As the title and price suggest, this is a reference grammar of English, not a textbook. It's written for people who already have a grasp of basic grammatical principles. This is the sort of book that you pick up when you want to look up patterns of verb complementation, etc. Only a masochist would try to read it straight through, or to learn grammar from it.

The _Comprehensive Grammar_ is an expanded and revised version of a series of grammars first published in 1972 (starting with _A Grammar of Contemporary English_.) Since its publication, this book has been *the* standard reference work used by professional grammarians. It is a scholarly, descriptive account of English based on extensive analysis of real usage. It is particularly strong in the way that it stresses the communicative functions of English. It tries to present material without being bound to a specific theoretical position. In many ways, this was a wise idea, since it has allowed the book to remain useful over the years while syntactic theories have changed drastically.

If you come to this book from traditional, schoolbook grammars, this work will seem quite modern, especially in its treatment of tense and with some word categories like determiners.

On the other hand, since the basic framework for this book was laid down in the 1960s, it does not reflect much of the research that has occurred since.

I have used this book for years now, and until recently, I would have recommended it without reservation as the best reference grammar available and given it five stars, despite the fact that it was beginning to get a bit long in the tooth. In 2002, however, Huddleston and Pullum brought out their _Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_, which is destined to supplant Quirk, et al. as the standard reference.

Huddleston and Pullum challenge the analysis of the _Comprehensive Grammar_ in many places, and (from the parts that I've read, at least) they make a compelling case.

The _Comprehensive Grammar_ remains very useful if you need to see examples of various structures, and to provide a complementary view to Huddleston and Pullum. But since most people can't afford two books of this size, I would go with the newer one, and go to the library if you need to check something in Quirk.

I have had the book for years. The book is among the best of the same kind. However, I don't have much opportunity to make the most use of it because of its improper arragement of index. The book is too comprehensive to be read chapter by chapter. Instead, it is recommended to be used as a tool for English learners to consult. However, it is a pity that the contents of the index are not clearly classified. Under an entry are section numbers shown without detailed sub-entries. It is therefore difficult for a reader to find what he wants by looking in the index. I strongly recommend that the index be re-arranged according to the method as adopted by Oxford's "Practical English Usage." I believe most readers who have the book will agree with me.

I have been driven up the wall for decades with 'grammar' books that clearly omit gargantuan amounts of information on grammar. If you use English, and you have ever had a question on grammar that wasn't answered to your satisfaction, you need to get this book. The book is not for everyone. Many people don't care that much about the details of grammar, and the book would just sit on their shelf. It's not for foreign language persons, unless they really want to understand the details and are willing to take the time to learn. It's not a book to learn conversational grammar. It's a scientist's book that nails the grammar down where it can be nailed down, and then clearly delineates the boundaries where it can't. If truly grasping grammar is important to you, this is your text.

I read this book from front to back. It is a thorough treatment of English grammar. For those looking for a usage guide- do not look here. It would probably serve as a good reference book for writers, teachers and non-linguistic scholars who would appreciate the abundance of examples given. For the average reader, they will tire of the enumeration of boring, useless-to-most-people aspects of grammar. On the otherhand, if you're just curious about grammar, as I was, it can be very educational.

As the other reviewer has said, this isn't a usage guide. It is partly a reference grammar, but also partly a textbook on the whole English language. Indeed, the title may be misleading, because most self-proclaimed grammars of English limit themselves to sentence-level syntax and a bit of morphology (inflections and such). Greenbaum includes chapters on phonology (the sounds of language) and morphology (word structure), and discourse (grammatical structure above the level of single sentences).

The material here is the most accurate you will find in a book directed at a general (non-linguistic) audience, and is essentially a condensed version of the material in *A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language*, of which Greenbaum was a co-author, and which remains the best one-volume reference grammar of English. It is a sad fact that most grammar books marketed to a general audience perpetuate factual inaccuracies about English grammar. Greenbaum gives you English the way it really works, without descending into the complexities of contemporary linguistic theory.
My one complaint about the book is not about its content but about its production quality. My copy, at least, is printed on cheap paper and the few graphics are not the sharpest. I expect more from a $45 book.

I bought this book when I started teaching English and wanted something more comprehensive and rigorous than the textbooks that I was using (e.g., John Warriner's English Composition & Grammar). I quickly discovered a host of brilliant insights and clearly defined concepts that I was eventually able to put to classroom use and that immediately gave me greater confidence.

This is for the *serious* student or teacher. If you study this book, you will find answers to many areas of English that might otherwise baffle you. The authors are clear writers and generally provide appropriate examples with each explanation. For example, remember the textbook distinction between prepositions and adverbs, e.g., between "up" in "grow up" and in "climb up the rope"? As a boy, I always found this confusing. But when I read Greenbaum and Quirk, I realized that my confusion was natural -- the concept itself, as presented in my high school textbooks, was the problem. To clear it up, the authors clearly explain the concept of a "particle," which includes both phrasal verbs such as "find out" and prepositional verbs such as "dispose of." Once you read the section on complementation of verbs and adjectives, you will finally understand this distinction as well as many other points that you might have felt uneasy with. The authors take on the difficult subject of adverbs (a junk category of English if there ever was one -- but we're stuck with it) and break down each kind of adverb -- even the most obscure ones. For example, consider sentences such as "Oh well, we probably would have lost the game anyway" or "Why, I didn't even notice him leave the room." The authors explain that "oh well" and "why" belong to a class of adverbs called "initiators," and give lists of the other initiators. Nothing seems to escape their notice.

I would particularly recommend this for ESL teachers who want to understand how English really works, and also for native English speakers who are studying or planning to study a difficult foreign or ancient language such as Russian or Latin. If you are learning English as a second language or foreign language and have already mastered at least the basics, it might also prove useful to you. Finally, anyone who is interested in the English language as a joyful study would likely find this a worthwhile purchase, one to set aside Mencken's The American Language, the OED, Fowler, and other classic works that offer inherent interest over and above their practical value as references.

So why didn't I give it five stars? Simply because I think it should have even more examples than it does. As the book stands, students without a very good foundation in traditional grammar will probably find this a struggle, at least at first. I would therefore recommend using a good traditional grammar book, such as one of John Warriner's books (mentioned above) or any entry in the popular "English Grammar for Students of _____" series, and mastering at least seventy percent of it before taking on Greenbaum and Quirk. (I would say that you probably shouldn't put a great deal of work into mastering *all* of the traditional textbook, because the parts that confuse you might be inherently confusing -- just note the problem areas and then clean them up later by reading Greenbaum and Quirk.)

I find this book is very helpful for learning English as a Second Language people.

This book was originally written for bureaucrats so that they might better communicate officialese. Yet it really goes further: it can be used, appreciated, by anyone wishing to improve or confirm their knowledge of written English. Gowers writes in compact, sometimes dryly humourous, style, as he corrects the often confused use of "which-that" and "who-whom", the employment or negligence of the subjunctive, and punctuation. It's an enjoyable,educative work relevant to today, with the English language changing and, perhaps, degrading.

I found a lot good information in this book. I want to tell you that it is a very good book about how the English is spoken and not how is it. One thing is how the English is and other is how the English is spoken in all the social levels. you can refresh you knowledge in the grammar structures and how really are used it.