Table of Contents

What writing is like.
Writing is like cooking • Writing is like sex

Subjects and verbs.
Don’t sleep with the wrong person • No peppermint steak, please

The passive.
Upside-down cake • The receiving end

Sentences without verbs.
It’s not all sex • Cocktail party food

Conjunctions.
How many courses? • Relationships

Sound flow.
The rhythm method • Blending and balancing the flavours

Numbers and quantifiers.
Edible dishes • The help

“It is I,” et cetera.
Can words 69?

Questionable words.
Chocolate chicken with ketchup ice cream

Relative clauses.
Don’t screw your relatives

Who and whom.
Matching wine with food

Capitalization.
Textual Tourette’s

Quotation marks.
Forks and knives and little dishes

Emphasis.
Doormen, French maids, and policemen

Sentence adverbs.
Uses of ketchup

Hyphens and dashes.
Chains, leashes, and trapezes

Infinitives.
Bacon burgers and tea with milk

Danglers.
The bedroom farce

Copular verbs.
Slicing it thin

Causative verbs.
Lying about getting laid

Unnecessary words.
How many ingredients?

Phrasal verbs.
The Billy Jack incident