Traditional grammar, re-vamped

Press, 19 April 1986, Page 20

Traditional grammar, re-vamped

The Transitive Vampire. By Karen Gordon. Severn House, 1985. 150 pp. Index. $26.95. (Reviewed by Giyn Strange) The title of this weird and wonderful grammar handbook is neatly explained on the inside of the dustjacket: “Grammar, like the vampire, is an immortal fiend that lurks in the shadows of our everyday lives ready to pounce on the unsuspecting grammatical virgin, leaving chaos in its wake.” The method followed by the author is to give a brief introduction to a part of speech, then illustrate its use by both correct and incorrect examples. The penultimate example sentence in the book rounds off the vampire theme: “Beckon the transitive vampire to your bedside and submit to his kisses thirstily.” Apart from a slight indiscretion in the placing of the adverb, that sentence is typical of a book that seeks to educate by thoroughly entertaining and refreshingly offbeat methods. Dozens of samples clamour to be quoted, but two more will perhaps suffice at this stage. To illustrate “Adjective Clauses,” the author offers, “The hedonist who was looking at his watch began to scratch his crotch.” Under “Reciprocal Pronouns” may be found: “The fauns

were visibly fond of each other and polished each other’s hooves.” Every few pages or so, a chosen sentence is illustrated by a nineteenthcentury woodcut. Unusually dressed people, devils, animals, and grotesques that could belong to any of these categories, populate the pages as much as the words, phrases and clauses that one would expect to find.

One picture, showing a girl’s head reclining upon a pillow, is accompanied by the sentence: “In her rickety garret, which was crawling with rats, she lay dreaming of biceps and divorce.” Another, showing a figure completely enveloped, face and all, in vaguely Middle Eastern-styled clothing, illustrates the sentence: “Sometimes bras and panties would cry out to her to touch them as she navigated her way through the boutique.” It is fun, it is outrageous, it is unpredictable, but above all it is a very good guide to correct grammar. Unlike the funereal grammarians of the past who confused seriousness with solemnity, Karen Gordon manages to be concise, intelligent, clear-headed, and accurate while at the same time preserving a rich sense of humour.

Warnings like “Watch it, buddy” are likely to pop up at any time, as are little irrelevant jokes. At one point, for example, she writes: “Like beer, like wine, like whiskey, pronouns come in cases: nominative case, objective case

...” The fun is extended to the index where, under “Case” may be found, “of the Gorgonzola, Missing,” which leads to example sentence “It is I who am the culprit in, ‘The Case of the Missing Gorgonzola’.” The author feels that she is playing a “dangerous” game in “smuggling the injunctions of grammar into (our) cognisance through a menage of revolving lunatics,” but in fact it is both a clever and a sensible method because it succeeds in bringing the subject to life. Here English is no dead language, but one in which noun clauses are said to saunter about, where the passive voice is too “tired to be over-used,” where full advantage is taken of the fact that some gerund phrases dangle, verbs copulate, modifiers squint, and so on.

For those who decided at school that grammar was a tedious subject yet who, in later life, have felt a desire to write more correctly than distant and half-remembered lessons will allow, this book is well worth buying.