it's really, really fast. The instant you see long blocks of Java or Ruby dissolve into a few lines of Clojure, you'll know why the authors of this book call it a "joyful language." It's no wonder that enterprises like Staples are betting their infrastructure on Clojure. About the Book The Joy of Clojure, Second Edition is a deep account of the Clojure language. Fully updated for Clojure 1.6, this new edition goes beyond the syntax to show you how to write fluent Clojure code. You'll learn functional and declarative approaches to programming and will master techniques that make Clojure elegant and efficient. The book shows you how to solve hard problems related to concurrency, interoperability, and performance, and how great it can be to think in the Clojure way. Appropriate for readers with some experience using Clojure or common Lisp. What's Inside Build web apps using ClojureScript Master functional programming techniques Simplify concurrency Covers Clojure 1.6 About the Authors Michael Fogus and Chris Houser are contributors to the Clojure and ClojureScript programming languages and the authors of various Clojure libraries and language features. Table of Contents PART 1 FOUNDATIONS Clojure philosophy Drinking from the Clojure fire hose Dipping your toes in the pool PART 2 DATA TYPES On scalars Collection types PART 3 FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING Being lazy and set in your ways Functional programming PART 4 LARGE-SCALE DESIGN Macros Combining data and code Mutation and concurrency Parallelism PART 5 HOST SYMBIOSIS Java.next Why ClojureScript? PART 6 TANGENTIAL CONSIDERATIONS Data-oriented programming Performance Thinking programs Clojure changes the way you think

"In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Virginia Tufte shows how standard sentence patterns and forms contribute to meaning and art in more than a thousand wonderful sentences from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book has special interest for aspiring writers, students of literature and language, and anyone who finds joy in reading and writing."--Publisher's description.