The Rules of the Game

About the Book

The Rules of the Game is an introductory English grammar aimed at a general reader who would like a clearer understanding of the structure of our language.  The book uses traditional terminology, but unlike many such books, it incorporates several of the descriptive techniques of the newer grammars that were developed in the twentieth century while avoiding the jargon and complicated terminology that too often makes them incomprehensible for those who are not experts in the field.

The book also examines many current controversies about usage.  Since the first principle of languages is that they change, it follows that our language is changing at this moment--and not merely by the addition of new words, but by discrepancies between traditionally prescribed advice and actual usage.  The Rules of the Game offers explanations about which areas are currently in flux and offers common sense advice about to make appropriate choices in various situations.

The book also contains numerous exercises: both analytic as the reader describes formal and functional patterns in excerpts from published texts and judgmental as the reader decides what choices among usage patterns he or she would make in situations of varying formality.

About the Author

Howard Faulkner is Professor of English at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. He has published three volumes of the correspondence of psychoanalyst Karl Menninger. He has also published numerous critical articles on American literature and African-American literature. He had held Fulbright professorships of American literature in Macedonia and Bulgaria and was a guest professor at the University of Metz, France.