Accidence Will Happen: A Recovering Pedant's Guide to English Language and Style

Are standards of English alright—or should that be all right? To knowingly split an infinitive or not to? And what about ending a sentence with preposition, or for that matter beginning one with "and"?


We learn language by instinct, but good English, the pedants tell us, requires rules. Yet, as Oliver Kamm cleverly demonstrates in this new book, many of the purists' prohibitions are bogus and can be cheerfully disregarded. Accidence Will Happen is an authoritative and deeply reassuring guide to grammar, style, and the linguistic conundrums we all face.