In which I flog a podcast

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips is one of my favorite podcasts. You can access the archives via the link and sign up for the newsletter. If you'd rather just pootle over to itunes, you can find her there, and she is well worth your time. Like the other Quick and Dirty crew--I also subscribe to Money Girl and Mr. Manners--Grammar Girl offers succinct lessons in two- to four-minute podcasts. They're perfect for filling the odd sliver of time here and there, and what I love most about Grammar Girl is that she is accessible. No rulers across the knuckles and no insistence upon following outdated and rigid rules. Grammar Girl acknowledges that language is a fluid and evolving thing. She had me when she stated that it is not always wrong to end sentences with prepositions. (It is also not an act of unmitigated evil to split an infinitive either. Surprised?)

One of the recent posts on Grammar Girl's site covers the question of present tense novels. As a reader, I am not a fan. There is the occasional short story where it works extremely well to provide tension and immediacy, but to sustain it over the course of an entire novel is just tiring. (It also has a very happy home in children's literature where it is perfectly suitable, perhaps even preferable.)

[And on a further grammar note, the question of "missing words" in my novels has arisen. To my knowledge, there are no missing words. British syntax is sometimes very different from American syntax, and to the American reader certain British usages may seem inadequate. (And to a British reader, certain American constructions may seem unnecessarily wordy.) We all know the British phrases "in hospital" and "at university". Others may be a little less familiar. It would be perfectly usual to find a British English speaker saying, "We are off to London directly the party is over." To an American, it seems the preposition "after" is missing, but to a BE speaker, the meaning is perfectly clear. An overzealous copy editor would attempt to amend such phrases, but the last word on the subject is always mine, thanks to my extremely gracious and supportive editor.]