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.
A riot is the language of the unheard. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech is the small change of silence. - George Meredith
Dance is the hidden language of the soul. - Martha Graham
I am disappointment in you're grammar. - Unknown
A proverb is to speech what salt is to food. - Arabic Proverb
Tears at times have all the weight of speech. - Ovid
Music is well said to be the speech of angels. - Thomas Carlyle
A story is told as much by silence as by speech. - Susan Griffin
I will not down to posterity talking bad grammar. - Benjamin Disraeli
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Fraquhar Tupper
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. - Christopher Morley
Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war. - Lindsey Graham
Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. - Rita Mae Brown
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
We need a president who's fluent in at least one language. - Buck Henry
There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting. - John Millington Synge
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - 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
Three problems we have: lack of boundaries, insufficient language, incompletions. - Thomas Leonard
I personally think we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain. - Jane Wagner
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
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. - Ezra Pound
At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. - Marshall Lumsden
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 first man to use abusive language instead of his fists was the founder of civilization. - Sigmund Freud
Grammar, which knows how to lord it over kings, and with high hands makes them obey its laws. - Moliere
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
Violence of language leads to violence of action. Angry men seldom fight if their tongues do not lead the fray. - Charles V Roman
Morals are an acquirement - like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis - no man is born with them. - Mark Twain
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
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
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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