This appeared in the Inter-County Newspaper at Frederic WI several years ago.
(Note to Editor: It would be best to leave the article below
unedited, as there are 43.4 intentional errors or problems that are necessary
to make the article work.)
River Road
Ramblings: To Grammatically Write Rite by
Russ Hanson
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in
rather a scornful tone, “it means what I choose it to mean, neither more nor
less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so
many different things.”
“The question is”, said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to
be master – that’s all.”
From Alice
in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Having a weekly
column for the past five years, we have had some criticism of our writing
style, punctuation, word usage, spelling and grammar. It is time to respond to the criticisms and
review grammar rules so we all can learn and improve in the future.
Doc Squirt (Roy
Hennings), a Cushing native who wrote for many newspapers from 1900 to his
death in 1943 was often taken to task by his editors for his lack of
punctuation. He solved it by sending the
editors a typewritten page filled with commas, periods, colons, semicolons,
question marks and exclamation marks with the instructions to “feel free to
sprinkle them throughout his columns." I
am more like Mr. Dumpty in that I have never, ever, ever, been intimidated, by
grammar, and know who is the master! So
without farther adieu, here are some lessons.
Utilize ostentatious language: Never use a simple word when you can think of
a big one. Thusly, utilize replaces use;
canine for dog; automobile for car, etc.
I especially like the signs on Hwy 87 designating Evergreen Avenue, the route to horsie
camp as the “Equestrian” area.
Create interest with verb conjugations:
You have numerous alternatives. I shall be giving examples in the first
person (I), but remember you have the “I/me/my” “he/she/thee/thy/thine”, “we/they/them”,
and of course the “ye,you,thou” singular/plural and objective, subjective and
possessive too. If you want to be a good
writer, you should practice each variation that follows in a sentence. Sometimes you can change the mood of a story
by switching from the past/present/future indicative, subjunctive or
conjunctive mood to another, especially in your dependent clauses.
Use the right conjugations: The infinitive verb “to write” conjugates
thusly:
the present basic I
write
the present progressive I
am writing
the present perfect I
have written
the present progressive I
have been writing
the past basic I
wrote
the past progressive I
was writing
the past perfect I
had written
the past perfect progressive I
shall/will have written
the future basic I
shall/will write
the future progressive I
shall/will be writing
the future perfect I
shall/will have written
the future perfect progressive I shall/will have been
writing
the intensive present I
do write
the intensive past I
did write
the habitual past I
used to write
the "shall future" I shall write
the "going-to future" I am going to write
the "future in the past" I was going to write
the conditional I
would write
the perfect conditional I
would have written
the subjunctive, if
I be writing, if I were writing.
Non-standard usage: I
be writing, I done rote, I have wrotten, I writed it, I writ it, and Dudley do write.
I use Microsoft
Word to write my columns. Word has a
basic grammar checking tool built in that along with spell check fixes half of
my problems and creates 25% new ones by sowing doubt.
Punctuation marks: The seasoning in your writing. They try to tell the reader how the writer
felt and more importantly, the pauses to take a breath if you are moving your
lips while you read. Punctuation used by
most of us include; the period, the comma, the apostrophe and the exclamation
mark. Adventurous authors sprinkle
semicolons: very brave authors will try a colon on special occasions: Her colon was cleansed before the x-ray.
Emoticons: Punctuation marks are rapidly changing with
the introduction of emoticons.
Exclamation can be represented by the “!” mark, but how do you indicate
sadness without a sad faced emoticon :-( or a smile :-). Sadly, when I emoticonize my writing, the
Leader, in translating from the PC to MAC
computers, loses them and what you see are ? marks in the printed text.
Quotation marks. “Put commas, exclamation marks and periods inside
the quotation marks!” Question marks
rarely go outside. “You too,
Brutus?” Did Caesar say “You too,
Brutus”? The second example has a quotation
within a question. If you always punctuate inside quotes you will be 90%
correct, and the rest of the time, no one will notice anyway.
Who’s on First: the correct use of “who,” “whom,” “who’s,” “hoo,” “hoose,”
“Hoose” is only used
in “hoose gow” a euphemism for the slammer.
“Who is” can be shortened to who’s. “Who’s going to town.”
Whose: “Whose shoes
are those?”
Whom: you should be
able to get through life without using this word. “To whom do I owe my knowledge of grammar?”
is better replaced by, “Who taught me grammar?”
If the answer is him, the question uses whom; if the answer is he, then
the question is who.
Who loves you baby?
He does! Whom do you love? Him!
“Whom” is popular amongst and betwixt those whose sign is Antiquarius.
An owl says “hoo
hoo” when commenting on the world in general. An owl who says “who? who?” is
likely a philosopher. The owl in my back
yard says “Who? Who? Who? Hoo, hoooooooer” asking and answering herself as do
most females. Generally most people
don’t give a hoot about this.
Contractions: Shortening words by replacing letters with an
apostrophe; gov’t, can’t, they’re, she’ll, o’clock, it’s and the creative
I’d’ve . Gov’r Palin speaks in
contractions as in “I’m runnin’ for pres’dent to be savin’ us from death panels.”
Possessive Apostrophes: Darla’s womb’s muscle’s fiber’s cell’s
nucleus’ DNA strands were
punctuated by contractions. Ownership is
shown by the addition of the “apostrophe s” except in some cases where we
already have enough s’s and just add the apostrophe at the end—Russ’
books.
To Boldly Split Infinitives: An infinitive is a verb preceded by the
word “to.” To run, to walk, to go, to
write, to talk or to split. Grammar
rules say don’t break them up. It's best
never to unintentionally split infinitives (unless you want to really emphasize
something). I am willing to strongly
predict writers will obsolete this rule at the World Grammar Society meeting in
Helsinki in 2012.
Passive voice: Using was, were as part of your verb with the
intention of putting your readers to sleep.
Examples include: “Mistakes were
made” instead of “I made mistakes.” “Margo was talking in a passive voice after
having botox injected into her vocal cords last week” instead of “Margo speaks
impassively after the botox shot.”
Adjectives and Adverbs: Words that add color to your sentence. I shot a deer. Shot is a verb, if you color it, you use
adverbs. Rapidly, boldly and colorfully,
I shot carefully and accurately at the huge brown hungry deer. The “ly” adverbs describe the verb “shot”
with “huge, brown, and hungry” adjectives describing the noun deer. Adjectives and adverbs are necessary to make
things interesting and are especially useful if you are paid for writing by the
word.
Homophones To, Too, Two: Use two for 2, too if you mean also or
too much and the rest of the time use to.
The two boys were too used to having cake and ice cream too, to be
satisfied with less. With society
becoming more tolerant, homophonobia has pretty much disappeared.
Euphemism: replacing a strong word with
a weaker one. I shot a deer becomes I
harvested a deer. The deer died becomes
the deer went to heaven. People who
criticize my grammar are anal retentatives becomes people who criticize my
grammar need a hobby.
If you want more
grammar lessons in this column, please send a note and we will be glad to take
on “their, there, they’re”, “lie, lye, lay, lied, laid”, “buy, by, bye”, “sit
sat, set, sated, and besotted” and protractions, retractions, subtractions,
abstractions, refractions, extractions, attractions, and transactions.
“Nostalgia is like
a grammar lesson: You find the present tense and the past perfect” said Robert Orben.
