Grammer for Dummies
Since we have so many clueless and unedurcated dubs who post here, I thot I wud take it upon meself to give you folks a few basic lessons in grammer. It's really easy to understand grammer once you actually understand it. I'm here to show you how to understand it.
There are these things we call parts of speech. This is one of those technical terms that means every sentence has words and those words are all parts of speech. In the world of higher education this is called using the definition of a term to define the term. It's confusing that way. For some strange reason, English fanatics like confusing.
Now, you might be asking yourselves, What is a sentence? If you lived in the hood you would know exactly what that word means because many of your friends are serving them, but some of you never lived in the hood, so I will explain. A sentence is a collection of words that ends with a period. Ok, so I'm confusing things here, because some of you are asking what is a period? If you are one of those fortunate folks who dropped out of ninth grade to study Web Applications and are now bringing in $250,000 a year, you will be able to understand that a period is the dot as in dot com. Others of you will understand that the term period is a thing that abruptly brings a first-date to a miserable and frustrating end.
But I digress.
Now that we understand that a sentence is a collection of words ending with a dot we need to remember that each and every word in that sentence is a part of speech. There are strict rules for each word that constitutes a part of speech that never, ever vary, except for those 457,293 exceptions to those rules which can be easily understood providing you have a photographic memory and are insane enough to actually want to learn them all.
When we have a group of sentences that are related, we call this a paragraph. The first sentence in any paragraph defines a subject. As long as the sentences that follow deal with the subject of that first sentence, they may be included in that same paragraph. If a sentence starts a new subject, you should put two lines between the new sentence and the last sentence in the former paragraph. This is called readability.
I prefer to put spaces between sentences after a half-dozen lines no-matter-what-the rules says, just to make some white space. Fuck the rules.
Let us take a moment and look at the most common parts-of-speech. They can be easily understood:
There are two major parts to a sentence: an object and a predicate. I don't understand what any of that means, so let's move on, shall we?
Noun - a noun is a person, place or thing. Since a thing can be anything except things that are not really things, a noun can be anything. This narrows down the field quite a bit and allows us to easily identify nouns in any sentence.
Verb - a verb describes action in a sentence. For example, if someone said, "I'm going to fuck you up," we can easily see that the f-word is a verb. Therefore, in order to ensure that you use correct grammer in the future, I suggest that you use the f-word as a verb frequently. You MUST have a verb in a sentence. Otherwise it cannot be a sentence, whether it has a dot on the end, or not. If a sentence has no verb, you could be subject to torture from grammerians who like to torture people for not playing by their rules.
One of the very nice things about verbs is that you can conjugate them. This should only be done between married couples, and even then, only in moderation. Be cautious as serpents when you conjugate, ok?
Adverb - adverbs are easy to understand. If you fail to use a verb in a sentence and some sharp person who knows grammer is around, s/he will point out to you that you need to adverb. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Adjective - an adjective is a thing that further describes a noun. Adjectives had to be invented in language because some people were too stupid to use a noun that precisely explains what they wanted to say in the first place.
Articles - this is a thingy that points at a noun. If you are so stupid as to use a noun that requires pointing to, then you should use one of these. There are two types: indefinite (for those who have a hard time making decisions) and definite for you Type-As out there.
Preposition - no, this is NOT what you make to loose women, you male perverts with sick and disgusting minds. This is a legitimate part of speech that needs to be utilized properly. If a word has two letters it is most likely a preposition, so that's about all you need to know about that. Except NEVER end a sentence with one. If you do, you will not believe the trouble you will be in. I'm a scholar and I know what I am speaking of.
Contractions - you mothers will understand this term. Seriously, a contraction is a way of making a word shorter by taking out a vowel and substituting an apostrophe for it. Even though the number of characters in the word is still EXACTLY the same as before, someone figured out that this would somehow help shorten the word. The person who came up with this idea was unfortunately shot for being such an idiot sometime in the 15 th Century, but his idea is still with us. Live with it.
Gerunds - these are words that can act as both a noun and a verb and an adjective, adverb, preposition, article and even a dot! Use them carefully. People may misunderstand what you mean.
Infinitives - these come in two versions: regular and split. When in doubt, use the regular kind or someone may accuse your of schizophrenia. If you prefer to use split infinitives, make sure your prescription for Lithium is fully filled before you begin.
Along with good grammer, we need to understand good puncation. Good puncation is simply knowing when and how to put in these little squiggly characters throughout a sentence.
Here are a few basic rules:
First, there is the comma. This is a thingy that looks like a little spermy: ,. It's like a dot which can swim. Commas look like tadpoles, but unlike tadpoles, commas do not grow into frogs. Please make a note of this, and don't use commas for your science projects in school.
The general rule for commas is: if you have more than 400 words in any given sentence, sprinkle commas around. Do not put them in the middle of words, though. This is considered bad form.
Semi-colons - for you jokesters out there, this is NOT talking about the medical condition of those old men on buses who have those funny bags in their pants, you sickos. No, semi-colons are a legitimate part of good puncation. They look like a dot with a little spermy underneath it. (;) Semi-colons separate two complete sentences that should have been two complete sentences in the first place using the standard dot, but if you really want to look smart, you can use them effectively to make people think you actually needed to use them to get your point across. You don't.
Colons - back off on your sicko jokes, you pervert readers. This is a serious thread. Colons point to a point you want to point to that defines what the pointer is pointing to. That's about it.
I hope all this helps, fellow dummies. If you've learned nothing else, please use a dot at the end of a sentence and only conjugate in moderation with a willing partner who is free of any communicable diseases.
Thank you for listening.
Farkel
Really Bad Pun Class
Edited by - Farkel on 19 June 2002 0:27:26
Edited by - Farkel on 19 June 2002 0:29:13