Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to Magic and Mystery of Practical English. Roy Peter Clark. New York: Little, Brown, 2010. 294 pp. $19.99 hbk.It doesn't matter what topic is-chickens or global economics or yoga: people who are passionate and knowledgeable about their subject make for a good story. Add good writing and a sense of whimsy to that passion, and you almost can't miss.With fifteen books on writing and editing behind him, Roy Peter Clark's passion for writing is well known. For those who don't know him personally, however, title of this book should hint at whimsy. There really aren't many people who can make a 294-page discussion of fun, mysterious, and magical, but Poynter Institute's longtime oracle of all things wordish does it by reminding us of power and magic of language.Putting glamour back into is Clark's goal. Wordsmiths already know joy of language (as Clark discusses in his first chapter, reading dictionaries is fun), but not everyone may recognize etymological connection between grammar and glamour.Was there ever in popular imagination a word less glamourous than grammar? Clark asks, turning to Oxford English Dictionary for explanation: The bridge between glamour and is he finds. According to OED, glamour evolved from through an ancient association between learning and enchantment. Once, was not just about language and, eventually, writing, he says, but all forms of learning, including magic, alchemy, astrology, even witchcraft.Good enough. It's not about rules, then. Let's consider incantation to invoke magic of language, and see that punctuation, syntax, usage, spacing, pacing, and rest all are ingredients to make magic work.The central ingredients, of course, are words, but Clark urges writers not to bog down in rigid convention. Sure, spelling counts because comprehension matters, but learn seven ways to invent words to make use of their music, he suggests; crossdress parts of speech, and spend some time in a thesaurus-a word from Greek that means 'treasury.'Clark's passion for his craftalso turns even smallest elements of language into powerful alchemy-he spends a fifty-page chapter on Points, traffic signals of sentences that Clark calls the ligaments of meaning and purpose. man can wax poetic-and convincingly-about periods! full stop is a rhythmic device in language and in writing, after all, reminding us that writing is language, after all-an aural art that must be heard like music in order to be understood and appreciated. Short sentences, Clark suggests. Slow reader. Build suspense. Magnify emotion.Of many disconnects between too-often estranged wordsters in English classrooms and journalistic newsrooms, perhaps none is as focused as use of comma. Leave aside dependent clauses and wasteful strings of modifiers (the road to hell is paved with adverbs)-what about a comma before and? …