John Humphreys is a grumpy old man for sure and yet everything he espouses in this short rant of a book is perfectly fair. Yes, it starts as you would expect, as a treaty against poor grammar, inappropriate use of the apostrophe and poor use and understanding of the English language in general. Most of this seems to have been generated by people writing to him after the previous book. Mr Humphreys moves on after this onto the subject of ‘management speak’ and insipid and inappropriate use of words (I was reminded of Ben Elton’s ‘Epic’ Baked Bean) and how spin, advertising and public relations is ruining and devaluing the language. There is nothing new in this, but it is entertainingly written and as someone who went to a ‘Modern Progressive Comprehensive School’ (and as such never even knew what grammar was until I stumbled upon on book of the subject 10 years later) I enjoyed it a lot.
