A Sense of Doubt blog post #1791 - Grammar Stuff, part two

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1791 - Grammar Stuff, part two

Usually Mondays are reserved for music -- Musical Mondays -- but I am not done with my current mix AND I am still catching up with many posts on grammar to use with my students.

Here's PART TWO!!

THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, AND OTHER PLANTS, part two...

AVOID splitting the noun and verb with unnecessary words:

"To boldly go where no one has gone before" is a split infinitive. 

"To go" is the infinitive, splitting it with "boldly" is wrong, even though "to go boldly" doesn’t sound as cool.

WATCH PRONOUNS carefully as if they were little imps who steal the small change from your desk drawer.

NEMO suspected that DAPHNE feared ghosts.

He suspected that she feared them.

UGH: Ludwig and myself wed.

SUBLIME: Ludwig and I wed.

Other well-done sweetmeats:

It is I who have hot pants.

I kissed him.

He clasped me.

Give a morsel of hope to me.

I ravished it.

It ravished me.

It is she who is dressed to kill.

She has dressed herself to kill.

It is he who was dragged in by the police car.

 

AVOID misplaced modifiers.

UGH: "Rearranging her coiffure, the nocturnal void gaped before her." (Who rearranges her hair? The void?)

LOVELY: "Rearranging her coiffure, she contemplated the nocturnal void gaping before her."

 

ADVERBS want to be near the words which they modify. 

ICKSVILLE: "The baby vampire only has two more teeth to grow, and his mouth will be complete."

GROOVY: "The baby vampire has only two more teeth to grow, and his mouth will be complete."

UGH-O-RAMA: "Let me know if you'll meet me in the quagmire by telephone or telegram."  (What does telephone or telegram have to do with the quagmire?  Nothing.  They have to do with the informing process.)

OKAY-COOL: "Let me know by telephone or telegram if you'll meet me in the quagmire."

 

ALSO often works better at the beginning of the sentence than elsewhere.

GOOD: "I think the Tigers will start 16-0 this year.  Also, I think they will crush Minnesota every time they play them."

NOT AS GOOD: "I think the Tigers will start 16-0 this year.  I also think they will crush Minnesota every time they play them."

ACCEPTABLE: "May I have more gruel, also?"

AVOID fragments and run-ons

FRAGMENT: "A shade of green which caught her eye."

COMPLETE: "A shade of green caught her eye."

FRAGMENT: "Sometimes bras and panties would cry out for her to touch them. Navigating her way through the boutique."

 

SUBLIME: "Sometimes bras and panties would cry out for her to touch them as she navigated her way through the boutique."

ICK: "The vampire scratched his head thoughtfully.  As he bent over his conundrum."

GOOD: "The vampire scratched his head thoughtfully as he bent over his conundrum."

RUN-ON: "They had a fatal attraction, it was based on the MYTH OF SISYPHUS and a love of Harpo Marx, but when he called her to balcony in the waning moonlight, she blithely tossed used copies of Byron's poetry at him, and she enjoyed it."

IMPROVED: "They had a fatal attraction; it was based on

the MYTH OF SISYPHUS and a love of Harpo Marx. But when he called her to balcony in the waning moonlight, she blithely tossed used copies of Byron's poetry at him; she enjoyed it."

 

QUOTATION MARKS

Questioned quote, outside marks: At last night's concert, did 2 Live Crew play "Banned in the USA"?

Quoted question, inside marks: Billy asked, "What happened to your face?"

NOTE: Punctuation almost ALWAYS goes INSIDE quotation marks. In addition to the one exception noted above colons and semi-colons are exceptions as are parenthetical citations.

 

USE "I hope" instead of "Hopefully."

Farther=distance and Further=abstract/to continue

Less for degree: less heat, less money

Fewer for number: fewer people, fewer questions

it's = it is / its is the possessive form of it.

 

REMEMBER to check your papers for passive verbs, mid-sentence use of however, vague references, unsubstantiated statements, and small, bug-eyed creatures that chew Budweiser cans like chewing gum.                                     

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2001.13 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1654 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.