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.
I am disappointment in you're grammar. - Unknown
A proverb is to speech what salt is to food. - Arabic Proverb
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. - Sir Francis Bacon
Tears at times have all the weight of speech. - Ovid
A story is told as much by silence as by speech. - Susan Griffin
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Fraquhar Tupper
Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. - Rita Mae Brown
Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. - Robert Benchley
The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. - Clifton Fadiman
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. - Lily Tomlin
There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting. - John Millington Synge
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
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. - Mark Twain
Symptoms are the body's mother tongue; signs are in a foreign language. - John Brown
A bore is one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation. - Benjamin Desraeli
The most beautiful words in the English language are "cheque enclosed". - Dorothy Parker
Speak when you're angry and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. - L.J. Peter
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. - Soren Kierkegaard
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. - Ingrid Bergman
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
Grammar: the difference between Feeling Your Nuts and Feeling You're Nuts. - Unknown
Language is our meeting place, the sea we live in…it is the common ground of our humanity. - Toby Wolfe
It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water. - Franklin P. Jones
Every St. Patrick's Day every Irishman goes out to find another Irishman to make a speech to. - Unknown
Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world. - Alison Lurie
The names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful. - A.S. Byatt
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
"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence? - George Carlin
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
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
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
 Easy Mopping |  African Lunch |  Structural Books |  Honda Boxer Engine |  Sick Tombstone |
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07-Dec-2019 |