This is a good overview, but it was mostly things I already knew or had heard in his other lectures. Still, he is a great lecturer! ( )

A bunch of dumb jokes, a few things I disagree with, and an odd misunderstanding of Google search.

A bunch of fascinating discussions on how the history of the English language influences grammar, spelling and morphology in the present day.

Detailed Review:

Lecture 1: The Red Panda and the Drout Way: A Sensible Approach to Grammar
This is really a setup for Chapter 14. It talks about Lynne Truss's "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" which I wasn't too impressed by and David Crystal's answer, "The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left", which I have never read. Drout wants you to enjoy English grammar, and not to be vulnerable to the put-downs of the larval pedants. I'm on board with that.

Lecture 2: What is Grammar?
Grammar is the rules for combining words to make sentences. Grammar existed before writing, and it's necessary to think of language as spoken rather than written to understand all.

Lecture 3: Why it is the Way it is: A Short History of the English Language
Just what it says it is. I know all this stuff well, no doubt due to Drout's "History of the English Language" course.

Lecture 4: G-H-O-T-I Spells Fish
A bunch of cool factoids illustrating the many ways in which funky English spelling arises from history.
Points out that phonetic and petrified spelling are both boons to the philologist even if they are rough for non-native speakers.

Lecture 14: Fight! Fight! Fight! For English (for English?)
The discussion of social aspects of English grammar. Drout thinks that people should just calm down and be reasonable. Leave off correcting people in conversation and stop despising people who have funny accents. This is good. But he thinks that David Crystal's descriptive approach is too relaxed. I think it would be fine if it weren't too subtle for all the meanies and the rest to grasp. ( )