Posted on April 30th, 2007 by grammarblogger
Dictionary.com gives us the following definition for interjection: “a word or words, or some noise, used to express surprise, dismay, pain or other feelings and emotions.”
“Oh dear, so that’s what an interjection is. I never realized.”
The “Oh dear” (or “Oh, dear”) part of the above sentence represents the interjection.
Interjections are probably safest when used in spoken English, and unless you wanted to be sarcastic or sardonic, you probably wouldn’t use one in formal writing. I could be wrong, and there may be legitimate reasons to use interjections in formal writing. To wit:
“Stop! Read no further until you have completed the last step.”
Maybe that works. If you’re writing a manual about how to defuse a bomb.
Tags: interjection
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Posted on April 27th, 2007 by grammarblogger
This video of former Soviet President Boris Yeltsin and former U.S. President Bill Clinton shows how one can never be sure if a translation is correct or not. Please listen carefully to the opening few lines. Watch it again if you have to. The video starts on the continued page.
Tags: Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin
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Posted on April 26th, 2007 by grammarblogger
Or is it just old age setting in?
I’m a native speaker and generally a good speller, having gotten my K-12 education before the liberal reforms of the 1960s ruined everything in public education.
But just today I’ve already had to look up two words to make sure my memory was correct. The first was pastime. I couldn’t convince myself that it wasn’t pasttime. Past-time I knew would have to be some kind of adjective, so I threw that out. The second was acquiescence. I just couldn’t remember if there were a c after the s, which I confirmed there is by going to dictionary.com.
The point here is that I can, as i age, see more clearly why people have a hard time with this language of ours. Fortunately, we now have resources at our (keyboard) fingertips to help us out. Maybe some memory-enhancing pills would help as well.
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Posted on April 24th, 2007 by grammarblogger
The headline is a non pre-sequitur, whatever the term for that is, but my subject is light, in a way anyway.
My penpal in Taiwan, who is also an English teacher and whose grammar (learned as a second language) is infinitely better than most native Americans, even college graduates, was perplexed when I used the phrase “lightbulb went off.” She thought it should be “lightbulb came (or went) on.” Made sense.
That got me thinking, so I scoured the Internet for about 10 minutes (figuring that was about all the subject was worth) to find the derivation of the phrase, but I failed. The best I could conclude was that it derives from the days of those old flashbulbs that would definitely go off in a flash, thus leading to the phrase “lightbulb went off,” indicating a flash of realization.
Anybody got a better idea of the roots of the phrase? If you do, please post a comment.
Tags: lightbulb went off
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Posted on April 23rd, 2007 by grammarblogger
These two–neither/nor and either/or–are known as correlative conjunctions.
Where most people get tripped up in using these conjunctions is in verb tense and pronoun usage.
Let me give you a couple of examples:
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Posted on April 21st, 2007 by grammarblogger
Now it’s perfectly okay for Marlon Brando to bemoan that he “coulda been a contender.” People (some, a lot sometimes) speak that way, and that was a line in a screenplay. Verisimiltude counts.
However, the construction could of, which some/many native users of English think is the correct verb form for could have, needs to be banished forever and corrected immediately. I don’t care how much “I could’ve been somebody” sounds like “I could of been somebody,” folks, that’s just bad English.
Speaking-wise, who cares? But when this usage starts popping up (alongside other abominations like thru) in college-level writing, the alarm clocks should be going off.
Is anybody teaching proper English usage in the lower twelve grades? Put another way, is anyone paying attention to what’s being taught? I’d have to sit through several K-12 classes to get a good read, but I bet most instruction never gets much past, “Never start a sentence with because,” which of course isn’t even a rule in English.
I think I just answered my own questions.
Tags: Marlon Brando
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