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 silver; silence is golden. - Thomas Carlyle
A riot is the language of the unheard. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
A proverb is to speech what salt is to food. - Arabic Proverb
I am the Roman Emperor and am above grammar. - Emperor Sigismund
Music is well said to be the speech of angels. - Thomas Carlyle
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. - Xenocrates
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Fraquhar Tupper
Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. - Rita Mae Brown
The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. - Clifton Fadiman
All poetry is a reproduction of the tones of actual speech. - Robert Frost
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. - Lily Tomlin
A sage thing is timely silence, and better than any speech. - Plutarch
An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language. - Martin Buber
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so. - Gore Vidal
England and America are two countries separated by a common language. - George Bernard Shaw
Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. - Alphonse de Lamartine
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. - Thomas Carlyle
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
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. - Soren Kierkegaard
Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection. - Yakov Smirnoff
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
It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water. - Franklin P. Jones
German is the most extravagantly ugly language - it sounds like someone using a sick bag on a 747. - Willy Rushton
You're an old-timer if you can remember when setting the world on fire was a figure of speech. - Franklin P Jones
Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. - Kahlil Gibran
I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence. - Aeschylus
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
The longest word in the English language is the one following the phrase, "And now a word from our sponsor." - Hal Eaton
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
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are,
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan
"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence? - George Carlin
Music is a language that doesn't speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it's in the bones, it's in the bones. - Keith Richards
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-Sep-2020 |