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Do You Remember These Rules?
When you write, do you know exactly why a sentence
or phrase is correct or incorrect? Chances are you
probably do, although you may not remember exactly
what your English teachers taught you. Sometimes
the sentence or phrase just looks or
sounds right—as if you have a sixth
sense about it.
The following is a
collection of humorous grammar rules that will
refresh your knowledge and give you a few chuckles.
Some are from an initial list of "Fumble Rules" created
by William Safire and featured in. the November 4,
1979, issue of the New York Times Magazine. The
others were compiled by Robert Morgan and appear
in the Creative Teaching website
(www.creativeteachingsite.com).
Can you tell what is wrong in each example of the
rules?
- Verbs HAS to agree with their
subjects.
- Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Winston Churchill, corrected on this error once,
responded to the young man who corrected him by
saying "Young man, that is the kind of impudence up
with which I will not put!"
- And don't start a sentence with a
conjunction.
- It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
- Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
- Also, always avoid annoying
alliteration.
- Be more or less specific.
- Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are
(usually) unnecessary.
- Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies
endlessly over and over again.
- Contractions aren't always necessary and
shouldn't be used to excess so don't.
- Do not be redundant; do not use more words than
necessary; it's highly superfluous and can
be excessive.
- All generalizations are bad.
- Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake
(Unless they are as good as gold).
- The passive voice is to be ignored.
- Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary.
Parenthetical words, however, should be enclosed in
commas.
- Never use a big word when substituting a
diminutive one would suffice.
- Don't overuse exclamation points!!!
- Use words correctly, irregardless of how others
use them.
- Understatement is always the absolute best way
to put forth earth-shaking ideas.
- Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it
when its not needed and use it correctly with words'
that show possession.
- Go around the barn at high noon to avoid
colloquialisms.
- Who needs rhetorical questions? However, what if
there were no rhetorical questions?
- Exaggeration is a billion times worse than
understatement.
- Avoid "buzz-words"; such integrated transitional
scenarios complicate simplistic matters.
- People don't spell "a lot" correctly alot of the
time.
- Each person should use their possessive
pronouns correctly.
- In writing, it's important to remember that dangling
sentences.
- Avoid going out on tangents unrelated to your
subject—not the subject of a
sentence—that's
another story (like the stories written by Ernest
Hemingway, who by the way wrote the great fisherman
story The Old Man and the Sea).
- Proofread carefully to see if you any words
out.
- Proofread carefully to make sure you don't repeat
repeat any words.
- If you must use slang, avoid out-of-date slang.
Right on!
- You'll look poorly if you misuse
adverbs.
- Between good grammar and bad grammar, good
grammar is the best.
- When you write a sentence, shifting verb tense is
bad.
- There are so many great grammar rules that I
can't decide between them.
Did you know...
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at
www.ima-associates.com?
Take a look if you
missed or want to review any of them.
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