Key Terms to Remember

Determiners precede nouns and come in these flavors:
•Articles (definite: the; indefinite: a, an); articles signal nouns ("Noun's a-comin'!")
•Demonstrative Pronouns (this, that, these, those--Standard Edited American English; in some other dialects: them ("them pigs ain't worth much to me"), them there [sophistibilly?; "There's gold in them there hills"], them thar [pirate?]); *note some demonstrative pronouns do not function as articles [e.g.: I like this.]
•Possessive Nouns: noun plus apostrophe (a pig's eye; to form a singular possessive, add 's to most singular nouns--even those ending in -s, -ss, and -x; thus: Jones's, Congress's, witness's, Sussex's; to from a plural possessives, add an apostrophe to the final -s; thus: The Smiths', The Joneses', bosses')
•Possessive Pronouns: my, your, his, her, its, our, their [in some other dialects: y'all's]
•Quantifiers (each, no, any, some, one, two, etc.)

A Noun
•Can be plural ("The Joneses' pigs are in town.")
•Can be possessive ("The pig's hoof")
•Occupy the headword position in a noun phrase ("My boss's enormous, squealing pig")
•Is often signaled by a determiner (the pig, a pig, an old pig, an honorable pig, *them pigs [dialect], *them there pigs [dialect], my pig, your pig, its pig, *ya'll's pig [dialect], each pig, no pig, some pigs, one pig, etc.)
•Function as a subject ("The pig enters."), a direct object ("I watch the pig."), an indirect object ("I give the pig my number."), a subject complement ("My dream date is a pig."), an object complement ("I consider her best friend a pig."), and an object of a preposition ("My future happiness depends on the whims of that pig.")

The Verb
•Can be used in present tense ("I run.") and past tense ("I ran.")
•Has an –s form ("She runs.")
•Has an –ing form ("She is running. Forrest Gump is running. You should be running.")

The Adjective
•Has a comparative degree
-er
(“more” when 2 or more syllables)
•Has a superlative degree
-est
(“most” when 2 or more syllables)
•Can pattern with a qualifier (like “very”)
•The ______ noun is very ______.

The Adverb
•Adverbs of manner = adjective+ “ly” (was “like)

•Supplies information related to:
Time (when) "I am thinking about the pig now." "I think about the pig after class." [adverbial phrase]

Place (where) "I put the pig's picture there." "I put the pig's picture on my wall." [adverbial phrase]
Manner (how) "I want the pig badly." "I want the pig in the worst way." [adverbial phrase]
Frequency (how often) "I think of the pig often." "I think of the pig every Saturday night."
Duration (how long) "I think about the pig for long stretches at a time." [adverbial phrase]

•Can often be moved around in a sentence: "Now I am thinking about the pig;" "Often I think about the pig;" "I often think of the pig;" "For long stretches at a time, I think about the pig."

Pronouns

Subject Case

I, you, he, she, it, we, they

Object Case

I, you, him, her, it, us, them

Ah ha ha ha ha...that Tom...

" ," said Tom blankly.





Source: http://www.jokesnjokes.net/funny.jokes.amusing.humor.laughs/General/swifties001.htm

Adverb up: Feed the Muse Tom Swifties

"I've struck oil," Tom said, crudely
"Boy, will I give YOU a haircut!" said Tom barbarously
"Get away from the dynamite," Tom said explosively
"I forgot what to buy," Tom said listlessly (my favorite)

Tom Swifty joke

"Nice job spilling the acid," Tom said caustically.

Winston don't talk like a Prescriptivist Should

The "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" ad campaign was widely criticized in its day (1954-1972) for being ungrammatical, because, as the style guide to The Economist puts it: "like governs nouns and pronouns, not verbs and clauses. So as in America not like in America, as I was saying, not like I was saying, as Grandma used to make them, not like Grandma used to make them, etc.

"English has no 'unas' equivalent to unlike, so you must rephrase the sentence if you are tempted to write unlike in this context, unlike at Christmas, or unlike when I was a child. If you find yourself writing She looked like she had had enough or It seemed like he was running out of puff, you should replace like with as if or as though, and you probably need the subjunctive: She looked as if she had had enough, It seemed as if he were running out of puff.

Ogden Nash addressed the issue with the following poem, which was published in The New Yorker:

“Like the hart panteth for the water brooks I pant for a revival of
Shakespeare’s ‘Like You Like It’.
I can see tense draftees relax and purr
When the sergeant barks, “Like you were.”
And don’t try to tell me that our well has been defiled by immigration;/
Like goes Madison Avenue, like so goes the nation. — Ogden Nash

According to Jody Bruner:
"Walter Cronkite [that's Cronkite on the left], then hosting The Morning Show, refused to say the line as written, and an announcer was used instead.

"Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, says that this "ungrammatical and somehow provocative use of 'like' instead of 'as' created a minor sensation" in 1954 and implies that the phrase itself was responsible for vaulting the brand to second place in the U.S. market. Winston overtook Pall Mall cigarettes as the #1 cigarette in the United States in 1966, while the advertising campaign continued to make an impression on the mass media.

"In the fall of 1961, a small furor enveloped the literary and journalistic communities in the United States when Merriam-Webster published its Third New International Dictionary. In the dictionary, the editors refused to condemn the use of "like" as a conjunction, and cited "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" as an example of popular colloquial use. After publication of Webster's Third, The New York Times called the edition "bolshevik," [see image at right] and the Chicago Daily News wrote that the transgression signified "a general decay in values."

"In 1970 and 1971, Winston sought to revamp its image and chose to respond to many grammarians' qualms with the slogan, "What do you want, good grammar or good taste?" MAD Magazine published a parody of this on the back cover of its January 1971 issue; set in a cemetery, it featured four tombstones who spoke in the past tense ("What did you want, good grammar or lung cancer?")"

Shameless!

Fred and Barney teach kids to use "like" as a conjunction.

Jed encourages Granny to use "like" as a conjunction

And did Blake start this poem with a conjunction?

According to wikipedia: "The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington, London. Founded in 1895, each season currently consists of over 70 concerts in the Albert Hall, a series of chamber concerts at Cadogan Hall, additional Proms in the Park events across the United Kingdom on the last night, and associated educational and children's events."

Schoolhouse Rock on Conjunctions

The intensifying "but"

Nat King Cole's performance of this classic by Jimmy Van Heusen (check Chapter 4 for the reference) makes this clip worth posting even though the "video" is like watching paint dry. On the moon.

Classic example of esprit d' escalier

Check out the link...the epitome of "staircase wit" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwfioD-ING8

Underfunded Schools Forced To Cut Past Tense From Language Programs

How would you like it if your children were not taught the past tense? Sound far-fetched? Well, check out this article:


WASHINGTON—Faced with ongoing budget crises, underfunded schools nationwide are increasingly left with no option but to cut the past tense—a grammatical construction traditionally used to relate all actions, and states that have transpired at an earlier point in time—from their standard English and language arts programs.

Click here for the rest of this troubling story.

ABOUT THE IMAGE: The child in the image at left is actor Bobs Watson, seen here with Lionel Barrymore in a very strange film--which I happen to like--"On Borrowed Time" (1939). Watson played hte part of "Pud." in this movie, which taught me a memorable insult: "I wouldn't take her to a rat fight" (words spoken by Lionel Barrymore's character, "Gramps").

IMAGE SOURCE: "http://www.classicmoviekids.com/images/w/watsonbobs/bobswatson308.jpg

Pinsky Namechecks Grammar

Poet Robert Pinsky (that's Pinsky on the left) name checks grammar (and even sentence diagramming) in an appreciation of 17th century poet George Herbert: here.

Can knowing what "clauses" and "main verbs" are help readers appreciate Herbert's poetry?

Does knowing how to diagram sentences help readers appreciate Herbert's poetry?