True to its title, this is a bare outline of English grammatical structure, a topic dropped from school curricula in Australia nearly four decades ago. Since that time a whole generation of Australians have grown up ignorant of the nuts and bolts of their own language. The original edition of this highly successful book filled a void in English language education by presenting English grammar in a friendly and accessible format. It explains how language works and functions: from introductory information on sentences, clauses and phrases, it turns to words. It classifies them according to function (parts of speech - nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and so on), then returns to discuss clauses in some detail. This book is a valuable resource for those who missed out on learning the basics of grammar at school, and it is also an excellent and necessary reference in teaching English as a second other language (TESOL). ""The briefest English grammar ever""! was originally published in a handwritten format in 2004. The current edition is designed to preserve this appearance and maintain the friendly feel of the book.