Barely a month into the New Year and I’m sticking with my resolutions: I just read Patricia O’Connor’s Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English.

I recommend it to you, be you grammarphobe or grammarphile.

Ms O’Connor, as a former editor of The New York Times Book Review, has probably seen some truly wretched writing over the years. With Woe is I she firmly, kindly and wittily sets us straight.

Woe is I is easy to read. I know that it’s the grammarphiles among us who actually read, page by page, books …