Gyles Brandreth - Have You Eaten Grandma?: Or, the Life-Saving Importance of Correct Punctuation, Grammar, and Good English

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Copyright 2018 by Gyles Brandreth

Originally published in 2018 in Great Britain by Penguin Random House UK

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Atria Books hardcover edition August 2019

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Jacket design and illustration by Ella Laytham

Author photo by Gyles Brandreth

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-9821-2740-4

ISBN 978-1-9821-2742-8 (ebook)

For Michle

Come get it bae

There is no such thing as the Queens English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

MARK TWAIN

In my sentences I go where no man has gone before.

GEORGE W. BUSH

The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity: so have some little frocks; but they are not the kind that any fool can run up in half an hour with a machine.

DOROTHY L. SAYERS

If youve got something you want to rap about, just rap about it, man.

YELAWOLF

L anguage is power, and how we use it defines us.

Think of Winston Churchill. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Think of John Prescott, a British deputy prime minister. It was a terrible flight. Thank God Im back on terra cotta .

Think of Donald Trump. I will be phenomenal to the women. I mean, I want to help women.

Think of Kourtney Kardashian. Youre acting like drunk slobkabobs.

Language is also what makes us human. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell remarked, No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest. Only language can do that.

And since the way we use language tells the world so much about us, its worth getting it right.

If weve not met before, let me introduce myself. My name is Gyles Brandreth, and Im a language obsessive and a punctuation perfectionist. (That doesnt mean to say I always get it right, but I always aim to.) My mother was a teacher; my father was a lawyer; they brought me up with a love of words. And they sent me to good schools. I was educated by teachers of English who knew their grammar and the value of it. As a child I read dictionaries at breakfast and asked for a copy of Fowlers Modern English Usage for my tenth birthday. I have loved word games all my life. When I was twenty-three, I founded the National Scrabble Championships. Since then, whether as a journalist or a broadcaster, an actor or a member of Parliament, words have been central to my life. I am proud to be the longest-serving resident in Countdown s Dictionary Corner on Channel 4, the host of BBC Radio 4s Wordaholics , a regular on Radio 4s Just a Minute , a reporter on The One Show on BBC1, and the chancellor of the University of Chester. Words are my everything.

So, welcome to Have You Eaten Grandma? Its an informal guide to punctuation, spelling, and good English for the twenty-first century. In the pages that follow, with what my publishers assure me is a nice [that means precise as well as pleasing] mixture of good humor and authority, I aim to anatomize some of the linguistic horrors of our time, work out where weve been going wrong (and why), and come up with some tips and tricks to help show how, in the future, we can make fewer (rather than less) mistakes. All right?

Is alright all right? Youll find out right here.

Really? I thought she was German.

The Queen is British, of course, though partly of German heritage. Her husband is British, too, though born in Greece and brought up in France and Germany. They both speak good English, as do their children and grandchildren. Because the sovereign is the head of state and traditional fount of honor and wisdom in the land, good correct English has been called the Queens English (or the Kings English) for at least six hundred years. Shakespeare used the phrase in his play The Merry Wives of Windsor. But to speak good English you dont have to sound like the Queen. Good English isnt about your accent: its about your ability to communicateclearly, effectively, and (when you want to) passionately.

I am passionate about the English language. Its the richest language in the world. Its our heritageand our hope. All the research shows that the better the English you speak and write, the happier and more successful you will be. People with better English get better jobs because they write better CVs and communicate more effectively in interviews. People who punctuate poorly and spell badly get lower marks in examinationsand in life. People with better English are more likely to secure the partner of their dreams because (the research shows) when it comes to wooing, words are more important than looks, money, or sex appeal. People with better English are healthier and live longer because they can understand and communicate better with doctors, nurses, and caregivers. Good English makes all the difference. And, alarmingly, good English is under threat.

In a recent survey, four out of five teachers expressed concern about the vocabulary range of their teenage pupils. Apparently, many are unable to understand questions in GCSE [single-subject exams] and SATs test papers, leading in some cases to low self-esteem. Some eleven-year-olds did not know words such as complete, replace, and insert. Some sixteen-year-olds struggled with explain, identify, and analyze. Another survey revealed that while nine out of ten primary school children in the UK could identify a Dalek, only a third could recognize and name a magpie. The world is changing and words are disappearing. The majority of primary school children these days are city-dwellers, and up to two-thirds of them, it seems, are unfamiliar with such lovely words as these: