I’ve finished writing The Little Green Grammar Book, which does for grammar and usage what The Little Red Writing Bookdid for composition and style.

The book is in editing now. UNSW Press have it slated for release in September this year (2008).

The book is a writer’s grammar. It’s a book about the inner life of sentences (syntax, punctuation, the history and histrionics of the tongue, classic gaffes and how to avoid them) by a writer for writers. This is not a linguist’s dissertation; nor is it a slender primer. I tried to write it like a decent and sometimes even mildly funny conversation. Yes; about grammar.

There are several schools of grammar (traditional, modern and contemporary linguistic), and I belong to none of them. I simply try to make as much sense as I can about the deep structures and surface details of English language sentences—especially as we write them.

I had more fun writing it than I thought a writer could have with such a book. Grammar is mathematics with words; there’s a kind of music in it. It’s the rules for the paradise of written expression.

I still have to shepherd it through its edit, trimming and sharpening it as it goes. All you have to do is wait—and look out for it in September.