Full point

Today's post title comes from my GCSE French teacher, who was French, and whose near-perfect grasp of English included some anomalies. She was known as Madame Blankety-Blank, as she would use this term when indicating a blank to be completed in a sentence...
Anyway, Thursday again already, and this week's Booking Through Thursday:

Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library?

Hmm. Well, that's quite a broad question. I assumed on first reading that 'writing guides' meant ones to help creative writing, but I suppose (in the context) that it's instead about correct writing. I did go through a spate of reading Creative Writing Guides, but decided to stop, as they all seemed to be written by people who'd never had a novel published...

As regards correct writing guides, grammar books etc.... no, I don't read 'em. I have one or two, and read through some Victorian ones for my English Language coursework, but I learnt most of the written grammar and punctuation rules I know through just general reading - which is much the best way to learn spelling, grammar and so forth (though not always meaning... I mentioned 'vicariously' the other day, which I always thought meant more or less 'enthusiastically'). From the basics, through the difference between colons and semi-colons, to any number of tricky rules - I don't think I'd be able to learn from guides. It would have to be picked up in my day-to-day reading. Luckily day-to-day reading isn't something I've ever felt reluctant to do....

How about you?