Randolph Quirk (1920–2017)

484 p.

Important issues of how the style of speech contributes to meaning

I disagree wwith his approach, but it is better than the usual prescriptive fare. At least he knows what he's talking about, which is more than Safire does

Not textbook, but an excellent deescriptive grammar of modern English. Just look up verbs, for instance, and you'll be amazed at the complexity of what you do when you use them. For instance, this explains why we don't say, "I am having a car," but we do say "I am washing the car." And that's just for starters The only grammar book better than this is the unabridged version of this tome.