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

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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.

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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.
• 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
• Stella Kirkenlied 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!

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• 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.

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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__

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Semi-Colons

• Semi-colons 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
• The tower was too high the dungeon was too low.
• Semi-colons replace commas between separate list
  items that contain commas within themselves. One
  used, all list items within the sentence must be
  separated with a .
• 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.

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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 like 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,
  Queneau, Cendrars, and Max Jacob.
• Colons separate titles from their subtitles
• Om, Om on the Range Cowboys and Meditation

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• 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).
• Jean-Pierres pals on the tower were Josiane,
  Pauline, and Chosette.

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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

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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.
• - (em, en, hyphen)
• 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.