Word Crimes: Get Yr Grammar On!

When we go with the flow, stay with our wild minds, and our down draft down, we need to follow the rules of writing practice as set out by Natalie Goldberg and not worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar.

But then there comes a time to revise those down drafts, and to fix them into up drafts, so we can have dental drafts where we check every “tooth” of our writing as Anne Lamott describes in her chapter on “Shitty First Drafts” in Bird By Bird. And as long as we don’t let perfectionism get to us, we finally have a final draft!

Comma splices are an epidemic. Incorrect semi-colon use used to be worse; this Oatmeal cartoon has helped some understand what a semi-colon is, what it does, and how to use it, so here is the link.

I explain that a semicolon is a period on top of a comma. The period shows us that the first part of the sentence is a complete idea –and it could function correctly with a period at the end. The comma shows the reader that the two ideas are connected– the writer wants you to just take a minor pause to take in the ideas of the first part before moving on to the second part.

So to help you get your grammar on, here’s two videos- the first from Big Bang Theory

Maybe that just confused you, but this video by Weird Al Yankovic has a lot of great advice when it comes to solving “word crimes…

Plus enjoy these grammar jokes adapted from Jill Thomas Doyle!

1. An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.
2. A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
3. A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
4. An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
5. Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
6. A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
7. Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
8. A question mark walks into a bar?
9. A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
10. Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”
11. A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
12. A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
13. Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
14. A synonym strolls into a tavern.
15. At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
16. A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
17. Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
18. A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
19. An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
20. The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
21. A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
22. The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
23. A dyslexic walks into a bra.
24. A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
25. A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
26. A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
27. A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.