The Grammarian Was A Sadist By James DiGiovana TAKING AS GOOD advice Roland Barthes' bon mot, "The Marquis de Sade's sentences...are so pure they might be used as grammatical models," Derek Pell has produced what appears to be a textbook from a twisted porno version of an English boy's boarding school. In fact, this would be an ordinary and quite useful reference book if it weren't for the example sentences: "Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's. Thus write: 'Charles's battered paramour. Lady Burns's lacerations. The monk's testicles." "When a quotation is followed by an attributive phrase, the comma is enclosed within the quotation marks. Thus: 'On your knees,' the monk said to me." There are also sadistic definitions for such important terms as "enormity," "student body," and "split infinitive." This is followed by a few words of advice to aspiring writers, such as, "Do not explain too much...follow this example: "Two nights later I slept with Jerome; I shall not describe his horrors to you; they were still more terrifying." While this terribly slim volume is amusing, it also offers real and useful advice that more than a few writers would do well to heed.

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