Grammer lessons

[NeoFriend1721]

Okay, I'm going to start doing this until I run out of grammar to talk about. If you guys have questions, feel free to reply and ask. But I don't want some stupid question that is asked merely to get you another post. So, for starters:

Contractions

A contraction is when you take two short words and run them together into a more compact, concise, easier to say, phrase. For instance: I'm, Don't, You're, Aren't. Those are some of the most common.

This is a very simple rule that some of you seem to get incorrect, or you seem to ignore entirely. In quests, it's atrocious, in Off-Topic stuff, it just leads to confusion and ambiguity. Such misunderstandings can lead to arguments or other quarrels or qualms that the Mods and Admins (That's us) then have to deal with. So that said, let's get started.

The rule of thumb in the English Language is this:

When removing a letter, or consecutive (side-by-side) series of letters from a word, you replace them with an apostrophe ( ' ), to denote the removal. This is done so people know you weren't (were not) making a spelling error while trying to say something entirely different. So the word "cause", when being used to shorten "because", should actually be " 'cause". Why, do you ask? Because you removed the consecutive letters "b" and "e", so you replace them with an apostrophe to show that. 'Cause if you don't, it could lead people to think that you said "Cause" like "Join our cause!" (aka - Join our group / movement to change or defeat something!)

That's (that is) how things lead to ambiguity (vauge-ness, or ambiguous, unclear).

I'll run through a few examples for you:

Do Not = Don't
What you've done here is run Do and Not together, and removed the second "o", now according to the previously stated rule, you must put an apostrophe where the "o" once was. So it comes out being Don't.
Is Not = Isn't
What you've done here is run Is and Not together, and removed the "o", now according to the rule, you replace it with an apostrophe ( ' ). So it becomes Isn't.
There are other, more simple examples.

That Is = That's
(That's ALWAYS has an apostrophy. Whenever you say "That's", you're ALWAYS saying "That is". ie - That's his toy. or... That is his toy. See?)
You've run That and Is together. So you must remove the "i" and replace it with an apostrophe.
Now for a much-confused set of words:
Your
You're
This is a problem easily fixed if you stop and look at what you're (you are) saying.

Your is posessive. "That's your ball," or, "Is your room clean?" (Eww, I hate that question )

Many of you do this:

"Your an idiot!"

That's basically saying: "The idiot you have is an idiot!" It's pretty dumb.

What you should be doing is this: "You're an idiot!"

Look! See the apostrophe? ( ' ) It's in You're. That's a Contraction.

What two words are being run together? You and Are. So you remove the "a" and replace it with an apostrophe and push the words together. You + Are = You're.

And before I finish, I'm going to leave you with two small little side notes:

The letter that is removed from the second word in a Contraction is always a vowel. Remember that!

You use apostrophes for Contractions, but you don't for plurals. "Dogs" means "More than one Dog" while "Dog's Toy" means "The toy belongs to the dog."

Apostrophes are used for contractions and posessives. Contractions can get much more wild than the examples I used, though. Stuff like y'know is a contraction. You and Know. Fu'k, that's not a contraction, but it's where a letter is missing, and so you must put an apostrophe there.

[NeoFriend1721]

An annotation to the Contractions that I forgot to mention:

It's.

This is It and Is. It + Is = It's. You drop the 2nd "I" and replace it with an apostrophe ( ' ).

The other "It's" is actually "Its", which is posessive. We will discuss posessives tomorrow. That is the difference between those two, do not confuse them if you can help it.

[NeoFriend1721]

Posessives

A posessive is when you're saying something or someone belongs to something or someone. There are ways to avoid using Posessives, kind of. His thing, her thing, your thing, my thing. Those are posessives, but not in the way that I'm going to discuss.

The Posessive is another rule that utilizes the apostrophe ( ' ). So do be careful when using it. You don't want to mix up a contraction with a posessive. Where contractions link two words into one, a posessive shows ownership.

John's toy.

That's not "John is toy." That's (that is) "The toy that belongs to John."

His ball.

That's a posessive where you don't have to worry about the apostrophe. More often than not posessives don't deal with the apostrophe, but when using a Proper Noun and showing posession, you do use it. That's (that is) why it's important to know that.

One acception to this rule is It.

Since You already have the contraction: It + Is = It's. You can't have It's also mean "The thing that belongs to it." So they removed the apostrophe. It's means It Is, while Its means "The thing that belongs to it.

Make sure you don't mix up It's and Its.

It's hot outside.

It's my turn.

It's for my brother.

Its joy. (The joy that belongs to it.)

Its leash. (The leash that belongs to it.)

The Dog's bone. (The bone that belongs to the dog.)

You can't take away its joy! (You can't take away the joy that belongs to it.)


So you see? Make sure you don't mix up your Its and your It's. And make sure you don't mix up your Contractions with your Posessives.

I'm being a little broad and vague with this lesson, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask them and I will answer them as best I can.

EDIT: I apologize, another closely related posessive / contraction would be "Your" and "You're". Do not forget that You + Are = You're while Your says "it belongs to you."

Examples:

"You're an imbecil!" = You are an idiot!

"Get your finger out of the pudding!" = Get the finger that belongs to you out of the pudding!

[NeoFriend1721]

A quotation, or a phrase marked off by quotation marks ( " " ), is used to denote (show) one of two things:

1) Someone speaking / saying something.
-or-
2) The use of a coloquial phrase or an ironic muse. (coloquial phrase - something that is said, but not to be taken at its face value. ie "Kicked the bucket". Someone didn't ACTUALLY kick a bucket. They died. It's just a phrase.

To Be Coloquial: verb - it means to be colorful with language. You're misusing it, technically speaking, but at the same time getting across the feeling or idea that you wanted to portray.)

The mechanics for a quotation are fairly simple, yet people seem to forget how it goes from time-to-time. So here is the general format, when writing a story, on how to quote:

Style A: narration-narration-narration,^"quote-quote-quote,"^narration-narration-narration.

Or

Style B: narration-narration-narration,^"quote-quote-quote."

The "^" symbols represent spaces. You always put a space after a comma, but if a quotation mark follows the comma, you put the space after the quotation mark.

The two methods above are for two separate structures of writing.

Style A: Then I turned to her with a funny look, "What are you doing," I screamed.

Style B: The dog leapt up to bite at Chris' hand, but he quickly pulled his hand away, "Get down!"

See?

Some things to remember:

1) Always put a comma at the END of the narration and BEFORE you start your quote.
2) Always put a space between the COMMA and the first QUOTATION MARK of your quote.
3) Always put the COMMA(,) or PERIOD(.) or QUESTION MARK (?)or EXCLAMATION POINT (!) INSIDE the QUOTATION MARKS at the END of your SENTENCE or QUOTE.
4) If your sentence continues on AFTER the quotation, don't forget to put a SPACE between the final QUOTATION MARK and the rest of your NARRATION.


Now that I've covered that, on to Coloquial phrases. These are much easier than actual quotes.

When you want to have a coloquial phrase, ironic muse, or even an "embedded quote" (which I'll get to in a later lesson), you simply add quotes around it. And if it comes at the end of a sentence, you put the period or question mark or whatever it is you're using, OUTSIDE the quotations.

Example:

So... is he your new "boyfriend"?

See? It's pretty easy. You don't need commas or anything. But be careful and don't mix up actual quotations with little phrases and things like that.


Finally... Quotes within quotes.

This is relatively simple. You have your narrative, then your comma followed by a quotation mark. Inside the quotation mark you have the person talking. Now, let's say they quote someone else inside your quote. When you reach that point, you put another comma, then single-marks (')--otherwise known as apostrophes-- into the original quote. Then you write the quote-in-a-quote, and then close it off with a punctuation mark (period, comma, w/e), and another single-mark ('), then continue with the original quote.

Sounds confusing? It really isn't.

Then Jessie leaned over to me and said, "Hey, this one girl told me, 'not to use the bedroom,' got it? heh."

It's not that bad.

I hope these continue to help many of you with your writing skills. Again, as always, if you have actual questions pretaining to any of the lessons, feel free to ask them and I will reply as promptly as I can. But please avoid spamming this thread, because I will crop out the pointless posts from time-to-time. But questions asked and answers given will always remain (unless another mod deletes them).

[NeoFriend1721]

Nouns

There are many different classifications for words, one of them being the noun. This may also be known (by more sophisticated instructors) as the Subject. Although, a Noun isn't always the Subject.

Simple rule of thumb:

All Subjects are Nouns, but not all Nouns are Subjects.


Now, the typical definition of a noun is a Person, Place, or Thing. Thus encompassing everything from "The Floor" and "The Book" to "The Dog" and "The Teacher".

There are two types of Nouns:

Proper Nouns and Common Nouns

Proper Nouns are quiet simple: Names and Places with Specific Names.

John Doe - Proper Noun
Death Valley - Proper Noun


Common Nouns are objects, or places without specific names.

the book - Common Noun
the tree - Common Noun
forest - Common Noun


The visual difference between a Proper Noun and a Common Noun is as follows:

When you write Common Nouns, they're not capitalized, except for if they're at the start of a sentence or a quotation.

When you write Proper Nouns, you ALWAYS capitalize them, regardless of where in the sentence they are.

Yesterday I saw her walking with John down Cottle Road past the park.

Underlined words are Common Nouns, Bold words are Proper Nouns.

The next classification of Nouns are Pronouns.

These are substitutions for Proper Nouns that you use to break the monotony of writing, and to make things a little shorter.

Pronouns:

-he
-she
-him
-her
-it
-they
-we

But be careful not to introduce two Proper Nouns in the same sentence and then try to use the same pronoun to substitute for their names at the same time. Then it gets confusing.

John and Greg got into a fight. Greg started out by throwing a punch at him. Then he leapt away and came back with a punch at him. John missed and Greg then threw his fist up into him, knocking his body back.

See? The "he" and "him" being used as both "John" and "Greg" becomes complex and can easily confuse a reader.

So always try to avoid doing that wherever possible.

That concludes this lesson on Nouns.

[NeoFriend1721]

Commas

I'll begin this lesson by defining some acronyms for any readers who do not know their meanings already.
IC - "Independent Clause" A very basic sentence that could stand on its own (eg. The boy walked down the stairs).
DC - "Dependent Clause" An even more basic phrase. However, it is not a sentence on its own. It is missing key components, and thus has to be coupled with an Independent Clause to make a whole sentence.
Commas are quite simple, and have a very basic use. However, since people fail to understand or be taught the purpose, they seem to make errors such as overusage, or misuse. They tend to use commas to denote a pause, when that is not its purpose.

Let's say you have an IC ("Jimmy went to the corner store."), but was missing crucial information in it. Your teacher or whomever gave you the task, required "x" information in the sentence, but required it to be only 1 sentence.

What are you going to do?

First, I'll define "x" for you. X = "he forgot to tie his shoes before he left."

You need to couple the IC with "x". This is quite simple:

You turn "x" into a Dependent Clause by dropping the subject, and attach it to the IC. This leaves you with:

"Jimmy went to the corner store forgot to tie his shoes before he left."

Doesn't sound too good yet, does it?

So you add a comma. (Jimmy went to the corner store, forgot to tie his shoes before he left.)

The tenses are still wrong in the DC, so you fix that too and end up with this:

Jimmy went to the corner store, forgetting to tie his shoes before leaving.

That's all. Pretty simple, yes?

To try and put it in an even simpler, more abstract form: the comma is used to separate different, but linked, ideas (usually pretaining to a common subject).

So you have these equations:

IC.

IC, DC.

DC, IC.

The "DC, IC." is the passive voice. I'll get into that in a later lesson, so don't worry about it for now.

There are other uses for the comma, as I'm sure you noticed in this post. These are the "Apositive", "List", and "Trasitions".

LIST

I'm sure you all were taught in gradeschool that when listing things you separate them with a comma.

eg. I went to the store and bought eggs, bread, butter, jam, chips, soda, water, and some lunch bags because I thought we were out.

That's basically it. Whenever you're naming 1 or more word of the same time (adjective, adverb, or noun), you separate it with a comma.

Another example:
"The grey and white, fat, ugly, old cow walked lazily across the lawn."


TRANSITIONS

The transition is used to make your language flow more smoothly when read. Words such as "However", "Although", "Though", etc.

Whenever you use a transition at the start or end of a sentence (the end of a sentence is not the proper place, but it's used informally so much that people more-or-less ignore that aspect of writing now days), you separate it from the rest of the sentence with a comma. This is because it is a word that has to do with the main idea of the sentence, but is being used to further explain what it is.

Example: You spend three paragraphs explaining why a movie sucked. But then you run across something that's good. So you start out your next sentence with "However, ... blah blah blah". The "However" is used to say "Hey, look at this. It's opposite of what I've been talking about!" But you're still using it to talk about the good thing, right? So it is in that sentence, but separated by a comma.

Same goes for the end of a sentence: "I would have held the nail up to you so you could get it quicker. I was afraid it would stick in your hand when you reached down, though."


APOSITIVE

This is a phrase embedded in a sentence to further describe a noun. It's a pretty easy idea, so I'll be breif.

"My teacher, Ms. Genovese, wasn't in class today."

The bold part is the apositive. "My teacher" and "Ms. Genovese" are the same person. But I have 6 teachers, so which one am I talking about? I'm talking about Ms. Genovese. That's an apositive. Something that further describes a noun.

It could work the other way, too.

"Ms. Genovese, my Science teacher, wasn't in class today."

Well... who is Ms. Genovese? Say I don't go to your school. I don't know! Well, I just told you: she's my Science teacher.

You always separate an apositive by two commas: One at the beginning and one at the end of said apositive.

[NeoFriend1721]

Inquisitives


Have you ever inquired to someone about something? Maybe you went somewhere and filed an inquiry with a company? If so, then you should recognize the name of this lesson. The term inquisitive simply means "to ask". So, as you could probably guess, an Inquisitive Phrase is a word or phrase you use to ask a question of someone.

If you recall the quotation lesson: there was an instance there where a quote didn't have a question mark, but was indeed a question. That was because of the inquisitive phrase: the phrase implied the question. You cannot start a sentence with an inquisitive phrase without it being a question. However (transition, from the previous formal lesson ), you may ask rhetorical questions. Just to branch off for a moment: a rhetorical question is a question that isn't necessarily meant to be answered.

ie. "What do you take me for, some sort of moron?"
response: "Well..."

No, I don't think that question was meant to be answered. It only leads to the speaker getting insulted in one way or another.

Now, back on topic: people very often ask rhetorical questions, like the above. Although they're not meant to be answered, they are still indeed questions. This is quite an easy lesson, so I'll be breif.

Inquisitive Phrases are as follows:

Who?
What?
Where?
When?
Why?
How?

Whenever you start a sentence with any of the above phrases, the sentence MUST be a question. Therefore, it must end with a question mark (unless it's in a quotation, then it doesn't have to end with a question mark, but can end with one).

Sadly, that's all there really is for today.

If you have any questions about this lesson or any of the previous lessons, feel free to ask them here and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

[NeoFriend1721]

Sentence Structure

Whee! Time to let your creativity soar! Sentence Structure is one of the most basic, and albeit, one of the most important parts of the Written English Language. With improper sentence structure your thoughts and ideas are neigh indecipherable. Either that or you end up sounding like Yoda... ... As cool as Yoda sounds, when it comes to writing, you would probably be better off using correct structure.

There are two different "voices" in anyone's writing. There's the "Passive" voice, which is what we're typically using in a 3rd person past tense narrative. At the same time, there is the "Active" voice. The Active voice is a little more engaging, and makes things less of a pain to read. It's less boring.

Which voice you use depends on the style of your writing, and the order of your words. You can have 1 idea and say it both ways: Passive and Active.

Example:

Idea: John Doe - dodge - horizontal sword slash - at his ankles - jumping

Passive: As the sword was swung across at his ankles, John Doe leapt over its attack arc for an effective dodge.

Active: John Doe dodged the horizontal slash at his ankles by jumping up over the blade.


As you can see there, the Active voice is shorter, and may be considered more interesting. You can also take these two "voices" and modify them with all sorts of things. You can throw in more adjectives, you can use the apositive ( "John Doe, the Heavy Blade, ..." ). There's lots you can do to them.

Sentence structure is a very broad, open ended subject to cover. In most cases you just need to define your subject and the associated verb, and you're okay.

"Subject + Predicate (verb) -- and in that order".


You could have a sentence that starts like this:

"Leaping over the horizontal slash, John Doe found that he was more agile than he originally thought."

However, this is a "broken" sentence. The verb has no defined noun to go with it. “Leaping over...” the question is: who leapt?

Almost every verb has a noun attached to it to.

[Leah]

O.o....

I feel like I'm at school. -brain hurts-

[NeoFriend1721]

Yes, I know sorry.

[NeoFriend1721]

This is GRAMMAR HELP. Please post that somewhere else. *Hint Hint*:Suggestions.

[Angel]

You sound like my teacher scoulding someone for something they did bad. ???I don't need another teacher thankyou very much.

[Chronojack]

Who? Cody? He's just trying to help with illiteracy. People like putting capitalizations in random places, or use chat speak, he's just helping those who do.. I don't blame him..

[NeoFriend1721]

Angel said:

You sound like my teacher scoulding someone for something they did bad. ???I don't need another teacher thankyou very much.

You didn't have to come here. These are the rules I put here. you may not have them at your board but still, you do not need to complain.....Unless! I make a complaining board! (Ha ha ha...) Nah....I won't do that.

[mew_mew_33616]

Spike said:

Who? Cody? He's just trying to help with illiteracy. People like putting capitalizations in random places, or use chat speak, he's just helping those who do.. I don't blame him..

my haed hurts. sorry i am not the best at gammer and i sux at, i have a disabuttily so laeve me alone....8runs off crying*