A comprehensive but light-hearted guide to grammar for the twenty-first century. Agitated about apostrophes? Struggling with spelling? Dithering over dangling participles? Stumped by the subjunctive? Relax. Help is at hand... For native English speakers who realise that there is more to good English than meets the eye, but don’t know where to start; for parents struggling to explain the finer details to their kids; and for English- language students everywhere . . . this is the only book you need. Grammar for Grown-Ups guides you through the perils, pitfalls and problematic aspects of the English language, with fun test-yourself sections all the way.

The respected phonetician and philologist Henry Sweet (1845–1912) has had a lasting influence on the study and teaching of linguistics, particularly phonetics and Old English. Sweet is also known for being, in part, the inspiration for Henry Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion. This two-volume work, first published in 1892–8, marks the start of a new tradition in the study of English, although it received little attention in Britain upon its publication. Building on developments in European linguistics, this was the first grammar of English to adopt a scientific approach to the description of language, in particular of phonology. Volume 1 (1892) contains one of the first studies of English phonology, which applies the same rigorous analysis to the spoken language as to the written, as well as detailed descriptions of the parts of speech, accidence, and the history of English.