text: Mark Liberman and Geoffrey K. Pullum could be accused of making the best of an already satisfactory situation in publishing this book that reiterates their ongoing blog on linguistics.  But for this reader, having never visited their blog (until now), this book is a treasure trove of quips and oops and pooh bahs and evidences of the strangely twisted manner in which we communicate.
  
  Written in a casual style that makes the faux pas revelations more cogent, the authors share embarrassingly poor writing from the media, from authors, from those in control of the country (as though the mentality of the US might somehow be reflected in the malapropisms of George W.  ...Yikes!), and yet reading this blogline of information never seems vitriolic. Criticism is one of the most substantial ways to create change and hopefully this book and blogline will focus many minds on the misuse of the English language, perhaps effecting some much needed corrections.
  
  FAR FROM THE MADDING GERUND (didn't you always wonder why Thomas Hardy used that word in the title of his great novel 'Far from the Madding Crowd'?) is a book to pleasure the mind - and humor - and a fine resource for perusing before writing or speaking to a group of wise souls.  So maybe it is a print form of a blogline, but for those of us who tire of wading through the computer for reading, it is a complete (?compleat?) pleasure!  Grady Harp, June 0
  