In-TENSE-ive Verbs

Remember when Miss Miller showed you a list of “irregular verbs”? They are the ones that do not follow the standard way of making a verb past tense (add “ed”). These will trip you up. Notice the different spelling in the following sentences that include irregular verbs:

The teacher came to the end of his rope. The teacher had come to the end of his rope.
The student taught her teacher patience. The student had taught her teacher patience.
We all broke things we loved. We all have broken things we loved.
Was it you who shrank your jeans? Was it you who had shrunk your jeans?
I would not do such a thing. I would not  have done such a thing.

Notice the slightly different meaning (and spelling) when you add an auxiliary verb (have, had). Take a look at these verbs in your dictionary. They (irregulars) are shown in three forms: Present, Past, and Past Participle.

Regular verbs look like this:
          PRESENT               PAST              PAST PARTICIPLE
          walk                          walked              (have) walked
           rake                          raked                 (have) raked
           step                          stepped              (have) stepped

Irregular verbs look like this:
            go                             went                 (have) gone
            break                        broke               (have) broken
            come                        came                 (have) come
            teach                        taught               (have) taught

And here’s a clue as to why this matters. The verb “fly” has many meanings. Only the one pertaining to baseball uses the regular “ed” form: John hit a fly ball; John flied out twice. BUT: A bird can fly; The bird flew.

I agree! There is no sense to it — at all. Which is one of the reasons for keeping a dictionary on hand at all times when you’re still catching on to these idiosyncrasies.

Keep Your Thoughts to Yourself

Someone says this phrase every three seconds, somewhere in the world: “I was thinking to myself…” When I hear it, my innards quake, my teeth take on an edge, my toes curl, and my head goes dizzy.

Who else do you think to? I must ask. When you think, it’s completely your secret. Thinking occurs inside your head. When have you heard someone say, “I was thinking to Harry…” or “I was thinking to Mary…” or “I was thinking to you…”?

You have to ask why it seems necessary to add “to myself” to your thinking. Is this narcissism? a mental defect? a cry for help? Wha…???

Imagine You Can Spell Like a Whiz Kid?

Do you ever watch the annual National Spelling Bee? It is composed of the best spellers from grade schools around the country who spell words most of us have never heard before. These kids are phenoms to the max! The NSBee is so popular, they made a book out of it — and a movie. So how can you learn to spell as well as these youngsters? Or at least well enough to please your readers/boss/family/Internet friends?

Easy as 1-2-3! Three things you can do to improve your spelling all scream PAY ATTENTION.

1) Become aware of “root” words, other words that mean almost the same thing or are derived from a similar source. Let’s say you want to spell a word that means “able to be imagined”. Is it imaginible or imaginable? Think of a similar word, such as “imagination”. Do you see the “a” that follows the “n”? There’s your clue.

2) Be sure you pronounce the word right. Some words are mutilated in speech because we don’t all learn from the same speech source. One of our Presidents often spoke of “our gub-ment” (meaning government — three syllables.) Another President had trouble with nuclear, pronouncing it “nuc-u-lar” (as many others do). Notice how often those whiz kids ask for the pronunciation.

3) Look it up. Keep a spell-check app on your electronic carry-alls and refer to it when in doubt. After looking up a word a couple of times, it may sink into your imaginary dictionary-in-your-head.

Come on, show your moxy by paying attention to the way words are spelled. You will soon realize the benefits of being the kind of person who pays attention to details and can handle your language. That's your PAY BACK for PAYING ATTENTION.

Incredibly Yours

When did we start using incredible to mean “very very”?

As in:

“We spent an incredible day at the beach.”

“You are incredibly beautiful.”

 “She earns an incredible salary.”

Incredible means “unbelievable, unable to be believed”! What makes a trip to the beach unbelievable, especially if it’s a sunny day?

Personally speaking, I can believe how beautiful you are, but why would anyone say they could not believe it?

And large salaries are not only within the area of belief, but very satisfying to earn.

Come on, listen to yourself and the words you use. And believe them. I find it entirely incredible that U.S.-ers cannot grasp understanding of the language they grew up with.

Why Grammar?

As a grammarian and word person, I am constantly asked why grammar is important. “Why do I have to understand what words go together and which ones don’t?” “What's the difference if I use double negatives?” “Why do we even have apostrophes — much less, how do we use them?”

Having order to the way we communicate by mouth and writing is as important as having some order to the way we communicate via the Internet and email. Sure there are different systems, or styles. But computer-ese makes communication between computers — and therefore between people — possible. If your computer cannot talk to mine, we cannot get together on anything.

Grammar is like the coding in computers, in that knowing how it works makes it work better. Read a good book about language: The Anarchist’s Guide to Grammar, by Val Dumond, or The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker. I guarantee you’ll come away with more respect for the guidelines offered through the order of language.

No, it’s not British English or Australian English or Canadian English — not in the good old US of A! Which is why we in the U.S. have the most beautiful and flexible language in the world. Why? Because it is composed of all the other languages — with all their styles and systems in one room, together.

Bless us all, everyone, for our language and knowing how to order it!

NOTE to Advertisers

If you have a reasonable question about grammar or punctuation, I’ll be delighted to provide my answer (not necessarily one that everyone will agree with), but perhaps one to help you.

Three requirements for an answer: 1) identify yourself,  2) ask, and 3) omit reference to your business.

—Grammar Anarchist

Can an Exception Prove Anything?

You’re familiar with the phrase: An exception proves the rule.

Maybe so, but the idea is confusing until you understand that the word prove can mean “test”. Or, as my American Heritage Dictionary states: to prove is “to determine the quality by testing".

“Not so!” says Sherlock Holmes through the pen of Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock claims that a rule cannot be questioned; it is sacrosanct, unchangeable, unwavering. Therefore, to claim there are “rules” to grammar is to claim there are no exceptions and… ergo… an exception must admit the falsity of the “rule”. Did I lose you? I didn’t lose Sherlock. He knows! And he's a Brit!

Anyone who has studied grammar quickly learns “the exceptions” that accompany almost every “rule”. The conclusion therefore must admit to preferring guidelines to rules.

You’ll find all the guidelines you need in my book, The Anarchist’s Guide to Grammar — the best grammar book you’ll ever enjoy!

Magifantastical Adjectives

I’m a big fan of Darby Conley, whose characters in his comic strip “Get Fuzzy” mangle the language regularly. He gets his cat to play with words like my daughter’s cat plays with a ball of yarn. When Cat’s owner chastises him, Cat calls him a rude luddite — “a ruddite”. Then adds that his owner is dim and stupid — “dimpid”, as well as ugly and annoying — “ugloying”. Don’t you love it? 

And when one of my writer friends turned out a book that was both magical and fantastic, I had to let her know her work is “magifantastical”. So there! Who says you can’t make up new words.

BTW, a question mark at the end of a sentence usually is asking for an answer. A question with a period at the end is called “rhetorical” because it does not require an answer.

 Ain’t grammar fun!

Where’s the Camera?

I’m here, Mr. Demille, for my closeups! The Anarachist's Guide to Grammar is receiving great reviews and more notice than I expected. However much I am proud of this book — the best grammar book you’ll ever need — I wasn’t that sure that anyone was reading much grammar lately.

The U.S. language is different from all those other “Englisher” languages out there.  Don’t even call it “American” (There are too many other Americans — everyone from Canadian through Mexican and Guatamalan to Argentinian and Chilean). We’re special!

If we take pride in our country, we ought also to pride ourselves on our language. Yes, it’s different.
It’s free, it’s flexible, it’s original, it’s creative. But most of all it belongs to the U.S. and the U.S. alone! Don’t ever forget that.

Show your pride in your respect for all things grammary!

Misplacing “Either”

“I tend to lose either my keys or my glasses” indicates a tendency to lose things. This sentence has one verb (lose) and two objects (keys and glasses)

“I tend to either lose my keys or my glasses or misplace them” indicates a tendency to sometimes lose things or sometimes misplace them. This sentence has two verbs (lose and misplace) and one object (them).

Here is an example of the need to know your verb from your object. Notice where the adjective either is placed (before the verb or before the object(s)). Got it?