1. Correct speling is a Must.
2. “Just between you and I” is a Mustn’t. It’s as much of a Mustn’t as “They
telephoned she.”
3. Be sure to never split an infinitive.
4. Don’t dangle with participles: “Running for the bus, a taxi hit my uncle.”
5. The difference between “teach” and “learn” should learn you to pay attention.
Teachers don’t have to pay attention, so they don’t learn; they just teach.
6. When studying grammar, a spiral notebook of well-lined pages are useful.
(This shows that subjects and verbs are enemies.)
7. Don’t never use no double negative. Triple negative are even worst.
8. Always make a pronoun agree with their referent.
9. Beware of the “them-those” trap. For instance, don’t write, “Them apples are
rotten” if they are not.
10. Many people love to use commas, which are not necessary. For instance, “She
ate, the fool” is a comment. “She ate the fool” is correct, if she is a
cannibal.
11. One of the trickiest points in punctuation is to use apostrophe’s correctly.
They are as sensitive as measle’s.
12. Never use “real” when you mean “very.” Therefore: “She is real stupid” shows
that you are very stupid. (This point is real important.)
13. Adjectives are not adverbs. Write careful. (I know that’s hardly.)
14. Question marks can be dynamite. Use them carefully. “You sure are pretty?”
means you are not sure I am pretty. That is an insult.
15. Many a student is undone by “who” and “whom.”
a. “’Whom are you?’ she asked, for she had gone to night school.”
b. If you write “Who’s hand is stroking my thigh?” you’ll never know who’s
pulling whose leg. Such information can be valuable.
16. Avoid the excessive use of exclamation points!!!! It is silly to write,
“Yesterday, I woke up!!!” because that suggests that today you did not, which is
probably true.
17. When you want to say something that indicates anyone, or all of us, the
pronoun “one” is better than “he” or “she.” “One never knows, do one?”
18. Observe the difference between “don’t” and “doesn’t.” It’s shocking to hear
so many high school graduates say “He don’t care.” What they mean, of course, is
“I don’t care.” Their grades proved it.
19. Never write, “heighth” or “weighth.” They just are not righth.
20. Avoid confusion. “How the hippopotamus are you?”
21. “Irregardless” is not in the dictionary. “Hopefully” is – and I hope to God
you never use it.
22. Don’t use “neither” when you mean “either.” Either use “neither” correctly
or don’t use it at all. And don’t use “either” if you mean “ether” neither.
23. Guard against absurd and unnecessary repetitions. This here rule is
especially important for new beginners.
24. A real booby trap to avoid is “when” – especially when a sentence like “I do
not deny I wasn’t afraid” occurs when you mean “I won’t deny I was afraid.” Most
writers are, so they master syntax, which is the only tax that doesn’t cost
money.
25. Don’t forget the crucial difference between “lie” and “lay.”
a. the former takes no object (“I lie in bed”) but the latter must (“Lay that
pistol down, mother”);
b. “To lie” means to express something not true: “to lay” means expressing
something more urgent.
Got it? Now, memorize these laws, plus one more: Be sure to reread anything you
write to make sure you don’t accidentally any words out.
Language is a virus from outer space. - William S Burroughs
A proverb is to speech what salt is to food. - Arabic Proverb
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. - Francis Bacon
A story is told as much by silence as by speech. - Susan Griffin
I will not down to posterity talking bad grammar. - Benjamin Disraeli
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Fraquhar Tupper
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. - Christopher Morley
Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war. - Lindsey Graham
The art of communication is the language of leadership. - James Humes
All poetry is a reproduction of the tones of actual speech. - Robert Frost
You don't have good grammar when you type with your fists. - C.F. Payne
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. - William Butler Yeats
England and America are two countries separated by a common language. - George Bernard Shaw
Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power. - Joan Didion
Symptoms are the body's mother tongue; signs are in a foreign language. - John Brown
If we are a country committed to free speech, then why do we have phone bills? - Steven Wright
A bore is one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation. - Benjamin Desraeli
Three problems we have: lack of boundaries, insufficient language, incompletions. - Thomas Leonard
Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect. - Owens L. Pomeroy
My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. - Jimmy Durante
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. - Marshall Lumsden
A person's name is, to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language. - Dale Carnegie
The first man to use abusive language instead of his fists was the founder of civilization. - Sigmund Freud
Language is our meeting place, the sea we live in…it is the common ground of our humanity. - Toby Wolfe
Grammar, which knows how to lord it over kings, and with high hands makes them obey its laws. - Moliere
Every St. Patrick's Day every Irishman goes out to find another Irishman to make a speech to. - Unknown
German is the most extravagantly ugly language - it sounds like someone using a sick bag on a 747. - Willy Rushton
Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world. - Alison Lurie
Although he tortures the English language, he has not yet succeeded in forcing it to reveal its meaning. - J B Morton
Violence of language leads to violence of action. Angry men seldom fight if their tongues do not lead the fray. - Charles V Roman
Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone. - Unknown
Charity, good behaviour, amiable speech, unselfishness - these by the chief sage have been declared the elements of popularity. - Burmese Proverb
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are,
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. - Nelson Mandela
Heard about the young deaf boy who used sign language?
One day he told his mother a dirty joke and she washed his hands out with soap. - Red Skelton
I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy. - Bertrand Russell
No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right. - Kirk Douglas
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
see also Language Section
Books Never Written
Commas Save Lives
Cyberbulbs
Does A Double Positive Equal A Negative?
Double Negative Education
First Impressions
Fluent Sarcasm
I Like Cooking
Little Johnny’s Beautiful Examples
One Thousand Words
Practice Safe Text
Punctuation Matters
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30-Mar-2020 |