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.
The eyes have one language everywhere. - George Herbert
Music is the universal language of mankind. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A proverb is to speech what salt is to food. - Arabic Proverb
I am the Roman Emperor and am above grammar. - Emperor Sigismund
Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. - Charles de Talleyrand
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Fraquhar Tupper
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. - Christopher Morley
The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. - Clifton Fadiman
A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence. - Pythagoras
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. - Larry Wall
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
There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting. - John Millington Synge
To a child's ear, 'mother' is magic in any language. - Arlene Benedict
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. - William Butler Yeats
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so. - Gore Vidal
Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. - Alphonse de Lamartine
If you're a good numbers person, you're a bad language person. - Frank Luntz
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together. - Max Eastman
Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech. - Evangel
Symptoms are the body's mother tongue; signs are in a foreign language. - John Brown
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
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. - Soren Kierkegaard
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. - Ezra Pound
The first man to use abusive language instead of his fists was the founder of civilization. - Sigmund Freud
Officialese: A government language where you can understand the words, but not the sentences - Daffynitions joe-ks.com
Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world. - Noam Chomsky
Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. - Kahlil Gibran
The names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful. - A.S. Byatt
Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece - just different elements of belonging and not-belonging. - Jhumpa Lahiri
The longest word in the English language is the one following the phrase, "And now a word from our sponsor." - Hal Eaton
Thanksgiving is the language of heaven, and we had better start to learn it if we are not to be mere dumb aliens there. - AJ Gossip
Morals are an acquirement - like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis - no man is born with them. - Mark Twain
The ability to speak several languages is an asset, but the ability to keep your mouth shut in any language is priceless. - Unknown
The symbolic language of the crucifixion is the death of the old paradigm; resurrection is a leap into a whole new way of thinking. - Deepak Chopra
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
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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24-Jun-2021 |