Is there any book /lit/ would recommend for a fluent English speaker worried about the degradation of their grammar? I have a lot of grammatical quirks that I do on a daily basis, which I swear were taught to me as correct grammar as a child, but that literally nobody else uses. For example, I'll use a comma to denote possession. E.g. France's ships. The bonobo's hollow. The man's childhood. But I've since learnt that apparently this is just a contraction of "is", e.g. it's being "it is", and that possession lacks the comma, which feels wrong.I also often contract in the plural. For example, "there're a lot of pigs down here" instead of "there's a lot of pigs down here". The latter sounds grammatically wrong, because it's a contraction of singular "is" and not plural "are", but everyone does it even in professional writing for some reason. I just want a refresher on English grammar that doesn't start from baby basics, I guess.
>>25307573>I'll use a comma to denote possession. E.g. France's ships. The bonobo's hollow. The man's childhood. But I've since learnt that apparently this is just a contraction of "is", e.g. it's being "it is", and that possession lacks the comma, which feels wrong.it's called a possessive apostrophe, it's not a contraction when used for possession. whoever taught you otherwise is completely wrong. >there're a lot of pigs down here" instead of "there's a lot of pigs down here". The latter sounds grammatically wrong, because it's a contraction of singular "is" and not plural "are", but everyone does it even in professional writing for some reason. the people who do that are wrong, it's a common mistake. 'there are' is grammatically correct in your example, but 'there're' is not a natural contraction, just say 'there are'.i don't know if you need a grammar book, just read more quality prose. the fact that you didn't know about possessives suggests to me you currently read very little.
>>25307588I hereby declare that it is a natural contraction. There're many people who'd surely agree with me on it's validity
>>25307588No, "there's a lot of pigs down here" is the correct way to write it. The noun that the verb has to agree with is "lot," not "pigs."Also, I don't think "there're" is a contraction that would be used by many native speakers. At least not Americans. It might be used in some obscure dialect, but I certainly have never used it.
