Magnum: I'm fascinated with language - the mechanics of it, the psychology of it, etc.
I've been reading Steven Pinker's latest work: The Sense of Style. He sheds a lot of very clear light on how language works as well as how it doesn't through common mistakes in construction of sentences, paragraphs and longer forms.
He also bashes a lot of grammar myths concerning what is "right" and what is "wrong."
As it turns out, a lot of well-entrenched grammar rules are just wrong. If it makes sense it's good. A lot of what is left is simply a matter of style, particularly formal versus informal.
For those that don't know, Steven Pinker is a Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language and cognition