I Laid an Egg on Aunt Ruth's Head

If the fine points of our confusing language have you - well - confused, Aunt Ruth has most likely paved the way for your grammatical rescue. In a series of 43 entertaining vignettes, her nephew (the author) humorously resolves the lay vs. lie issue, addresses the misunderstanding between affect and effect, and clarifies the fine distinction between nauseous and nauseated, along with explaining other "troublesome" usage topics. In a series of chapters you won't soon forget, John applies (generally) unrequested correctives to his Aunt's errant speech (in addition to laying eggs on her head). In doing so he not only provides valuable instruction to help your student avoid the most common usage and punctuation errors, but provides the veritable "spoonful of sugar" for the "medicine" of grammar instruction. Your students will enjoy using this text to study usage as opposed to a dry textbook. After reading each narrative, they can practice their understanding using the companion Aunt Ruth Grammar Drills for Excellence. Available in either print or CD format, it contains worksheet pages (and additional amusement) for each of the chapter topics, cumulative reviews at regular intervals (8 in all), and a 15-part (and 15-page) comprehensive review to use at the end. The CD-ROM is in Adobe Acrobat format and allows you to print as many copies of pages as needed for your own family. Answers to all worksheets and reviews are included.

To use as a reference, a topical index in the back will direct you to its corresponding chapter. For more information about any usage topic, a Common Rough Spots in English section lists them in alphabetical order, references the chapter it's featured in, provides the applicable grammar rule, and includes sentences modeling correct usage. The author also includes a table of Past Participles of Irregular Words for your conjugative delight.