Oxford | Modern English Grammar By Bas Aarts

She didn’t correct his sentence. She no longer needed to. Bas Aarts hadn’t given her a rulebook. He had given her a mirror—and in it, language lived, breathed, and occasionally split an infinitive with perfect grace.

Eleanor felt the floor of her linguistic universe tilt. She had spent forty years wielding who/whom like a sword. Now Aarts’s book sat on the sideboard, its calm blue cover a quiet rebellion. oxford modern english grammar by bas aarts

Dr. Eleanor Marsh, a retired editor whose pulse still quickened at a misplaced apostrophe, had just received two gifts. One was a bottle of expensive Chianti. The other was a brand-new copy of Oxford Modern English Grammar by Bas Aarts. She didn’t correct his sentence

Eleanor blinked. “You’ve read Aarts?” He had given her a mirror—and in it,

“Cover to cover. It’s a noun phrase goldmine. Listen.” He pointed his fork. “You know the ‘split infinitive’? The thing you yelled at me for in 2005? Aarts points out that it’s been used by good writers since the 13th century. ‘To boldly go’ isn’t an error—it’s a style choice .”

By dessert, she opened her own copy. “He writes that modal verbs are ‘defective’ because they lack non-finite forms,” she said, almost happily.