English for the Natives
Discover the Grammar You Don't Know You Know
$42.20
- Paperback
240 pages
- Release Date
8 December 2014
Summary
My first English lesson was grammar with the terrifying Mrs Petrie. She spent the entire time marching up and down the classroom, thwacking various items of school furniture with a ruler while she banged on about the ING part of the verb. I sat there, vibrating with fear, desperately trying to figure out what on earth she could mean. Irregular Negative Gerund? Intransitive Nominative Genitive? It was only years later, when I was teaching English to foreign students, that I realised that Engli…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781848548398 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1848548397 |
| Author: | Harry Ritchie |
| Publisher: | John Murray Press |
| Imprint: | John Murray Publishers Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 240 |
| Release Date: | 8 December 2014 |
| Weight: | 199g |
| Dimensions: | 196mm x 128mm x 24mm |
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Critics Review
Essential reading
A hugely entertaining read, full of attitude and verve and sharp running jokes. And underneath all this lies rigorous linguistic heft, which gives the book real authority - Daily Mail
How many new books are there about words, grammar and language? Nonetheless, Harry Ritchie’s English for the Natives leaps to the top of the pile for its sharp, good sense, linguistic rigour [and] sense of humour - The SpectatorOn the pleasantly scholarly end of the word book spectrum. Informed by linguistics, it has a particularly good discussion of the controversy between “innatists” (following Chomsky) and others - GuardianI learnt a lot about my own language from English for the Natives, and about how our language and our understanding of the world have developed in tandem. And I particularly appreciated Harry Ritchie’s bold dismantling of the metaphysics of Chomskyan structuralism. Wonderful to have such a fresh first-hand observation of how language actually works - Michael FraynClear, trenchant, funny, Ritchie makes thinking a pleasure - John CareyEssential reading - Nick HornbyAn engaging response to an educational disaster … This book is sensible, valuable and written with a sense of fun - TLSRitchie’s approach to English grammar in this entertaining book on the subject is a relief - Sunday TimesAbout The Author
Harry Ritchie
Harry Ritchie is a former literary editor of the Sunday Times and is the author of a number of books including Success Stories, an analysis of the English literary scene of the 1950s, and The Last Pink Bits, a tour of Britain’s remaining colonies. He was born in Kirkcaldy, was educated at Edinburgh University and Lincoln College, Oxford, and now lives in London.
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