Style and Grammar School: Content list

Appetizers and bonbons
A language joke
English class with Chameli Waiba: Literacy is a miracle
The English alphabet did not always contain 26 letters: 12 letters that didn’t make it
Partner words that have fallen out of use or never existed
When are words born as well as archaic, obsolete and dead words
The most widely recognised word in the world – OK – started as a joke
Can you pronounce every word in the dictionary? Jacques Bailly can
Can reading bad writing be as bad as… witnessing 9/11?
How Danielle Steel has managed to write more than 185 books
Those who write more show vastly more brain activity
Rewriting our stories may make us happier, among other health benefits
We now have a Planet Word Museum
When writing, consider…
Two ways to clean up a document
On transcripts
The proofreading trickster, or Muphry’s (sic) Law
Sometimes there’s no pleasing some journal editors

A brief history: How English went from a little-known Germanic dialect to a global language
The Great Vowel Shift
The English Renaissance
The printing press and standardisation
The Bible
Dictionaries, grammars and newspapers
The golden age of English literature
World Englishes
English today: An “embarrassment of riches”

Key ingredients of English: Nitty-gritty
All hail, the classic style! Why we should aim for the classic style, which differs from the plain, practical, oratory, official/school/bureaucratic, reflexive, contemplative, explanatory, apologetic, romantic and prophetic styles, as well as from informal style and slang
Individual English learning, fluency and its limit
English is more eccentric than many languages
Our attitudes to language tend to be conservative, yet language is not
Developing a love for the heart of language: Towards a robust vocabulary
The four stages of the Logical Writing Process Cycle for, say, an academic paper
Functional improprieties, the vocabulary of logic, logical sequences and fallacies
The punctuation marks, in short
So, what exactly is tone (as opposed to style, diction and voice)?
On prepositions: Words that go anywhere a mouse can go
An introduction to sentence structure (syntax)
Subject-verb (dis)agreement
Who farted? The passive voice, grammatical inexactness and scientific inexactness
The 16 tenses in English as well as mixed tenses
Some differences between UK and U.S. English
The singular ‘they’ dates back to at least 1375
What’s up, dog? The joys of informal, colloquial and slang words and expressions
How many errors are acceptable in a text?
Translation engines’ quick-and-dirty conversions of sentences into texts with little meaning
The demands of our time ask more from authors than a bright idea and limpid prose
If you are an academic and want to change the world, why write only for your peers?

How to write paragraphs, paraphrase, summarise and quote; fair use, plagiarism and such
Paragraphs
Plagiarism and the misuse of sources
Types of plagiarism
Copyright law
How plagiarism can happen
Avoiding plagiarism
Paraphrasing
Quoting
Summarising
Fair use
Repurposing and plagiarism
Referencing tips

English class with Stephen Fry, Stephen King, Strunk and White, Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky
English class with Mr. Stephen King (required reading: On writing: A memoir of the craft): Don’t wait for the muse, and tighten those sentences, dammit!
English class with Stephen Fry: Language is “worth thinking about at any time”
English class: Strunk and White’s muscular and marvellous The elements of style (required reading: the illustrated edition)
English class with Steven Pinker (required reading: The sense of style: The thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century): Towards a direct, conversational and unfussy classic style
More on the classic style
Linguistics and history class with the eloquent Noam Chomsky

Jargon, garbage language and the weaponisation of English
About the Plain English Campaign
From plain English to its weaponisation in garbage language
Business jargon: Some of the worst offenders and some fixes
For availability, costs and bookings, e-mail me at ink@johangrobler.com