photograph by Emerald England

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About the Author

What if your high school English class had been taught by a hilarious, grammar-savvy friend? You might actually know the difference between "that" and "which."

Meet Martha Brockenbrough. Wife. Mother. Defender of our mother tongue. In Things That Make Us [Sic], she gives us her straightforward take on grammar. And she does it with humor—something important when tackling the unwieldy English language.

Martha graduated with degrees in English and classical studies from Stanford, where she was editor in chief of the Stanford Daily. She's worked as a newspaper reporter, editor of MSN.com, and yes, a high school teacher. As a writer for the online encyclopedia MSN Encarta, she discovered she's not the only one who cares about grammar and language.

She formed the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) in 2004, and now there are almost 9,000 members worldwide. She also founded National Grammar Day, which the United States celebrated for the first time on March 4, 2008. (The date doubles as an imperative—March forth on March 4—get it?)

But Martha's not your typical grammar maven. She rarely corrects other people's grammar—about as often as she lets them know their zippers are down. She just loves language. And learning. And helping people. In fact, ten percent of the royalties support the Brain Tumor Society, a non-profit organization working to cure brain tumors and support the people who have them.

Want more of Martha? She brings the same wit and wisdom to motherhood in It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond. She also writes about movies as MSN's Cinemama.

Links to her online work are available here.