How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction 3rd Edition

If it is too good to be true, it usually is. That was my thought when I found this on Amazon. Knowing I had to have this book for a course and not being able to even rent it for less than $60, I was concerned. Then I saw it here for ~$15. "It has to be a scam of some sort," I thought. I was expecting it to be the wrong edition or to never arrive or to be in French or something. But it showed up (quick), and it is perfect. It is the textbook on copy paper. Add a $3 binder and you have a $120 textbook for less than $20. And, as a bonus, I enjoy the flexibility that comes from having it 3-ring bound.I cannot recommend this enough if you need this book. As far as the content of the book goes, I have not read it and probably will never be educated enough in the content to give much of a recommendation. But, if it is a required text for you, this printing is the way to go.

Ann Curzan does an excellent job explaining English grammar in an approachable and unpretentious manner. I am an ESL teacher and have found this book to be an invaluable resource in the classroom. Sometimes it is difficult to try and find a way to explain certain grammar concepts simply, yet Ann Curzan always manages to do so. I would highly recommend this book to educators and linguistic enthusiasts alike.

Love, love, love this book. For anyone who thinks grammar is a dry and boring subject, give this book a shot. It's written so well, with witty repartee and excellent story telling, you won't want to put it down! Yes, that's right. I said that you won't want to put a "grammar" book down. You can tell the editors really enjoy what they do, and they bring their joy in language construction and syntax to their readers. Must have!

Might not need to be this big. Not for the beginner. Good info if working on higher degree,

Got this book for a college course. Not my type of joyful reading. I gave it 5 stars because it came in the stated condition and delivered when it was supposed to be (ordered from a 3rd party).

Anne Curzan and Michael Adams clearly worked very hard in an attempt to make this book fun and modernized. I read the ebook version and had some issues despite the claim that this was a modern book.Reading it for grad school and had to take a lot of notes. An easy way to do that is copy and paste information from an ebook to a word doc and then write my comments and opinions by the notes. BUT the publisher of this ebook limits how much you can copy and paste and after one chapter of doing that, I was cut off. No one is looking to plagiarize, dude, it's modern note-taking.Another problem, I read in a modern way, too, on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This book restricts that. You can only read How English Works on two devices unless you want to buy it again.Most modern ebooks have a speech-to-text function. That helps me so much, because I can listen and take notes as my e-reader reads aloud. NOT THIS BOOK. Good for Earth, they used recycled paper. Bad for an ebook and e-reader, because it can't read or recognize the text. For the price, the could have made a special ebook version that had this ability. You have to read it yourself. Yeah, yeah, cry me a river. My point is so much for a modern ebook and the claim that it was one. It's essentially a normal textbook on giant pages that you can read on two devices which restricts what can be copied and pasted.The actual book is very informative and wonderful for a study on how English works. Dr. Curzan is a down-to-earth person too. I watched a Skype interview with her and she's outright cool and loves this topic and is truly passionate about the information in the chapters. Definitely recommend other works of hers. Dr. Curzan has articles all over the Internet on the English language and I have enjoyed a few. Look them up. I'm sure Dr. Adams is a hip person as well. However, you would not know this from the book. Many of the chapters were written like being talked down to by an academic know-it-all who is speaking slowly and using small words so that the peons before them can understand. Let me quote chapter 8, page 236 to be specific:"You and a friend are standing in line to buy movie tickets. You reach for your wallet and suddenly exclaim, “Dang! I forgot to go to the bank machine.” Your friend opens her wallet and says, “I can lend you ten dollars.” This interaction seems perfectly normal and logical until we look carefully at the sequence of utterances. How does your statement about the errand that you forgot to do lead your friend to offer you money?"Okay, it's understandable language and fluid, sure. My main issue is, who calls an ATM a bank machine? This is supposed to be a modern book, and that's clearly worded by someone that reads a lot of non-fiction and doesn't have many real-life conversations. I had three other ebooks to read this semester and all of which let me read on any device I wanted to, have text-to-speech function, and there's no issues with copying and pasting, or note-taking.Dr. Curzan talks about how this book is supposed to be superior to other types of texts in style and more engaging. It's just not. There are 40-page chapters in this book. The longest of any of my textbooks for the semester, including the hardcopy one on assessment. People with jobs have to read and obtain that information before their next lesson and repeat for other courses. The textbooks that are supposedly not as cool as this book are actually worded by professors that recognized grad students would be reading the pages and those authors didn't brow-beat anyone in the process. If I knew nothing about Curzan and Adams going into this text, I would think that this textbook was worded by academic know-it-alls who just wanted an excuse to use the f-word in a textbook to appear fun and engaging. No disrespect, but the two could have used young university students to blind-beta-read over the text and provide feedback, because this book is not what the two intended it to be at all. Just my opinion. Maybe some other grad students loved every page. I certainly did find some parts of the book to be engaging and fun, but there was too much low-brow action from the writers to pay attention to those other aspects.

The text book came very new and fast. It was also a great price

I purchased this book for a graduate English studies course. I am an absolute fan of Anne Curzan. This text not only offers detailed instruction on linguistics, Curzan does a fantastic job of making it interesting and modern. It does not read like a traditional textbook, but like the jovial professor giving a detailed lecture in etymology and linguistic elements. Very well formatted and easy to read. Highly recommended for courses in linguistics and personal studies.