Grammar, Punctuation, & Other Fairy Tales (The Brothers Grim)

Steve Whitmore June 2017 Grammar, Punctuation, & Other Fairy Tales (The Brothers Grim) Punctuation & Grammar 1 of 34

Learning Objectives By the end of this lecture, you will have completed the following tasks: Reviewed some basic terms in traditional grammar. Learned the 7 basic patterns of punctuation needed to generally master punctuation. Recognized that punctuation marks represent cognitive space. Learned about some special cases in punctuation that are relevant to academia. Concluded that English is a very weird language. Punctuation & Grammar 2 of 34

Some Facts about Grammar Grammar is simply a way to describe how words and phrases relate to each other. Traditional grammar is very poor at doing so (Linguistic grammars are better descriptively, but are incomprehensible to anyone but Linguists). Some studies indicate that university students (native speakers of English) taught grammar become worse at writing than those not taught. EAL/ESL speakers are usually better at grammar than native speakers. Punctuation & Grammar 3 of 34

A Recap: Nouns & Pronouns Nouns: Person, place, or thing Things: car, cat, soup People: doctor, professor, Mike Places: Vancouver, Stanley Park Abstractions: honesty, evil, beauty Pronouns: Substitute for nouns he, she, they, it Punctuation & Grammar 4 of 34

A Recap: Verbs Verbs: Describes action, state, or an occurrence Often called “action” words Core part of speech Often words become “verbed” with time A “trend” is now “to trend” and “trending” (and becoming a very irritating cliche – see Global News) Punctuation & Grammar 5 of 34

A Recap: Adjectives Adjectives: Modifies nouns Answers questions such as “How much?”, ”How many?”, “Which?” Different kinds: articles, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, possessive, indefinite, numerical, and descriptive Punctuation & Grammar 6 of 34

A Recap: Adverbs Adverbs: Modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, wordgroups A bit more tricky than adjectives Gently, quietly, then, there, fast, careful Punctuation & Grammar 7 of 34

A Recap: Prepositions & Articles Prepositions: Link words together, shows relations into, over, under, by, around, on, to, of Articles: Little words that drive people crazy Used with nouns A/an, the Punctuation & Grammar 8 of 34

A Recap: Conjunctions Conjunctions: Words that join other words, phrases, or clauses together Coordinating Conjunctions: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet Correlative Conjunctions: either or, both and, not only but also, Subordinating Conjunctions: after, although, because, rather than, whereas Punctuation & Grammar 9 of 34

The Strange Case of Up It is easy to understand up meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake up? At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up and why are the officers up for election and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report? We call up our friends. And we use it to brighten up a room, polish up the silver; we warm up the leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and some guys fix up the car. At other times, the little word has real special meaning. People stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed up is special. A drain must be opened up because it is stopped up. We open up a store in the morning, but we close it up at night. We seem to be pretty mixed up about up! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of up, look the word up in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes up almost a quarter of the page and can add up to about thirty definitions. If you are up to it, you might try building up a list of the many ways up is used. It will take up a lot of your time, but if you don't give up, you may wind up with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding up. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing up. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things up. When it doesn't rain, things dry up. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it up, because my time is up, so it is time to shut up! Now it is up to you what you do with this information. Up can act as a verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, or part of a compound noun. Punctuation & Grammar 10 of 34

Introduction to Punctuation Punctuation is used in English to show the relations between parts of a sentence. Court cases have been won and lost on the basis of the placement of a punctuation mark. Not an exact science – some usage is optional. Punctuation is boring to learn, but not that difficult if you follow a few simple rules. Punctuation & Grammar 11 of 34

Punctuation – The Ugly Dear John I want a man who knows what love is all about you are generous kind thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior you have ruined me for other men I yearn for you I have no feelings whatsoever when were apart I can be forever happy will you let me be yours Gloria Punctuation & Grammar 12 of 34

Punctuation – The Good Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy -will you let me be yours? Gloria Punctuation & Grammar 13 of 34

Punctuation – The Bad Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours, Gloria Punctuation & Grammar 14 of 34

Rules of Thumb for Punctuation Large Thumb: Punctuating where you pause when reading the sentence aloud (60-70% accurate). Small Thumb: Punctuating according to the grammatical rules (almost 100% accurate). Medium Thumb: Punctuating according to structural relationships (about 95% accurate). Tom Thumb Punctuation & Grammar 15 of 34

Basic Sentence S/V/O Subject/Verb/Object The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Punctuation & Grammar 16 of 34

Introductions Intro S/V/O After sighing loudly, the dog opened an eye and peered at the fox. Irritated by the fox's obvious arrogance as well as his overt disdain for his much deserved sleep and general peace of mind, the dog slowly got to his feet. However, the dog was not particularly concerned about the speed or agility of the fox. Although exceptionally lazy and dreadfully slow, the dog possessed a range of other skills and tricks that the fox could never hope to match. Persistence, intelligence, and experience -- these were areas where the dog excelled. Punctuation & Grammar 17 of 34

End of Line Distinctions S/V/O EOLD The dog knew that he could use his motorcycle to catch the fox, who was limited by the speed and endurance of his muscles. The dog obviously had another advantage: better technology. The fox had clearly underestimated the extent of the dog's technical advantages -- a blunder which might well prove fatal. Punctuation & Grammar 18 of 34

Insert S or S/V Insert V/O or O The dog's motorcycle, which had been modified last week, idled under a nearby tree. The ever-observant fox, recognizing his peril, raced toward the idling bike. The fox knew the motorcycle (i.e., a Yamaha 1200) possessed a top speed of 200 mph. The fox was afraid -- although he would never admit it -- that the dog would use the bike to catch him. Punctuation & Grammar 19 of 34

Punctuation As Cognitive Space / space , () -; : . ! ? ¶ Punctuation & Grammar 20 of 34

Balance S/V/O S/V/O The fox was hoping that he could steal the bike and make his getaway, but the wily dog had outsmarted him when he modified the bike last week. Only now did the dog's foresight become apparent: he pulled out his remote control and turned off the bike. The fox now realized he had misjudged the dog; however, he still didn't recognize the full extent of his miscalculation. The dog pulled out another remote; he pushed a button, and a net fell from the tree. Punctuation & Grammar 21 of 34

List/Parallel S/V or S/V/O Item Item Item The net helped the dog to trap, embarrass, and marinate the fox. The fox tried to escape the trap in three ways: by crawling through the mesh, by tearing apart the cords, and by pulling off the net. All the fox's attempts were to no avail because the dog had planned his trap in great detail: he purchased a net with an extremely fine mesh; he reinforced the net with very strong cords; and he coated the net with a gooey mixture of honey and oregano. The dog had the utensils to sauté, braise, and roast the fox using a frypan, a pressure cooker and a dutch oven, and a spit, respectively. Punctuation & Grammar 22 of 34

Short Quotation S/V/O Quotation In his recipe book, Fox Gumbo, which was published a year later, the dog noted that “a fox marinated in honey and oregano is one of the world's finest gustatory experiences.” In the same volume, he pointed out that speed and agility are not the most important things when trying to catch a fox: “All that you really need is a motorcycle, a remote control, a net, and, of course, a really stupid fox.” Punctuation & Grammar 23 of 34

Long Quotation S/V/O Quotation However, as his memoirs indicate, he later changed his assessment of fox intelligence: As I reflect upon my success as the author of canine cookbooks, there's one point I want to clarify. Foxes aren't particularly stupid; it's just that dogs are especially smart! Punctuation & Grammar 24 of 34

A Couple of Special Cases e.g., (exempli gratia for example); i.e., (id est that is) Generally only used inside parentheses Use full term, “For example” or “that is”, at beginnings of sentences et al. (et alii and others) multiple authors in references Hyphens vs. Dashes Use -- (double hyphens) or (n-dash) or (m-dash), but not - (single hyphen) Autocorrect in MS Word can do this for you Use a single space after the period (not two spaces) Two spaces is a holdover from typewriters made unnecessary by proportionally spaced fonts APA is a few decades behind the times Punctuation & Grammar 25 of 34

A Couple More Special Cases it’s versus its: It’s is a contraction (it is), like don’t, can’t, etc. Its is a possessive pronoun (like his or hers) Never use contractions in formal prose, and you’ll never get confused because you’ll only use its ;-) “, which” problem: “Environmental groups, which have no respect for industry, annoy her.” (non-restrictive clause) “Environmental groups which have no respect for industry annoy her.” (restrictive clause) Test by substituting that MS Word always assumes non-restrictive usage Distinction is rapidly disappearing from common usage Punctuation & Grammar 26 of 34

Say What? “Long about 2009, when -- make note -- Microsoft is really supposed to have Windows 7, the Vista rev, penciled in, its vaunted, if still unreleased, Hyper-V hypervisor is supposed to cease being an add-on and get sucked up into Windows Server.” This sentence was found on the internet; grammatically correct, it is cognitively incomprehensible: Introductory phrase start dependent clause inserted phrase continue dependent clause inserted phrase finish dependent clause start independent clause inserted phrase finish independent clause. Punctuation & Grammar 27 of 34

MS Word Grammar Checker FILE Options Proofing Check “Show readability statistics” Choose “Grammar & Style” Then click “Settings” Revising Strategies 28 of 34

Grammar Checker Settings FILE Options Proofing Settings Recommended Choose appropriate options Revising Strategies 29 of 34

Contrasting Readability Statistics A Pretentious Journalist? Revising Strategies A Humble Engineer? 30 of 34

A Pretentious Journalist? Revising Strategies 31 of 34

A Humble Engineer? Revising Strategies 32 of 34