Glorious Grammar Review

1
Glorious Grammar Review

• Examples adapted from The New Well-Tempered
  Sentence A Punctuation Handbook for the
  Innocent, the Eager, the Doomed, and The Deluxe
  Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

2
Tricksy Possessives

• A singular noun is rendered possessive by the
  addition of s
• A womans place is on the roam, Jacarandas
  fichu, Henry IVs statue, the valet de chambres
  curls, Jesuss dinner roll.
• A plural noun ending in s is rendered possessive
  by adding an apostrophe after the final s s
• Those goats picnic, the vampires fear of
  white-collar workers, the three bouncers
  suspenders
• Possessive pronounswhich contain the idea of
  possession implicitlyshould NOT be spelled with
  an apostrophe
• Its, hers, his, ours, whose, theirs

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Possessives Exercises

• Rosss/Ross cummerbund was an offensive shade of
  puce.
• The eight elephants/elephants enchiladas
• Whose/whos chronometer is this?
• Bertrand is the man whose/whos destined to
  become president
• The nine nixies/nixies nasturtiums
• Possessives Footnote
• Technically, you are not supposed to make
  insensate objects possessive. Not the mantuas
  lining, but the lining of the mantua.

4
Italics

• Use italics on titles of long workssymphonies,
  lengthy poems, novels (use quotation marks for
  short works)
• Chaucer, surprised at the tenderness he felt for
  his unfaithful heroine, cried into several
  handkerchiefs while writing Troilus Criseyde.
• The Agony the Iniquity traces the tribulations
  of seven unnoticed heroes from the lower depths.
• On names of ships, aircrafts, and spaceships
• The Tinta, the Zebra, and the Scarlatina are part
  of the fancifully painted maritime collection in
  a short film commonly shown with Yellow
  Submarine.
• For emphasis (a little informal)
• Would the endorphins never come?
• The where was I, if not in the wrong?
• For words of foreign extraction that have not be
  anglicized (i.e., that you would attempt to
  pronounce with a foreign accept)
• She flaunted her je ne se quoi all over town.
• Nothing could perturb his maddening sang froid.
• For words, letters, c. referred to as such
• The g in lagniappe is a slide
• Stella Kirkenlied, as the labyrinth colloquy,
  defined paranoia as self-aggrandizement with a
  twist.

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Italics Exercise

• Quotation marks or italics?
• The story in the Boston Globe titled Mad Ape
  falls down Well, Finds Elvis, and Gives Birth to
  Worlds Fattest Baby was most enlightening.
• His first novel was a tedious, egocentric roman à
  clef.
• Shakespeare wrote the sonnet, Shall I Compare
  Thee to a Summers Day?
• Shakespeare also wrote the play Titus Andronicus
• As the Titanic sank, the orchestra played Auld
  Lang Syne.
• Many people dont realize that numinous means
  cloudy, not radiant.
• She said, Ive had enough of your
  histrionicsget your weltanschauung out of my
  face!

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Quotation Marks

• Use quotation marks to enclose direct quotations
• She said, As a rule, I hate iguanas, but this
  one has a wistful face.
• But not indirect quotations.
• He said he needed to tune his clavichord.
• Commas and periods ALWAYS go inside the quotation
  marks.
• Presto Galooti, whose constituents included the
  underestimated, the uninterested, and the
  uninvited, was the undeclared candidate of
  choice.
• Question marks and exclamation points, on the
  other hand, are placed according to meaning.
• Did Too-Too say, I cant find my luminous
  leg-warmers?
• He was banging on the door, bellowing, Open up,
  you adorable beast!
• After jilting her in front of the David in the
  Piazza del Popolo, he had the nerve to tell her
  to have a nice day!
• Do NOT use quotation marks to indicate a
  clichéit only emphasizes the cliché-ishness
• During last weeks monsoon, it really rained
  cats and dogs.
• Use single quotes to indicate quotations within
  quotations
• The teacher made Jedediah write Sod off is not
  an appropriate conclusion to a business letter
  300 times.

7
Quotation Mark Exercises

• Place the punctuation
• Millicent asked, Isnt Eustace a hoot and a half
  ?/?
• I would never say Cool beans !/!
• The mechanic asked if he could rev my engine
  ./.
• Lady Blessington said, _I cant sing Wagners
  _Ride of the Valkyries_ without a large glass of
  tawny port__
• Vinny exclaimed, _The next person who asks_ _Is
  it hot enough for you__ is going to get a knuckle
  sandwich__

8
Semi-Colons

• Semi-colons are like exaggerated commas they
  indicate a longer pause than a comma, but a
  lesser pause than a period. They link two
  independent clauses with sharply contrasting or
  closely related content.
• I often click my tongue its my only revenge
• Anjula was despondent shed come in the wrong
  shoes.
• The tower was too high the dungeon was too low.
• Semi-colons replace commas between separate list
  items that contain commas within themselves. If
  used to separate one list item, it must be used
  to separate all list items within the sentence.
• Attending the kickoff of the global warming
  conference were a paranormal guttersnipe from
  Trinity College seven Volga boatmen singing The
  Song of the Volga Boatmen an extra-terrestrial
  watersprite and his girlfriend from Tulsa,
  Oklahoma a hypochondriac with his ice-pack and
  hot-water bottle and a ferry-boater, in a tux,
  from the river Styx.
• Semi-colons separate conjunctive adverbs from the
  independent clauses that precede them
• Theres always room for improvement moreover, in
  this case, thats all theres room for.
• Samantha had had her fill of his blustering
  histrionics therefore, she spun on her heel and
  retreated to the coolness of her dimly lit
  boudoir.
• We like the look of your face however, we
  suspect that a troubled childhood is hidden by
  that beard.

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Semi-Colon Exercises

• Are the semi-colons commas used correctly in
  the following sentences?
• We got on our bikes to go to the store.
• Despite the many rave reviews we thought Forrest
  Gump was insipid.
• Joan likes flan Fred prefers mousse.
• Ezekial ran for mayor, his campaign manager was
  Elvira.
• The temperature dropped to below freezing last
  night consequently, our sleeping bags were
  covered with frost.
• Place semi-colons commas where appropriate
• We watched sex lies and videotape An American in
  Paris and Old Yeller.
• We watched sex, lies, and videotape An American
  in Paris and Old Yeller.
• She packed a suitcase containing socks PJs and
  jeans a train case full of makeup her laptop
  attaché and a hanging garment bag holding two
  suits.
• She packed a suitcase containing socks, PJs, and
  jeans a train case full of makeup her laptop
  attaché, and a hanging garment bag holding two
  suits.

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Colons

• A colon introduces a part of a sentence that
  explains or exemplifies the main idea
• Pain stood in the way like a sheet of glass you
  could walk through it, but not without a certain
  noise.
• Besides sniffing cigars and snapping suspenders,
  there was one thing sure to be on the tycoons
  agenda money.
• There are three reasons for his absenteeism
  fear of furniture, aversion to numbers and dollar
  signs, and a snakebite on his chin.
• This is how I found him mesomorphic,
  monosyllabic, and debonair.
• Phrases such as namely, for instance, for
  example, or that is replace the colon
• Cocos study was concentrated on three
  twentieth-century French writers, namely, de
  Beauvoir, Camus, and Max Jacob.
• Colons separate titles from their subtitles
• Om, Om on the Range Cowboys and Meditation
• RULES Colons in sentences should ONLY follow
  independent clauses
• By light rail, bi-plane, or hovercraft I will
  find my way to you.
• Colons should never separate a noun from its
  objects or complements.
• Jean-Pierres pals on the tower were Josiane,
  Pauline, and Chosette.
• Some manuals assert that colons should be
  followed by two spaces (like periods).

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Colon Exercises

• Insert colons commas where necessary
• Moriarty revealed his most appalling scheme yet a
  plan to become a singer on the burlesque stage
• Next on the runway came Gregor Schlaffenfusss
  Wombat Fatigues pockets and cuffs edged in wombat
  fur and beaming and riveted with sleepy wombat
  eyes.
• Out-of-town parents and merchandise from Columbia
  a recipe for compromised youth.
• The teething rats were especially fond of grated
  Romano, Asiago, and Chosette.
• The baby vampire tries out his baby teeth on
  surfaces that are fun to puncture golf balls,
  plastic Coke bottles, and balloons.
• She prefers French composers such as Fauré ,
  Satie, and Franck

12
Hyphens

• Hyphens are the shortest of the punctuating
  lines, used to join compound words, compound
  adjectives, c.
• He pounded upon her ill-tempered clavicles with a
  bacchanalian bravado that calmed his seething
  soul
• His devil-make-care attitude and Sturm-und-Drang
  panache drove many a maiden to madness.
• Do not, however, hyphenate a compound adjective
  that follows the noun it modifies
• He was a door-to-door salesman of housewares and
  eyesores.
• He sold housewares and eyesores door to door.
• Do not hyphenate a compound in which one of the
  words ends in-ly
• A freakishly attired ombudsman
• An insanely coiffed concubine
• A profoundly regretful rat-catcher

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Hyphen Exercises

• Insert a hyphen where necessary
• A heavy handed debutante
• Her neatly categorized notions of human frailty
• His coal black hair
• The cats rarely velveted claws
• A cross eyed puffin
• The charwoman, lantern jawed and gloomy
• The dim witted janissary

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Em Dashes

• Dashes are longer than hyphens, though they
  themselves vary in length
• Em dashes are the popular and expressive
  punctuation marks used to interrupt sentences for
  interesting asides, or to replace colons to
  indicate an example or explanation.
• Originally consisting of two hyphens, -- with
  no spaces intervening between the dash and the
  surrounding words, MS Word joins the hyphens
  automaticallythusfor a more aesthetically
  appealing em dash.
• He had one favorite maxim for the great white
  huntersget lost.
• Charmiane left us to lock her drawerGod only
  knows what she keeps in there!and fetch her
  opera glasses.
• The Grim Reaperthat cosmopolitan gadaboutwas
  cutting capers in the vestibule while a daffy
  dowager quaffed her Darjeeling and knocked back
  vermouth and schnapps.

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En Dashes

• En dashes are in between hyphens - and em
  dashes in length .
• In MS Word, they are formed by writing a
  word/letter, a space, a single hyphen, a space,
  another word/letter, and a space a - b after
  you type the last space, MS Word automatically
  transforms your hyphen into an en dash a b.
• En dashes stand in for the word to
• We traveled on the LondonNew Rochelle zeppelin.
• The Lobelia Relocation Office is open 100430,
  and we will gladly relocate your lobelias or
  anything else you want misplaced.
• Two en dashes are used to indicate letters
  omitted from a word
• That fg troglodyte
• Three em dashes indicates a missing word
• Babar is the king of in his red suit and
  patent leather shoes.