Aussie academic blasts grammar guide

Brisbane -- An Australian academic has described a grammar guide aimed at teachers as "the worst published material on English grammar by a native speaker."

University of Queensland emeritus professor Rodney Huddleston said a series of articles circulated by the English Teachers Association of Queensland and aimed at teachers contained numerous major errors, The Australian reported Thursday.

"These articles contain a huge amount of error, inconsistency and confusion," he said. "They constitute, without question, the worst published material on English grammar by a native speaker that I have come across."

"Anyone who analyzes 'won't' and 'capable of'' as adverbs, 'a pair' and 'set of'' as adjectives, or 'Sam's' as a possessive pronoun has no business to be preparing a resource on English grammar for teachers," he said.

Huddleston, a principal author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, said it took the English Teachers Association nearly a year to correct the errors, and most of the corrections were only available online.

Lenore Ferguson, the author of the articles, said many of the errors were the result of "usual mishaps with work that undergoes several drafts and is proofed and edited by the original writer." Other problem spots were not errors, but merely "differences of opinion" with Huddleston, Ferguson said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.