The rules of language are essential if we want to communicate clearly. For writers in particular, the laws of language are our greatest weapons. Sure, they may be more like guidelines, but before you can bend the rules to your purposes, you need to master them. Let’s become word masters together.
I recently saw a joke that any word in English can be a verb if you try hard enough: I just want to tea and book today. The corrupt dictator Thanos-ed his starving people. She dentists teeth rather poorly, but she jack o’lanterns pumpkins very well. It’s a new favorite thought-experiment of mine. What’s the …
Modifiers change or add to the meaning of another word. Let’s be real: Modifiers are one of the messier aspects of writing.
Pronouns are everywhere. Sometimes they’re overused. Sometimes they’re misused. And sometimes they’re just plain confusing. We talked briefly about pronouns in the basics post, but today we’re dedicating an entire post just to them. Before we get into more detail, I encourage you to look back at that first post. The definitions of pronouns, along …
Happy April! Can you believe it? In just six months, we’ve made it through the basics of grammatical terms! Today we’re doing a bit more terminology and starting to discuss rules. Moving forward, we’ll go back through grammar terms, going more in-depth and learning rules related to them. Our focus today is on the essential, …
Ah, the sweet wonder of winter! The whimsical clouds filling the sky, the temperatures cold enough for sweaters, the steam rising from mugs of tea, the snow blanketing someone else’s yard. I only pretend to boast about the snow-free winters where I live; in reality, I envy you all who experience the mysterious phenomenon called …
Finally, it’s February! Am I the only one who felt like January was a year in and of itself? It certainly feels like it’s been 2019 for a long time. Today we continue our foray into parts of sentences, which we began last month in an introduction to subjects and predicates. As a simple review: …
Today, we begin putting the parts of speech together and looking at parts of a sentence. I give you: Subjects and predicates
Sometimes, people don’t live up to our expectations. I feel like I’m in that camp right now. NaNo was incredible—I didn’t win, but I wrote more than 30,000 words, wrote 6 days a week for a month, and almost completely edited a short story. I learned I can do much more than I think, but …
I would do a clever opening, but NanoWrimo just started, so I’ll cut right to the chase for all our sake. General Disclaimer: While I love grammar, I’m also new at learning it. I will do my best to explain things correctly. If you find that I’ve misunderstood or misrepresented something, please share that in …
Happy October 1st! It’s the time of pumpkins, tea, sweaters, and fun–all of which are, coincidentally, nouns. That’s right, folks, today we’re starting at the very beginning. Before we can get to the really fun parts of grammar, first we have to make sure we’re all using the same language. For the first couple posts, …