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There's no place like tome for the holidays! These new books will delight the word lovers on your shopping list and you as well.

Start the new year right with "The Grammar Daily -- 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing" (St. Martin's Griffin, $19) by Mignon Fogarty, creator of the popular Grammar Girl podcast. This tip-of-the-day book, previously published as "The Grammar Devotional," has been updated with new lessons and revised content. For most days, it offers advice on pesky puzzlers: which/that, affect/effect, allude/elude. On other days, you awake to punctuation pointers, quick quizzes or punchy profiles of "Language Rock Stars," such as Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster.

"Have You Eaten Grandma?" by Gyles Brandreth (Atria, $16.35) sounds like a grisly way to begin the holiday season -- until you read the rest of its title: "The Life-Saving Importance of Correct Punctuation, Grammar, and Good English." In sprightly prose, Brandreth, a British writer, broadcaster and former member of Parliament, serves up commonsense advice on usage, grammar, spelling and, yes, punctuation, e.g., "Have you eaten Grandma?" means something entirely different than "Have you eaten, Grandma?" Whew.

Speaking of cannibalism, Jess Zafarris explores the fascinating origins of some of our nastiest words in his book "Words From Hell: Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology" (Chambers Harrap, $15.97). He explains that many of our most lurid, lewd and Luciferian terms were stitched together, like Frankenstein's monster, from the body parts of Latin, Greek and German words. He ventures well beyond George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV" to examine the bawdy, the blasphemous and the beautiful. Yup, even some "good" words have naughty roots.

Did someone mention Latin? Maia Lee-Chin loves Latin and everything about the Roman culture that created it. In "Et Cetera -- An Illustrated Guide to Latin Phrases" (Andrews McMeel, $24.99) she teams up with artist Marta Bertello to explore the literature, society, mythology, philosophy and geopolitics of ancient Rome. Each of the 50 entrees in this compendium begins with a Latin phrase that unlocks a fascinating story of Roman life. To wit, "Acta est fabula, plaudite" ("Clap, the story is over") was the dying statement of Caesar Augustus, who, with his terse last words, was slyly acknowledging his own artifice as a shrewd political manipulator.

Felix Dies Festos (Happy Holidays) to everyone!

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Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. His book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to WordGuy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

Copyright 2024 Creators Syndicate Inc.