1. Home
  2. Articles
  3. Can you beat Gyles Brandreth? Put your English language skills to the test
Quizzes

Can you beat Gyles Brandreth? Put your English language skills to the test

Gyles Brandreth, author of the bestselling good grammar guide Have You Eaten Grandma?, knows a thing or two about the English language. Take his quiz to see if you are Monarch of the April Fools or merely the court jester. 

01 April 2019
Have You Eaten Grandma?

  • Have You Eaten Grandma?

  • Pedantic about punctuation or scrupulous about spelling? You'll love this hilarious and definitive guide to 21st century language from grammar-guru Gyles Brandreth

    'Brilliant, clear, entertaining, very funny and often outright silly. Brandreth excels . . . in all his linguistic joie de vivre' Guardian
    __________

    Why, like, does everyone keep saying 'like'?

    Why do apostrophe's keep turning up in the wrong place?

    Why do we get confused when using foreign phrases - and vice versa?

    Is it 'may be' or 'maybe'? Should it be 'past' or 'passed'? Is it 'referenda' or 'referendums'?

    FFS, what's happening to our language!?

    Our language is changing, literacy levels are dwindling and our grasp of grammar is at crisis point, so you wouldn't be alone in thinking WTF! But do not despair, Have You Eaten Grandma? is here: Gyles Brandreth's definitive (and hilarious) guide to punctuation, spelling, and good English for the twenty-first century.

    Without hesitation or repetition (and just a touch of deviation) Gyles, the Just A Minute regular and self-confessed grammar guru, skewers the linguistic horrors of our time, tells us where we've been going wrong (and why), and reveals his tips and tricks to ensure that, in future, we make fewer (rather than 'less') mistakes. End of.

    (Is 'End of' alright? Is 'alright' all right? You'll find out right here . . . )

    'Best thing ever, laugh-a-lot, spanning everything. Great book, I'm loving this' Chris Evans, BBC Radio 2

  • Buy the book

Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, veteran of Just A Minute, QI and The One Show, former MP and Government Whip, now Chancellor of the University of Chester and founder of the 'Poetry Together' project bringing schoolchildren and older people together to learn poetry by heart. His many books include the best-selling poetry anthology, Dancing by the Light of the Moon, and the international best-seller about spelling and punctuation, Have You Eaten Grandma? With Susie Dent, the lexicographer from Countdown, he co-hosts the award-winning podcast, Something Rhymes With Purple. With Dame Sheila Hancock he presents Great Canal Journeys on Channel 4. With Dame Maureen Lipman he is a regular on Celebrity Gogglebox. Gyles is married to writer and publisher Michèle Brown and has three children, seven grandchildren, and lives in London with his wife, his jumpers, and Nala, the neighbour's cat.

Gyles Brandreth

Read more

/content/dam/prh/articles/adults/2019/january/Penguin_Literary_Quiz_Start-Image-Option1-copy-2_1.png

Quizzes

The Penguin Quiz: 9 tricky questions for book lovers

From Jane Austen to Philip Pullman, test your literary knowledge! For more quiz questions try The Penguin Quiz for Amazon Alexa, which features 100 fascinating, fact-packed questions all about books.
/content/dam/prh/articles/adults/2018/december/Bobby Seagull Start.jpg

Quizzes

Bobby Seagull’s Big Book Quiz

Bobby Seagull loves a good quiz (he was a contestant on University Challenge after all!). As demonstrated in his book The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers, his strong suit is maths, but now he’s challenging your knowledge of books. Can you get through this fiendishly difficult quiz?

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies to make our website work. If you click 'Accept All’ we will use cookies to understand how you use our services and to show you personalised advertising and other content. You can change your cookie settings by clicking 'Manage Cookies'. For more information please see our Cookie Policy

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.