Seeing as it is the beginning of a New Year, and beginnings always make me think about the basics, I thought I could touch on some of the most basic (and often forgotten) precepts of grammar. There is an apostrophe missing in the above photograph; the inspirational message ought to read “Dreams are the footprints of our life’s path”, and despite the fact that I actually find this little message to be a comforting one, I take issue with mass printed grammatical errors. Yet, despite my dislike for obvious infractions I’ve managed to conjure up some focus, and produce a little tutorial.
The Basics of English Grammar:
1. Capitalization: Proper Nouns (i.e. names, titles, and the pronoun “I”), and at the beginning of EVERY sentence.
2. The comma cannot substitute a period; it is to be used to separate objects in a list (i.e. apple, banana, and orange), in proceeding FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), and acceptably as an indication of a natural pause within a proper, non-run-on, sentence. Just be cautious of the comma splice: joining two separate clauses with a comma instead of with a semi-colon, or completely separating the two with a period. e.g. “We had an exam at three, I decided to buy coffee first.” This ought to be separated by either a semi-colon, or a period since neither clause requires the other to make a cohesive, proper sentence. The other option is to completely restructure the sentence into “I decided to buy coffee before our exam at three.”
3. Basic Sentence Structure: A noun followed by a verb; e.g. I am. “I” is the noun, “am” is the verb. A sentence without a subject (noun) or an action word (verb), is not a proper sentence. There are, of course, some exemptions to the rule such as verbs followed by an exclamation point (!)–this indicates an order given.
4. Apostrophes: This little punctuation mark makes the word “can’t” possible; it also allows us to differentiate between the possession of an object, and a plural. E.g. “Joe’s…” vs. “Joes…” The first sentence tells us that the object belongs to Joe, the latter indicates that there are many individuals named “Joe”.
5. The difference between There, Their, and They’re, as well as You’re and Your, Two and too. There indicates a place “Over there!”, Their indicates possession “That is their office.”, and They’re is a conjunction of “they are”. You’re is a conjunction of “You are” and Your is the possessive of the pronoun you “That is your coffee mug.” Two is the numerical “2”, whereas too indicates a number of things “too many”, “me too”–It could probably use a blog post of its very own.
6. Semi-colons are your friend; two short, and complimentary sentences can be conjoined by using the semi-colon (;). Generally the sentence following the semi-colon explains the first sentence. E.g. Shelly was a quiet girl; when she was three she had witnessed her mother die in a horrific car wreck. These two clauses seem completely unrelated, but “Shelly’s” quietness is explained by the trauma of witnessing her mother die. The semi-colon can be used in place of a comma where a comma splice may occur.
7. Lastly, emoticons and abbreviations/acronyms are not considered to be professional, or appropriate outside of texting, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.
I hope you find this little tutorial helpful in your writing, proofreading, and editing practices. Stop by again next week for some more tips, and inspiration. Please leave a comment if you have any area of writing (grammar, style, spelling differences etc.) that you would like me to explore, and I will start plugging away at the research. Happy writing, and don’t forget to like our Facebook page “Jespersen Writing and Editing Services”, as well as our website http://jespersenwritingservices.webs.com