Aiming to provide a lively, practical and sometimes entertaining guide to improving aspects of the reader's English, this book takes as its starting point not the building-blocks of language encountered in traditional grammar books, but rather some of the common errors committed and problems encountered by users of English. An A-Z section focuses on topics such as the apostrophe, the split infinitive, the hanging participle, recognizing American English, and avoiding cliches. A reference section discusses the foundation stones of good written English - parts of speech, punctuation and sentence structure. And an extensive, straightforward glossary treads a path through the minefield of grammatical terminology used by grammarians to describe the structures of the language.