grammar

Dirty, sexy, grammar – conjugation

September 7, 2012

So if prisoners are allowed conjugal visits, when you conjugate a verb are you screwing? Or screwed? Or just plain stupid for sleeping with a hardened criminal? Something like that. One definition of conjugation is “to become joined together; to pair and fuse in conjugation.” Well I’ll be damned. You are screwed. When you conjugate [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – gender

July 14, 2012

Woohoo, grammar has sex! I mean a sex. You know, more than one. Sex. Few traces of gender remain in modern English. Are we surprised? “No sex please we’re British.” Well, I’m not British, but I am speaking their language. Just without the awesome accent. Other than pronouns (he/she, his/hers), or to distinguish animal gender [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – prepositions

June 19, 2012

A preposition creates a relationship. It is a grammatical proposition, bringing nouns or pronouns and other words together. These are usually couplings, but I’m sure the occasional threesome is okay. When discussing prepositions, “of” or “to” or “with” often come to mind. Folks get all up in yo’ face when you end a sentence with [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – bare infinitives

May 22, 2012

It’s time to share a little grammar for the nudists among us. A full (or to-) infinitive is a verb that follows “to.” A bare infinitive is the base form of a verb. It is ‘to’ bare. As opposed to too bare. It is infinitely naked, so inherently sexy. You know, because it never ages, [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – mood

May 4, 2012

Candles. Wine. Soft music. I bet you know what I’m in the mood for. Grammar! I mean, who isn’t? It’s such a sexy thing, good grammar. Even sexier when you break the ‘rules’ and rebel. That’s right, baby – end my sentence with a preposition. Come on, split my infinitive. Oh, yes…. Mood is a [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – dangling participles

April 15, 2012

While some participles might be sexy, and a few a little dirty, the dangling kind are just plain wrong! Please folks, keep those participles in your grammatical pants. We don’t need to see ‘em dangle. A participle is a verbal form that modifies a noun. In other words, it is a verb that acts like [...]

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Adverbly yours

April 1, 2012

A habit, or maybe fall back, of many writers is the ease and frequency with which they use adverbs. Especially -ly adverbs. See? I did it again. After giving my novel out to the first round of beta readers (love you guys!), I went on a search and destroy mission. Seek out any word ending [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – head

March 29, 2012

Well, let’s see – how to tiptoe around what’s sexy about head? There’s that big round thing that sits atop your shoulders. That head can be sexy, if it’s filled with humorous, intelligent, humble brains. Head can also be, well, something else entirely. An act of sorts. Is it sexy? Just plain dirty? Maybe it’s [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – the Oxford comma

March 7, 2012

It gets its name from the Oxford University Press, so how could this little cousin of the goddess apostrophe  be anything but stuffy, boring, and buttoned up? Uh, hello?? It’s a university! In merry old England, no less! Knowledge, old buildings, learning, and British accents. Totally sexy. Lots of things named Oxford are sexy. How [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – subordinate clause

February 20, 2012

A subordinate clause is to a main clause as Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is to the Marquis de Sade. You can’t have the masochist without the sadist – although the sadist can stand alone. Or maybe that’s the cheese. Yes, the cheese stands alone. A subordinate clause has a subject and a verb, but cannot stand [...]

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Dirty, sexy, grammar – apostrophe

February 5, 2012

What could be sexy about a little flick of the pencil? Well, two things. She sounds like the baby sister of the goddess of love, Aphrodite. I dub Apostrophe the goddess of punctuation. If that’s not enough to make her sexy, this little chick is badass. She is the tiny arc of controversy, sparking debate [...]

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