Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay

Practical Advice for the Grammatically Challenged

Richard Lederer, Richard Dowis

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781429906388
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Grammar & Punctuation
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

For years Richard Lederer has enthralled fans of the English language with his keen insights, commonsense advice, and witty presentation. Now Lederer has teamed up with Richard Dowis to take readers on another journey through the world's most wonderful, albeit perplexing, language. How many times have we all heard the word viable used in company meetings? Lederer and Dowis show us how "viable, " somewhere along the line, was extracted from medical books, where it literally means "capable of living, " and placed into the business lexicon, where it means...well, who knows?The authors clear up once and for all the confusion between lay and lie and put to rest some common myths about language. The book's finale is a ten-minute writing lesson from which everyone, from rank amateur to seasoned pro, can benefit. These and dozens of other features make this book pure pleasure for language buffs, writers, and teachers. Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay is useful and authoritative as well as fun to read, with humorous touches often popping up where least expected and most needed.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword, March!
• I - Sleeping Dogs and Other Ponderables
• II - Don’t Bite Your Mother Tongue
• III - Lightning Bugs and Lightning
• IV - Things You Know That Just Ain’t So
• V - Put Your Words in Order
• VI - Grammar Games
• VII - Help for the Orthographically Challenged
• VIII - The Common Comma
• IX - Punctuation Perplexities
• X - A Ten∼Minute Writing Lesson
• Also by Richard Lederer and Richard Dowis
• Answers
• Index
• Copyright Page