Nevile Martin Gwynne is a British writer who has gained recognition and some criticism for his book ''Gwynne's Grammar''. He has also written ''Gwynne's Latin''. In April 2013 a

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

test devised by Gwynne was published by ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

''. He spent his early days in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

before attending

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

and

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, graduating with a degree in

Modern language A modern language is any human language that is currently in use as a native language. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead clas ...

s. He later qualified as a Chartered Accountant at the British Institute of Chartered Accountants.

''Gwynne's Grammar''

''Gwynne's Grammar'' is an "introduction to Grammar and the writing of good English". Part One In "Part One" of ''Gwynne's Grammar'', Gwynne explains that "all thinking and communicating depend on grammar". In Chapter 5, "Parts of Speech", he criticises both H. W. Fowler and

Eric Partridge Eric Honeywood Partridge (6 February 1894 – 1 June 1979) was a New Zealand–United Kingdom, British lexicography, lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the ...

for their treatment of the word "firstly"– Fowler for his support of the word and Partridge for his rejection of it. His objection is that both Fowler and Partridge fail to produce any authoritative support for their opinions. Gwynne then goes on to support the use of the construction "First, secondly" (in preference to "Firstly, secondly"), using

Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...

's ''Grammar & Style For Examination Candidates and Others'' as a supporting source. Continuing in the same vein he outlines his opposition to modern usage of the words "hopefully", "regretfully" and "thankfully". The remainder of "Part One" is a discourse on

parts of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

and

punctuation Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of writing, written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, c ...

. Part Two "Part Two" is a reproduction of an earlier work: ''

The Elements of Style ''The Elements of Style'' (also called ''Strunk & White)'' is a style guide for formal grammar used in American English writing. The first publishing was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight ...

'', by Professor

William Strunk William Strunk Jr. (July 1, 1869 – September 26, 1946) was an American professor of English at Cornell University and the author of ''The Elements of Style'' (1918). After his former student E. B. White revised and extended the book, ''The E ...

. Part Three "Part Three" comprises a number of appendices including a brief coverage of grammatical definitions,

irregular verbs A regular verb is any verb whose Verb conjugation, conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. Th ...

, "Special

Prepositions Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

" and "The Formation of

Plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

s".

Reception

''Gwynne's Grammar'' has received mixed reviews: *The book gained approval from Education Secretary

Michael Gove Michael Andrew Gove, Baron Gove (; born Graeme Andrew Logan, 26 August 1967) is a British politician and journalist who served in various Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet positions under David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rish ...

who "told his department to stop writing pompous, illiterate letters". *According to

Michael Rosen Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is an English children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster, activist, and academic, who is a professor of children's literature in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths ...

"Martin Gwynne may have fun telling people the rules of grammar, but language is owned and controlled by everybody". * Linguist

Geoffrey Pullum Geoffrey Keith Pullum (; born 8 March 1945) is a British and American linguist specialising in the study of English. Pullum has published over 300 articles and books on various topics in linguistics, including phonology, morphology, semantics ...

called Gwynne a "preposterous old fraud" with a "lack of any grasp of the subject" and was quoted in the ''New Zealand Herald'' saying, "I've never seen a book so bad on my subject". *

Oliver Kamm Oliver Kamm (born 1963) is a British journalist and writer who was a leader writer and columnist for ''The Times''. Early life and career Kamm is the son of translator Anthea Bell and publisher Antony Kamm. Kamm is the grandson of Adrian Be ...

, a leader writer for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' newspaper, in ''Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage'', described ''Gwynne’s Grammar'' as "a work of titanic silliness" and in ''The Times'' in January 2017 as "the worst book I have read on language and perhaps on anything".

''Gwynne's Latin''

''Gwynne's Latin'' is an "introduction to

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

including the Latin in everyday English". According to Britt Peterson of ''The Boston Globe'', Gwynne believes "students should start memorising Latin verbs at age 3". Part One In Chapter 1, "About Latin", Gwynne explains his love of the subject in some detail and in Chapter 3, "The Importance of Learning Latin, Examined in Detail", describes how

Jean Paul Getty Jean Paul Getty Sr. (; December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the patriarch of the Getty family. A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was the son of pion ...

employed

classicists Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and their original languages, ...

because "They sell more oil". In Chapter 4, "Is ''This'' How to Learn Latin?", he criticises both the ''

Cambridge Latin Course The Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) is a series of textbooks published by Cambridge University Press, used to teach Latin to secondary school pupils. It provides a grounding in vocabulary, grammar and sense which allows progression through Common ...

'' and the '' Oxford Latin Course'' for being "impossible to learn Latin from". Part Two Chapter 6 defines accidence (morphology), parts of speech, syntax and

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

s and in Chapter 8, pronunciation is covered. Part Three "Part Three" contains the main subject matter including

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and det ...

s. Everything that is covered in "Part Two" is discussed in more detail.

Reception

''Gwynne's Latin'' has received less recognition than has ''Gwynne's Grammar''. *

Harry Mount Henry Francis Mount (born 1971) is a British author and journalist, who is the editor of ''The Oldie'' magazine, and a frequent contributor to the ''Daily Mail'' and ''The Daily Telegraph''. Early life Harry Mount was born in 1971. His father, ...

, in ''The Spectator'' writes; "It would be a precocious child who had the determination to teach himself Latin, but he certainly could from this book. As Molesworth says, he’d have to work hard, and, as Gwynne says, he’d have to do a lot of learning by heart." *Daniel Hahn wrote; "This little book makes a great case for learning Latin, not least because of the countless Latin words and phrases in our daily English." *Ross McGuinness in the ''Metro'' took a neutral line, supporting the teaching of Latin without expressing an opinion of the merits of Gwynne's book.

''Gwynne's Kings and Queens of England''

''Gwynne's Kings and Queens of England'' was published by Ebury Press on 10 May 2018.

References

Sources

*''Gwynne's Grammar'' (2013), Ebury Press, *''Gwynne's Latin'' (2014), Ebury Press,

External links

Gwynne Teaching

Nevile Gwynne on YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gwynne, Nevile Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Grammarians from the United Kingdom Alumni of the University of Oxford People educated at Eton College