Arlene Miller's Blog, page 46

A Little Lay-and-Lie Lesson

I received a question in response to  last week’s post asking when I was “going to have the courage to tackle” the lay/lie situation. Well, I have talked about it before, but bring it on . . . and here we go . . .

To lie and to lay are present tense verb forms. Let’s forget about the definition of lie that means not telling the truth. We are talking about the reclining kind here. 

Grammatically speaking, lie is an intransitive verb, meaning it takes no direct object after it. A direct object is a noun (person, place, thing, or idea) or pronoun (takes the place of a noun, e.g., him, her, me, it, them) that receives the action of the verb. Lay, on the other hand is transitive and does take a direct object. 

What does this mean in “regular” terms? You must lay something or someone down. Now, most people don’t use lie and lay at all for present tense because it sounds odd; instead they use a variation of the present tense (progressive present tense, using the present participle form). Here are some examples of using lay and lie and of using the more common progressive tense (-ing).

I lie on my hammock. (present tense; lie is correct because there is no noun or pronoun directly after lie) 
I lay my book on the hammock. (present tense; lay is correct because you are laying something: book)
I am lying on my hammock while I talk on the phone. (More common present tense using -ing)
I am laying my book on the hammock while I get my lunch in the house.  (More common present tense)

Things can also lie, not just people:

A pile of rocks is lying on the side of the road.
They are laying a pile of rocks on the side of the road. (Laying a pile: has a direct object)
The dog is lying in the sun.
The dog is laying his bone in the doghouse. (Laying his bone: has a direct object)

Now, that is easy enough. So let’s go to the past tense. What did I do maybe yesterday? The past tense of lie is lay. Yup. Confusing. The past tense of lay is laid. Not so confusing. 

Yesterday, I lay in my hammock all day.  (Past tense of lie)
Yesterday, I laid tile in my bathroom (Past tense of lay because there is a direct object: tile)

Now, let’s go to the past participle. That is the form we use with have, had or will have in front of it. Actually, many people don’t use these tenses at all, especially in speech, where things are often more casual. However, here we go. The past participle of lie is lain, even thought many people have never heard of it. I am not sure I have ever used it. And the past participle of lay is laid, which is a lot easier to remember.

I have lain on this hammock for three hours.
She has lain in the sun too long!
She will have lain in the sun for three hours by the time we need to leave for dinner.
I have never laid tile before.

Okay. I am going to give you a trick you can use. Subsitute the word “place” for your lay or lie. If place works, you use lay or its variations: is laying, was laying, have been laying, had been laying, laid, have laid, had laid, etc. If place doesn’t work, it is the lie verb you need.

I lie down.

I am lying down. (present participle: lying)

Yesterday I lay down.

Every day this week I have lain down.

I had just lain down when the doorbell rang.

Got it? But wait, there is more. And this “more” is never written about for some reason. It is a rule I never thought about before because is doesn’t usually come up — but it does with lie.

What about the past tenses that use -ing (past progressive)? Was I laying down yesterday or was I lying down yesterday? It is simple past tense (although progressive using the -ing) so should it be was laying? But obviously that isn’t right because was laying belongs to lay. Argh!!!!! Well, if you think about it, we always use the present participle for those tenses: I was running, not I was ranning; I was swimming, not I was swamming. And I was lying down, not I was laying down.

Back to the trick I gave you above: I was placing down yesterday. The trick doesn’t work. So with the verb lie, in the tenses that use -ing, it is always still lie.

I am lying down.
I was lying down.
I have been lying down.
I had been lying down.
I will have been lying down.

Versus

I am laying my books down.
I was laying my books down.
I have been laying my books down.
I had been laying my books down.
I will have been laying my books down.

So that is apparently why most people never use or need the past tense of lie (lay) or the past participle of lie (lain): we usually speak in the past using an -ing tense. 

Whew! That wasn’t easy. Kudos to my favorite reference book, The Gregg Reference Manual, for the trick about substituting the word “place.”

Two more important things to add:

Please keep your comments about your grammar pet peeves coming; I am compiling them for another blog post. You can e-mail them to me at info@bigwords101.com or you can still leave a comment on last week’s post,  or you can comment about your pet peeves in this post.
Welcome to our new subscribers! We hope you enjoy the weekly posts and the free mini-book download!

 

 

I Want a Top-Ten List Too!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen more than one “Top Grammar Mistakes” list, one by Microsoft and one, I believe, by a blogger. I didn’t agree with Microsoft’s, but I thought the blogger was on the mark. I don’t remember exactly what the list was, but I thought about it and came up with my ten. 

Well, actually, being an overachiever, I came up with more than ten, but I whittled it down to ten for this post. I am sure many of you (and I know I am preaching to the choir with these) will comment with your own additions to the list.

So (drumroll), here is my list of the Top Ten “Grammar” mistakes I see and hear. I put quotation marks around grammar because some may not be exactly grammar, but fall into the broad category of “good writing and speaking.” 

 Confusion of I and me. Usually, I goes at the beginning of a sentence, and me goes at the end, but that is a non-grammatical explanation. I is the subject of a sentence; me is some type of object. The mistake generally occurs at the end of a sentence when there is another person mentioned: He told my brother and I. No. Just take out the other person. He told I?  Obviously, it is me, with or without my brother.
Using myself in the wrong places. Ugh! Using myself in the wrong place does not make you sound smart! Myself is reserved for just a couple of occasions, and is usually used when the subject of the sentence is I: I did it myself. I myself did that. Not My friend and myself are going. Or, The book is about my brother and myself.
The ubiquitous mispronunciation of mischievous! It is not pronounced mis-chee-vious with the accent on the chee! The accent is on the first syllable; the second syllable is pronounced cha, and the last syllable vus.
Using the wrong past participle verb form. It is not I have went, I have ate, I have wrote, I have saw, etc. It is I have gone, I have eaten, I have written, I have seen, etc.
Confusing your and you’re. Yes, it is still a common mistake (or a lazy typo?). Easy to correct. All contractions have an apostrophe. You’re means “you are” and is a contraction. It follows the rule. Your or yours is possessive. None of the possessive pronouns has an apostrophe (ours, his, hers, theirs). That follows the rule too.
Confusing its and it’s. See number 5. Same rule. Same thing.
Confusing less and fewer. I heard that the distinction is going away, but you know how I feel about that. Less is used for singular nouns and things that cannot be counted.  There is less sugar in this cookie than in that one. Fewer is used for plurals. There are fewer tablespoons of sugar in that cookie recipe.
Confusing number and amount. Similar to number 7. Amount is used for singulars and things that cannot be counted. The amount of salt in my diet is ridiculous! Number is used for plurals: The number of accidents on this road has decreased.
Flat adverbs. Many adverbs end in -ly, and if you take the -ly off you are left with an adjective. Adverbs describe verbs, and adjectives describe nouns. I drive slowly. Slowly is an adverb describing drive. That is a slow rabbit. Slow is an adjective describing rabbit. If you say, I drive slow, you have used what is called a flat adverb. It isn’t technically wrong, but flat adverbs are not considered good English. They actually used to be more common way back when.
The singular they. Before you shout at me that it is now okay to use the singular they, just be aware that some of us still don’t like it and would prefer to “write around it,” meaning rewrite to avoid it. The whole purpose of using the singular they is that we don’t have a singular pronoun that is not gender specific: we have he and we have she. What if we don’t know the gender of the person we are talking about? Okay. But what if we do, and we still use they. The girl brought their costume. Huh? Now that is just confusing and sounds as if she brought some other people’s costumes. And maybe she did, but if she brought her own, just use her.

I would love to hear any common grammar mistakes you think I have left off the list!

Commas and the Law

Last week the Oxford comma made big news: a Maine trucking company was forced to pay overtime after the lack of a comma in a law was interpreted in favor of the truckers. Here is the blog post that talks about that article.

I researched a bit and found that there are several famous stories where punctuation has been crucial to interpretation of a law.

First, there is the “comma defense.” Was it going to be life in prison or the death penalty for Clifford L. Robinson? The federal sentencing code reads, “. . . death or life in prison, or a fine or both . . .” A fine for murder?  Read more about this case here.

Then there is the case of the comma versus the hyphen that cost America about $40 million in an 1872 tariff act. This was one item in a list of items that were exempt from taxes:

Fruit, plants tropical and semi-tropical for the purpose of propagation or cultivation

The way the item is written seems to say that fruits are free of tariff. Not so. The comma should have been a hyphen! 

Fruit-plants, tropical and semi-tropical . . .” 

Aha! So fruit is not free! Here is the rest of the story.

The next comma story concerns the always controversial Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That second comma (the one I have put in red) caused the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down DC’s ban on handguns.  They said that the comma divided the amendment into clauses. I personally have some problems with the whole thing: Where is the hyphen in well-regulated? Why are militia, state, and arms initial capped? And I don’t really understand the two-clauses bit. The whole thing makes no sense to me as written. It isn’t even a correct sentence. I would use just one comma, the one in red. Then, at least the sentence makes some sense! What do you think? Here is the article.

The final story here is one that cost a Canadian company about a million bucks. The story is about a dispute between Rogers Communications of Toronto, a cable television provider, and Bell Aliant, a telephone company. The dispute concerns a contract that runs for five years and automatically renews for another five years until a telephone company cancels the agreement before the start of the final 12 months. Here is the sentence in question:

“This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year notice in writing by either party.” 

It was concluded that the second comma meant that the part of the sentence describing the one-year notice for cancellation applied to both the first and second sections of the sentence. That seems pretty obvious. Here is the article.

Warning: Watch your punctuation — or write more clearly and avoid legalese!

 

Grammar Diva News

I am in the middle of writing my next book, The Best Little Dictionary of Confused Words and Malapropisms. It should be out by May or June. It is the third and final book in the series with The Best Little Grammar Book Ever (second edition) and The Best Little Grammar Workbook Ever. Each book can be purchased and used separately, but I may also package them as a set.
I will be speaking to the Novato Sunrise chapter of the Rotary club in April.
Both the Mt. Diablo and Fremont chapters of California Writers Club have invited me to speak. I will be speaking to Mt. Diablo in November (I think) and Fremont in 2018. Seems so far away! (because it is)

If you have any ideas for blog posts or questions or comments, please contact me!

 

Oxford Comma Makes the News!

Well, there is one company in Maine that now cares about the Oxford comma! I had a related topic in mind for today’s post anyway, so when I saw this article (and several people sent it to me) I knew I had to write about it. 

The Oxford, otherwise known as the “series” comma, is one of the more controversial grammar topics. A 2014 survey (who would think anyone would survey people’s opinions about the Oxford comma!) showed that 57 percent of  Americans surveyed were in favor of the comma, and 43 percent were opposed.

So, if you haven’t read the story, a Maine company was faced with a class-action lawsuit about overtime pay for their truck drivers due to the interpretation of a written law. These drivers distribute perishable food items. Here is the sentence (it isn’t even a complete sentence ) in question — to which overtime pay does NOT apply: 

“The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of…”

The only thing the drivers do as part of their regular job is distribute.  If the comma were there, the law reads, “The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, or distribution…” Aha! Here we see that with the comma, distribution is a separate thing, and there is no overtime. But when we leave the comma out (as it is in the official law), the last item in the series is packing for shipment or distribution. Clarified, this item would be packing for shipment or packing for distribution. There is no overtime for packing, but they don’t pack; they distribute. So all is good and they receive overtime.

Another thing to notice in the series is that all the items end in -ing (gerunds, we call them). If distribution were the last item in the series, it would not be parallel with all the other items: canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing (for shipment), distribution. While sometimes mistakenly written in a nonparallel way, the items  in the series should all be parallel; therefore, there is yet another grounds to interpret the last item as packing for shipment or distribution, since this preserves the parallelism in the writing.

The appeals court reversed a lower court decision. The appeals court said that the lack of a comma raised sufficient uncertainty to take the side of the drivers.

David G. Webbert, a lawyer who represented the drivers, said, “That comma would have sunk our ship.” That simple little Oxford comma would have made distribution a separate item in the series and disqualified them from overtime pay for distribution, which is their job.

The Maine Legislative Drafting Manual specifically instructs lawmakers to NOT use the Oxford comma. So it is really unclear as to whether “packing for shipment or distribution of” is one item or two. We can assume either that the words are two items with no Oxford comma (no overtime pay), or one item where no comma would be used anyway (overtime pay). Either way, the series follows the Manual’s rule of no Oxford comma, and the Oakhurst Dairy could be out $10 million!

I personally am pro Oxford comma, and I don’t understand what the big deal about using it is. I know there are people who overuse commas, sprinkling them over their writing like salt . . . however, the Oxford comma, in my opinion, is not an overuse. It often clarifies: I would like to thank my parents, Steve Martin and Jimmy Fallon. (??) See?

Grammar Diva News

Please check out the guest blog post I wrote for The Language Lab in Toronto.

Yes, it is free! The Kindle edition of my first book!

 

 

 

“Exception”al Verbs- Part 2

Two weeks ago I posted the first part of this topic — verbs that are exceptions to the rule in forming the past tense and the past participle. This post is the conclusion of the two-part series.

Verbs have several forms. Three of them are

The base, or what we use for the present tense — walk 
The past tense, or what we use for simple past tense — walked
The past participle, or what we use for the perfect tenses — (have, had, will have) walked

The verb walk is regular. It simply adds -ed for the past tense and the past participle. 

Obviously, if a verb already ends in e, we simply add the d — bake/baked. Still considered a regular verb.

If a verb ends in y, we change the y to an i before adding ed — study/studied. Still considered a regular verb.

Irregular verbs break those rules. Some irregular verbs have two different spellings for those three forms. The past tense and the past participle are the same:

build/built/have built
lend/lent/have lent
lay/laid/have laid

Other irregular verbs have three different spellings for those three forms. Those are the irregular verbs that cause the most problems and that were the focus of Part 1 of this blog post. 

go/went/have gone
swim, swam, have swum
drink/drank/have drunk
write/wrote/have written

This post talks about the other category of irregular verbs: those that don’t change at all from present tense to past tense to present participle.  Here are some of those verbs:

bet – I bet today/ I bet yesterday/I have bet every day.
burst – The boy bursts his balloon/An hour ago the boy burst his balloon/The boy said he has burst his balloon.
cost – It costs a dollar/Yesterday it cost a dollar/Every day it has cost a dollar.
cut – He cuts his hair/Yesterday he cut his hair/Every month he has cut his hair.
fit – I fit into a size 10/Yesterday I fit into a size 10/Every summer I have fit into a size 10. (But if your suit comes in at the waist, it is fitted. Go figure.)
hit – She hits a home run/Yesterday she hit a home run/Every game this season she has hit a home run.
hurt – She hurt my feelings/Yesterday she hurt my feelings/Every time we argue she has hurt my feelings.
let – Let the cat in/Yesterday I let the cat in/Every night this week I have let the cat in.
put -Put lemon in the cake/Yesterday I put lemon in the cake/I have always put lemon in the cake.
shut – I shut my eyes/A minute ago I shut my eyes/I have shut my eyes and fallen asleep every evening.
set – Set the flowers on the table/She set the flowers on the table/She has set the flowers on the table for you.
shed – My dog sheds/This morning my dog shed all over my coat/My dog has shed all over the carpet since I got her.
slit – Slit the top of the bag off/Yesterday she slit the top of the bag/Mistakenly she has slit the top of the bag.
split – Split the donut in two/This morning I split the donut in two/Every morning I have split my donut in two.
spread – I spread jam on my toast/A few minutes ago I spread jam on my toast/Every morning for as long as I can remember,  I have spread jam on my toast.

Yes, some of those sample sentences sound a little odd, especially the present tense. We generally use the progressive present tense: I am letting the cat in. I am splitting the donut in two. Some of those present tense sentences actually sound like past tense. They are just examples to show the forms that do not change. 

Then there are these verbs:

knit — The past and past participle forms can be knit or knitted.
rid — The past participle form can be either rid or ridded
spit — The past  tense and past participle can be either spit or spat.
read — The spelling is the same for all three forms, but the pronunciation changes; in the past tense and past participle, the ea sounds like a short e (unlike lead, where the past tense spelling changes to led).

The difference in usage between the past tense and the present perfect tense (the second the third sentences in each example) has been covered in a previous post about tenses.

Fabulous and Fun! It’s National Grammar Day!

George Bush’s letter about National Grammar Day

March 4  is National Grammar Day, and this is our National Grammar Day Post — enjoy!

Facts 

National Grammar Day was established in 2008 by Martha Brockenbough. Who is she? She is the author of  Things That Make Us (Sic) and the founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. As you see, President George Bush sent a letter commemorating the day.

Fears

Although there is no “grammarphobia” (fear of grammar) or “punctuatiophobia,” here are some things that might make National Grammar Day scary:

allodoxaphobia – fear of opinions

bibliophobia – fear of books

didaskaleinophobia – fear of going to school

epistemophobia and gnosiophobia – fear of knowledge

graphophobia – fear of writing

lalophobia – fear of speaking

logophobia – fear of words

metrophobia – fear of poetry

papyrophobia – fear of paper

scolionophobia – fear of school

scriptophobia – fear of writing in public

sesquipedalophobia and hippomonstrosesquipedalophobia – fear of long words

Faves

On the other hand, celebrants of National Grammar Day might have these traits:

bibliophile – lover of books

logophile – lover of words

philologist – lover of words

philosopher – lover of knowledge

Fests

Here are some other holidays you might want to celebrate:

January 23 – National Handwriting Day

February 5 – World Nutella Day (irrelevant, but who can leave it out!)

February 14 – Library Lovers Day

March 2 – Read Across America Day

March 8  – National Proofreading Day

March 13 – Smart and Sexy Day

April 2 – International Children’s Book Day

April 13 – Scrabble Day

April 14 – Dictionary Day

April 23 – English Language Day/ Talk Like Shakespeare Day (and his birthday)

May – Take a break

June – You need a longer break

July 17 – World Emoji Day

July 31 –  Paperback Book Day

August 2 –  National Coloring Book Day

September 8 – International Literacy Day

September 24 – National Punctuation Day

October 5 – World Teachers Day

October 18 – Dictionary Day

November 1 – National Authors’ Day

December 21 – Crossword Puzzle Day

Fanfare

Ways to celebrate National Grammar Day:

Buy a grammar book (hint, hint)
Buy a grammar mug or tee-shirt
Drink a grammartini:

—————————-

The Grammartini

National Grammar Day founder, Martha Brockenbrough, shares her grammartini recipe: 

2 1/2 oz gin

1/2 oz dry vermouth 

1 green olive (Some people use lemon.)

Pour the ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice cubes. 

Stir  or shake for 30 seconds. 

Strain into a martini glass.

Drink

—————————-

Faux Pas

Here are two ways NOT to celebrate National Grammar Day (even after you have drunk a grammartini or two).

Correct a friend’s grammar on social media.
Correct a friend’s grammar in person.

Famous Words 

“Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense but the past perfect!” ~Attributed to both Owens Lee Pomeroy (1929–2008) and Robert Orben (b.1927)

“Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know about grammar is its infinite power.” ~Joan Didion, “Why I Write,” 1976

“A double negative is a no-no. ” ~Author unknown

“Do not be surprised when those who ignore the rules of grammar also ignore the law. After all, the law is just so much grammar.” ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Quotes courtesy of  The Quote Garden. 

 

Happy National Grammar Day, Everyone!

Next Week:  Part 2 of the “Exception”al Verbs

 

“Exception”al Verbs- Part 1

Don’t be mislead by the title of this post. We are not talking about verbs that are so exceptional that you should use them. We are talking about verbs that are exceptions to the rule. And often there are more exceptions than rules!

Specifically, we are talking about the three forms of a verb. They are used to form various tenses, but we are not talking tenses here. For more information about when to use each tense, refer back to  this blog post or this one.

Verbs have three forms:

Present tense: for example, walk
Past tense: for example, walked
Past participle: for example have walked (had walked, will have walked)

The “rule” (to put it loosely) is to add -ed to a present tense to make a past tense and a past participle: walked.

If the verb already ends in an e, all you have to do is add the d: bake/baked.

If the verb ends in a y, generally we turn the y into an i and add -ed: study/studied.

Many verbs do not follow this rule. Some of them have some type of “other” form that stays the same in both past and past participle forms. Here are some of those:

sit, sat, have sat
lead, led, have led
bring, brought, have brought (as a kid, I did think it was brang and brung!)
hang, hung, have hung
lay, laid, have laid
teach, taught, have taught
catch, caught, have caught
build, built, have built

You get the idea. And most of the time, people don’t have a problem with these. However, there are many verbs that have three different forms. The present is different from the past, which is different from the past participle. And with many of these verbs, people keep using the past tense form for the past participle. And I am writing this post because I am tiring of hearing it. My seventh grade students were big offenders, but many educated adults I know or have heard speak do the same thing. 

You will know what I mean by this list. Here are some common of the more common mistakes:

I ate , but I have eaten . Not I have ate some cake.
I began , but I have begun . Not I have began my speech.
I bit, but I have bitten . Not I have bit into the cookie.
I broke , but I have broken . Not I have broke the vase..
I chose , but I have chosen. Not I have chose that dress.
I drank , but I have drunk . Not I have drank all the water.
I forgave , but I have forgiven . Not I have forgave her for lying.
I froze , but I have frozen . Not I have froze the leftovers.
I rode , but I have ridden . Not I have rode a horse before.
I rang , but I have rung . Not I have rang the doorbell.
I ran , but I have run . Not I have ran a mile.
I sang , but I have sang . Not I have sang  in front of an audience.
I sank, but I have sunk . Not I have sank when I tried to swim.
I spoke , but I have spoken . Not I have spoke to her about it.
I stole , but I have stolen . Not I have stole the letters.
I swam , but I have swum . Not I have swam every day this week.
I wrote , but I have written . Not I have wrote him a letter.
I went, but I have gone . Not I have went to work today.

Those are some of the common ones that people tend to misspeak and miswrite. Although I have used the pronoun I with all the examples, of course the verb is the same with you, he, she, they, them, it, and we.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week. 

Grammar Diva News and Such

I will be the featured speaker at Napa Valley Writers, a branch of the California Writers Club, on Wednesday evening, March 8. 

Is there something you would like to see written about on this blog? Please send me an e-mail and let me know.

Do you have a favorite grammar/punctuation/language pet peeve? Send an e-mail, and maybe I will get enough new ones to do a new post about them.

Is there something you would like to say to this audience? Send me an e-mail about writing a guest post for this blog.

The e-mail is info@bigwords101.com.

 

 

Yes, We ALL Need to Proofread!

Proofread!

Every week I send out a blog post that I have proofread — at least once, but probably twice — and still, I get word from my readers that the post contains a typo. It is embarrassing, especially for someone like me, whose business is words and using them properly. I promise I will proofread this post at least twice!

The point is that we all need to proofread our writing, whether it is a written business letter, an e-mail memo, an advertisement, a social media post, or even a tweet. Oh, and it goes without saying that we authors need to proofread our books a zillion times.

Disclaimer: This is not a political or partisan post, but it will likely turn out looking like one! So, here we go . . .

When my writing contains a typo, my readers may notice and tell me about it. Social media and the internet in general have made errors much more public. I have a fair amount of readers of my books, my posts, etc. HOWEVER, when the leader of the free (well, so far it is still free ) world and his administration make mistakes, it is Big News — at least on the opposing political side (which is what I am familiar with), a side that is substantial.

I started to collect some of the things I heard about on the news, and then I researched a few other “typos” recently made by our current administration. 

I use the word “typo” loosely. There are a couple of different things that can be called  “typos,” sometimes euphemistically. 

Sometimes two letters are reversed. Sometimes the finger just lands on an adjacent key by mistake. Sometimes a word is repeated, or one is left out. Sometimes, maybe the wrong punctuation mark is typed. Okay, sometimes, perhaps the wrong “to” is used. These are typos.
Sometimes something is simply spelled incorrectly. Or the wrong punctuation mark is used, creating a grammatical mistake or something so unclear it is unreadable. Sometimes, people make up words. These are not typos; these are mistakes.
And then, of course, there is “fake grammar,” “fake punctuation,” and “fake spelling,” but these don’t exist.

Here is just a sampling of “They should know better”: (They means the president unless it says otherwise.)

Lead is in pencils. The past tense of the verb lead is led.
President and precedent are two different words with very different meanings, although they are both nouns. (I will give him that.)
Bigly or big league? I don’t know. Apparently, it is big league, since bigly is not a word. However, I heard big league used where it really didn’t sound right. Bigly — if it were a word — would probably be an adverb. Big league seems like an adjective when the two words are used together. For example, “The crime in Chicago is big league.” I wish I remembered the context to which I am referring, but I don’t.
Non-sense? Ah, no. It is nonsense. (nonfiction, nonfat, etc.)
Look-up is not hyphenated as a verb. For example, “I am going to look up this phone number.” However, I saw it used as such.
I saw nucular in a Tweet. I don’t think that is a typo!
“SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE.” That sentence would be a run on — a comma splice, to be exact. And besides, it is shouting when you use all caps.
Names of the leaders of our allies should be checked to make sure they are spelled correctly. It is Theresa May of Great Britain, not Teresa May.
Okay. This is kind of a tough one, but the Secretary of Education should be more careful! It is W.E.B. Du Bois, not DeBois. Would you like it if I called you Betty Du Vois instead of Betsy DeVos?
Oh, and then she sent apologizes instead of apologies.
The inaugural poster has been withdrawn from sale. Why? “No dream is too big. No challenge is to great . . . “ I guess the challenge of using the correct to was too great.
The word congressman should be capitalized.
A tweet said pervail instead of prevail. Typo or misspelling?  You be the judge.

If you can figure out the meaning of either of the following two passages, please let me know!

“There’s nothing that would conclude me — that anything different has changed with respect to that time period.” — Sean Spicer

“Today I have authorized lethal drone strikes against Jerry Brown, a Colorado marijuana dealer and Miss Universe 1996.”  — Donald Trump

Proofread, proofread, proofread —  and let someone else look at what you have written!

Addendum: Frederick Douglass died in 1895, I believe. His last name is spelled with two ss‘s (I am not implying here that anyone spelled it incorrectly), and if his last name is made possessive, with three ss‘s. (Frederick Douglass’s hat). Just saying . . .

 

A Little Review of the POS (not the POTUS)

POTUS? President of the United States.

POS? Parts of speech.

Yes, I know you learned the parts of speech in school, but we are going to review and then have a “challenge.”

It depends whom you ask as to how many parts of speech there are in the English language. I say eight. It is usually about eight. I guess it depends how you group some of them.

The parts of speech are the categories into which words are put, depending on the role they play in a sentence (or a phrase). Many words fall into more than one category, depending on how they are used in a particular sentence. Here are the eight parts of speech:

1. Noun – Person, place, thing, or idea (you probably remember that one!): school, dog, boy, computer, happiness; proper nouns: Golden Gate Bridge, California , Susan

2. Verb – Action or state of being: to run, to study, to eat, to be, to look, to think.

3. Pronoun – (not to be confused with a proper noun, which begins with a capital letter and is a noun) A word that takes the place of a noun: he, them, us, everyone, this, those, himself, what, which.

*All you need to have a complete sentence is a noun (or pronoun) and a verb: I read. Actually, you don’t even need the noun or pronoun in the case of a command: Sit. In this case the subject is implied and is you (You sit.)*

4. Adjective – Describes a noun or another adjective: red, pretty, terrible, this, many. I group the articles (a, an, and the) with the adjectives, since they do modify nouns.

 blue dress (describes a noun)
bright blue dress (describes another adjective)

5. Adverb – Describes a verb, another adverb, or an adjective. Tells how, where, when, to what extent:  slowly, then, now, too, very

talk slowly (describes a verb)
very slowly (describes another adverb)
very blue (describes an adjective)

6. Preposition – Always appears as part of prepositional phrase. The phrase tells what kind, where, or when: in, out, below, with, by, for, along, to, at.

in the house
out the door
down the slide
along the river
at school
by the same author
after the party
with stripes

7. Conjunction – Joins two words, phrases, clauses, or sentences: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (FANBOYS)

tiny, yet strong
Jack and Jill 
chicken or fish?
I can’t go, so you can have my ticket.

8. Interjection – Usually an exclamatory word, but can be followed by a comma or an exclamation point: gosh, well, oh, darn, yikes, wow

Wow! Look at the size of that cat!
Oh, I have seen that cat before.

As I said earlier, many words can function as two or more different parts of speech,depending on how they are used:

play

I saw a play last night. (noun)
I play tennis every weekend. (verb)
I set up a play date for Jimmy. (adjective)

well

Timmy’s in the well! (noun)
I did well on the test. (adverb)
Well, how did you figure that out? (interjection)

So, that is our POS review. Here is the challenge: I used to teach the parts of speech to my 7th graders — not that they hadn’t learned it before — and to make it more fun, I had to give them something interesting to do.

Can you make a sentence that uses each part of speech only once? Your sentence would be eight words. Well, if you really think, you can see why this might not be possible. You can do it in 10 or 11 words because something has to repeat. Or does it? HINT: If you break a grammar rule — one that is sort of okay to break these days, you can do it. When you have figured it out, and written your eight-word sentence,  scroll down for the answer:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, so sneaky Nancy secretly waited for him.

Oh – interjection
so – conjunction
sneaky – adjective
Nancy – noun
secretly – adverb
waited – noun
for – preposition
him – pronoun

Problem: The major problem is the conjunction, which connects things, meaning you might have to put in two nouns. The rule that I broke is starting the sentence with the conjunction (so) instead of having it connect two things. It is sort of breaking a rule, but in informal writing, it’s fine to do.

But look:

Well, wait for her and very tall Joe.

Here, I avoided the issue by writing a command. That way I could avoid using the noun or pronoun as the subject and could use them as the prepositional objects and not have to repeat a noun or pronoun. So that is another way to do it.

Such challenges keeps the brain in good working order! If you have any other solutions or just sentences you have created, just send a comment!

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Grammar Diva News:

I will be the guest speaker at the March 8 meeting of the Napa Valley Writers, a chapter of California Writers Club. Looking forward to it!

 

 

 

Wh*t Did You Say? Symbols for C*ss Words

We are all familiar with the “bleeping” out of curse words on television and radio — well, most television and radio —  under FCC rules. Sometimes there is a beep, sometimes silence, but the terminology has changed from beep to “bleep.”

In writing, symbols are generally used to take the place of curse words, swears, cuss words — whatever you want to call them.

Often we see an asterisk to replace letters, especially vowels in the middle of a “bad” word (for example sh*t or f*ck).

However, there is no set rule. Much of the time a random series of symbols is used to replace an unspecified swear word, where the reader can supply  his or her own word.  Some common symbols used are %!@?, but you can pretty much do what you want there.

So either one of these is fine:

You’re such an %!@?!
“You’re such an a***hole!

Note that in the second bullet point, the number of asterisks doesn’t match the number of letters left out. That seems to be okay too, although a**hole would suffice, I am sure.

And yes, there is a word for this type of swearing! Actually two words: grawlix and profanitype.

This particular type of profanity is older than the “bleep,” and was first seen in comic books..

In a 1964 article for the National Cartoonist Society, Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker coined the term grawlix, which now refers to the string of  symbols that sometimes stands in for profanity. Anger and swearing is common in comics, but often not appropriate — thus grawlix.

We can go even farther back. Strings of various symbols were seen in the speech balloons of print comic strips as early as the 1880s! This early use was in  Rudolph Dirks’ The Katzenjammer Kids comic in the New York Journal. 

When spoken, the grawlix is read as “bleep.” Who remembers that movie What the Bleep Do We Know? some years ago — that movie about quantum physics taken from the book The Secret?

Of course, there is an alternative to the audio bleep or the visual grawlix: replacing the unacceptable words with gentler words, such as jerk (for a**hole) or freaking or frigging  or even f-ing (for f*cking) or gosh or darn for the now-mild damn, or jeepers for sh*t!

Your choice! @@!%#