Fully revised and updated, the second edition of this authoritative guide is a comprehensive, scholarly and systematic review of modern English. In one volume the book presents a description of both the linguistic structure of present-day English and its geographical, social, gender and ethnic variations. Covering new developments such as the impact of email on language and corpus-based grammars, this accessible text has been extensively rewritten and brings the survey of modern English right up to date. It also offers new examples and suggestions for further reading.