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.
Speech is the small change of silence. - George Meredith
Dance is the hidden language of the soul. - Martha Graham
Tears at times have all the weight of speech. - Ovid
A story is told as much by silence as by speech. - Susan Griffin
I will not down to posterity talking bad grammar. - Benjamin Disraeli
Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. - Charles de Talleyrand
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. - Christopher Morley
Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. - Rita Mae Brown
You don't have good grammar when you type with your fists. - C.F. Payne
An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language. - Martin Buber
Reality can be lost when reason and language have been violated. - Ravi Zacharias
Changes in language often reflect the changing values of a culture. - Ravi Zacharias
Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. - Alphonse de Lamartine
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power. - Joan Didion
Dreams say what they mean, but they don't say it in daytime language. - Gail Godwin
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
Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect. - Owens L. Pomeroy
We really have everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language. - Oscar Wilde
Speak when you're angry and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. - L.J. Peter
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.
I never made a mistake in grammar but once in my life, and as soon as I done it. I seen it. - Carl Sandburg
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech. - George Bernard Shaw
If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise, we do not believe in it at all. - Noam Chomsky
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
Although he tortures the English language, he has not yet succeeded in forcing it to reveal its meaning. - J B Morton
The names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful. - A.S. Byatt
Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone. - Unknown
If the English language made any sense, 'lackadaisical' would have something to do with a shortage of flowers. - Doug Larson
The longest word in the English language is the one following the phrase, "And now a word from our sponsor." - Hal Eaton
The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited. - Alan Kay
Morals are an acquirement - like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis - no man is born with them. - Mark Twain
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. - Robert G Ingersoll
Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends. - Mary Catherwood
Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else. - C S Lewis
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
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
 Hide and Seek |  Hoodie Onesy |  Going Around In Circles |  Whiskey Jig |  Redneck Mercedes |
 Hala Fruit |  Hydro Water Power |  Selfie Shoes |  Tons Of Anarchy |  Science World |
 Da Hood Shirt |  What Do You See? - Part III |  ThaiTanic |  Aging Mermaid |  Get Along Shirt |
 Bruce Lee Coffee |  Dry Satellite |  Carving The Turkey |  Don't Break The Window |  Nike Coffin |
20-Oct-2020 |