Woe is I by Patricia T. O'Conner

The subtitle for this book is, "The Grammaphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English." It might surprise you to read that my self-definition as "a grammar Nazi" has been, until now, a gross mislabeling. I can't imagine a time when I felt as racked with grammatical paranoia as I do now. It has taken me five minutes to write the preceding sentences; I normally typed words at the speed of thought.

You may be worried now. "Her tendency to correct my grammar in public will surely increase," you are saying.

Oh, it will. It certainly will. The only difference is that I have suddenly become aware of my glass house. This book is the bird shit that landed on my roof, proving to me (once and for all) that I am a fallible writer. To be more precise, I should say that it has proven my laziness and carelessness. Once I owned a computer with an electronic dictionary built in to the desktop, I began to double-check my spelling and diction on a frequent basis. Now I have another, more powerful reference.

O'Conner's voice in this book is very strong. It is what saves Woe is I from reading like any other grammar handbook. Listing outdated or misused words is terrifying because her commentary is fiery and staunch.

If you care about how you come across in your writing, you should probably pick up this book or a book very similar to it. Of course, you can't absorb every piece of advice overnight, but small things will sink in right away.

While reading, I alternated between feeling very smart and very foolish. Many distinctions I needed no help on. I was aware that a "split infinitive" was a myth, and that "it's" and "its" mean different things. For every five examples that made me feel as though I didn't need this book, there was one that made me feel as though I need ten of these books.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. O'Conner's examples are fun if only because they use character names from popular fiction and film. Her love of the English language and its ability to evolve saves her from dismissal as a fussy school marm. She attacks many such dramatic English teachers and sets the bar not higher, not lower, but on an entirely different apparatus.

I plan to read this book repeatedly. It is easy to take one chapter out of context and cull only information about commas or adjectives. I especially enjoyed the list of cliched phrases and misunderstood rules.

However, I would certainly not recommend reading this book while you are in school. Paranoia about your grammar is one thing when all you do is blog (O'Conner would disagree, actually), and quite another when your writing is going to be immediately visible to someone who will review it and rank it among other examples. If you consider yourself literate, this book will hurt your feelings. But it's just trying to help.