Recommend me a good grammar book or website

Oh grammar geeks of SDMB, would you help me locate a good book or website?

The Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. Not only good, but fun to read.

And avoid Lynn Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves – she knows nothing about grammer; it’s filled with errors.

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr.

Does she know how to spell it? :stuck_out_tongue: (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Truss’ book is meant to be humorous more than primer in nature. I sure as hell wouldn’t bring it with me as a reference for my work.

There are a lot of fair grammar sites out there and a lot of really poor ones. Accordingly, I tend to stay away from recommending any one over advising based on specific questions.

A standard reference book, but for grammar, I’d recommend The Elements of Grammar. Note that the two together are cheap.

Since I’m a journalism major, this also has AP style thrown in the mix:

http://www.longleaf.net/newsroom101/

You can actually find the 1918 edition of Elements of Style online, at Bartleby.

For American usage in book form, i highly recommend Garner’s Modern American Usage.

You might take a look at www.grammarboard.com. Their forums are fun, and full of good advice.

Uck, uck, uck. There

Uck, uck, uck. There’s some style advice in it that’s useful - if you’re a good enough writer to know not to take their advice too seriously - but a lot of other stuff that’s sheer nonsense. Strunk was a bit of an old crank, and unless you’re prepared to ignore half the book - and if so, you don’t have much need for it - you’ll discover the incredibly poor advice to, for instance, exclusively use “persons” and not “people” as the plural of “person”.

It’s interesting as a cultural touchstone, as it’s such a widely-known book, but it’s a terrible place to go to get actual advice on writing.