Do you love me?

Maybe! or is that I may be?

The one-word maybe is either a modifying adverb (Maybe I love you), a modifying adjective (Love is a maybe thing), or a noun (That’s a definite maybe).

The two word may be is the verb “to be” aided by the adverb, may. The truth of the matter may be dependent on your kiss.

Pretty Good or Really Good?

Both of these “goods” are adjectives. Both are preceded by adverbs. (You’re right, one of them doesn’t end in ly.) Both “pretty” and “really” are misused... yes, misused! Abused! Treated bad-ly! Pretty means “good-looking”; really means “for real”. Why not stick with “very”?

Hardly, Barely, Scarcely

Each of these words is a negative. Please do not use them with other negatives.
He didn’t hardly have time to eat his dessert.
Improve that in either of two ways:
He didn’t have time to eat his dessert. OR
He hardly had time to eat his dessert.

Leaf the Falling Leafs Alone!

Good heavens! I read this on a blog about approaching autumn. Sounds almost poetic, BUT IT’S NOT! The first leaf actually is “leave” and the plural of autumn thingees is “leaves”. Who dares to write without command of the language?

Form Vs. Function

Maybe the reason you hate grammar so much is that you got bored learning the names of all those parts of speech. You may not know what a negative imperative adverbial interjection is. Yet you know what it does! We’re talking the simple “No!”

Money Don’t Buy Good Language

A question for young celebrities (musicians, rap stars, movie stars, and such): Why, when you’re earning bizillion bucks, do you think you have to use rotten language? Not the cuss words especially, but the double negatives, the backward pronouns, the mispronounced words, and their combinations. Aren’t you able to afford an education?

I Love Men; I Abhor “Man”

Why do we continue to assume everyone and everything to be male until proven otherwise? “Man” invented the wheel; “man” discovered fire; “mankind” gave us history; “mankind” destroyed the earth. All myth! If men actually were responsible for all that has gone before, who do you suppose birthed them, married them, gave them children (of both sexes)? If a man discovered fire, don’t you suppose he would be the one expected to hang out in the kitchen?

It is I? or It is me?

This is easy when you have my Handy Dandy Pronoun Guide. Think of subjects as the Do-er and objects as the Do-ee.  Because the pronoun “it” is the subject, what follows “is” comes from the Subject column. It is I (both “it” and “I” are subjects). “Me” is an object, sorry, Me!

Does a Villain Lie Low or Lay Low?

Lay and Lie have plagued us for years. When will we get it straight? Lay is the active verb that means “to place something, plop it down”; lie is what happens afterwards. The something just lies there, much as you lie motionless in bed. “Each night I lay my coins on the bureau before I lie down to sleep.”

The confusion — and it’s a major confusion — arrives with  the other version of “lay” (past tense of “lie”).  “Those damn coins lay (past tense of lie) there all night.” Who invented this idiotic language anyway?

“You can’t have it both ways.” Why not?

 I have been accused of talking from both sides of my blog, telling my followers to fight the “rules”, then quoting some for them. What I offer (obviously mistaken for “rules”) are basic functions — FUNCTIONS ­— of parts of speech and punctuation. Nouns and verbs and commas and all the rest have raison d’être – purpose, function, work to do. Rather than suggest “rules” to apply that function would be as futile as telling another anarchist how to take down an enemy. And the rule-abiders are not enemies; they are only misguided. My job as The Anarchist is to provide the guidance (in the form of guidelines) behind the basic function to help you write better. Clear now?

Plethora of Prepositions

Those dratted little prepositions are causing a ruckus in the land of grammar. Too many become useless:

“Take your hands off of me!” 

“He went on in without permission.” 

“She looked down under the table for her marble.”

Remove the underlined words and ease the reliance on extraneous prepositions.

Wait Awhile? or Wait For A While?

Awhile and while are different words and are treated differently in their functions. When using awhile (the adverb), omit the preposition: play awhile. When using while (the noun),  add a preposition and separate the “a”: play for a while. You can even separate them without the preposition: play a while, take a while to think, and recognize the noun function. Avoid play for awhile. Got it?

Grammar Snobs

France has its own language department; so do many other nations. Areas, regions, tribes, districts — special places use special languages. New languages are being formed every day; old languages disappear every day. Thousands of languages satisfy the earth’s people. In every language are purists, the experts, people who make it their life purpose to grasp all the “rules”. These are people who pro-fess to know the “right” and “wrong” ways to speak and write.

BEWARE! People who profess to know rights and wrongs scare me to death!

Wooden You?

I just heard a guy say, “I boughten two tickets and woulda tooken my new girlfriend but she wooden go. Me and her have went to concerts before.” Can you imagine why the poor girl stayed home?