GRAMMAR - PUNCTUATION - WHAT ARE PUNCTUATION MARKS?

Punctuation Marks
Punctuation marks are symbols that are used to aid the clarity and comprehension of written language. Some common punctuation marks are the period, comma, question mark, exclamation point, apostrophe, quotation mark and hyphen.

Punctuation Mark	Symbol	Definition	Examples
apostrophe	'	An apostrophe is used as a substitute for a missing letter or letters in a word (as in the contraction cannot = can't), to show the possessive case (Jane's room), and in the plural of letters, some numbers and abbreviations. Note: groups of years no longer require an apostrophe (for example, the 1950s or the 90s).	I can't see the cat's tail. Dot your i's and cross your t's. 100's of years.
colon	:	A colon is used before a list or quote. A colon is used to separate hours and minutes. A colon is used to separate elements of a mathematical ratio.	There are many punctuation marks: period, comma, colon, and others. The time is 2:15. The ratio of girls to boys is 3:2.
comma	,	A comma is used to separate phrases or items in a list.	She bought milk, eggs, and bread.
dash	—	A dash is used to separate parts of a sentence.	The dash is also known as an "em dash" because it is the length of a printed letter m — it is longer than a hyphen.
ellipsis	...	An ellipsis (three dots) indicates that part of the text has been intentionally been left out.	0, 2, 4, ... , 100
exclamation point	!	An exclamation point is used to show excitement or emphasis.	It is cold!
hyphen	-	A hyphen is used between parts of a compound word or name. It is also used to split a word by syllables to fit on a line of text.	The sixteen-year-old girl is a full-time student.
parentheses	( )	Parentheses are curved lines used to separate explanations or qualifying statements within a sentence (each one of the curved lines is called a parenthesis). The part in the parentheses is called a parenthetical remark.	This sentence (like others on this page) contains a parenthetical remark.
period	.	A period is used to note the end of a declarative sentence.	I see the house.
question mark	?	A question mark is used at the end of a question.	When are we going?
quotation mark	"	Quotation marks are used at the beginning and end of a phrase to show that it is being written exactly as it was originally said or written.	She said, "Let's eat."
semicolon	;	A semicolon separates two independent clauses in a compound sentence. A semicolon is also used to separate items in a series (where commas are already in use).	Class was canceled today; Mr. Smith was home sick. Relatives at the reunion included my older brother, Bob; my cousin, Art; and my great-aunt, Mattie.

NOW…WRITE A SENTENCE SHOWING THE CORRECT USE OF EACH OF THE ABOVE.

PUNCTUATION EXERCISES

1.       DELETE incorrect punctuation and add correct punctuation where necessary.

(a)    You need only one thing in life, luck.

(b)   ‘Henry give me a hand with the dishes,’ pleaded Henrietta.

(c)    Cats communicate with their owners dogs talk to other dogs.

(d)   The book, that won the award, was incomprehensible to me.

(e)   He turns twenty one today.

(f)     The twins father was so proud.

(g)    We waited for the rain it didn’t come.

(h)   I love writers such as, Carver, Salinger, and Hemingway.

2.       PUNCTUATE this passage. Add capitals and paragraphs.

as the power dressed daughter knows best new woman strides down Collins st and into the 90s i flatten myself against a shop window and ponder the place of the passive in the next decade must i buy a  leather satchel and pad my shoulders to survive i doubt if the trappings of success can make a snapdragon out of a shrinking violet coming from an age when the meek were blessed and father knew best when children were seen and not heard and only seen if sanitized and smiling when pushy was frowned on and stepping back applauded I still balk at the high jumps of life.

GRAMMAR - PARTS OF SPEECH - ADJECTIVES - GOOD VS WELL, BAD VS BADLY

Good versus Well

In both casual speech and formal writing, we frequently have to choose between the adjective good and the adverb well. With most verbs, there is no contest: when modifying a verb, use the adverb. He swims well. He knows only too well who the murderer is. However, when using a linking verb or a verb that has to do with the five human senses, you want to use the adjective instead. How are you? I'm feeling good, thank you. After a bath, the baby smells so good. Even after my careful paint job, this room doesn't look good. Many careful writers, however, will use well after linking verbs relating to health, and this is perfectly all right. In fact, to say that you are good or that you feel good usually implies not only that you're OK physically but also that your spirits are high. "How are you?" "I am well, thank you."

Bad versus Badly

When your cat died (assuming you loved your cat), did you feel bad or badly? Applying the same rule that applies to good versus well, use the adjective form after verbs that have to do with human feelings. You felt bad. If you said you felt badly, it would mean that something was wrong with your faculties for feeling.

GRAMMAR - PARTS OF SPEECH - ADJECTIVES - I VS ME

Taller than I / me ??

When making a comparison with "than" do we end with a subject form or object form, "taller than I/she" or "taller than me/her." The correct response is "taller than I/she." We are looking for the subject form: "He is taller than I am/she is tall." (Except we leave out the verb in the second clause, "am" or "is.") Some good writers, however, will argue that the word "than" should be allowed to function as a preposition. If we can say "He is tall like me/her," then (if "than" could be prepositional like like) we should be able to say, "He is taller than me/her." It's an interesting argument, but — for now, anyway — in formal, academic prose, use the subject form in such comparisons. We also want to be careful in a sentence such as "I like him better than she/her." The "she" would mean that you like this person better than she likes him; the "her" would mean that you like this male person better than you like that female person. (To avoid ambiguity and the slippery use of than, we could write "I like him better than she does" or "I like him better than I like her.")

GRAMMAR - PARTS OF SPEECH - ADJECTIVES - LESS VS FEWER

Less versus Fewer

When making a comparison between quantities we often have to make a choice between the words fewer and less. Generally, when we're talking about countable things, we use the wordfewer; when we're talking about measurable quantities that we cannot count, we use the word less. "She had fewer chores, but she also had less energy." The managers at our local Stop & Shop seem to have mastered this: they've changed the signs at the so-called express lanes from "Twelve Items or Less" to "Twelve Items or Fewer." Whether that's an actual improvement, we'll leave up to you. We do, however, definitely use less when referring to statistical or numerical expressions: It's less than twenty miles to Dallas. He's less than six feet tall. Your essay should be a thousand words or less. We spent less than forty dollars on our trip. The town spent less than four percent of its budget on snow removal. In these situations, it's possible to regard the quantities as sums of countable measures.

GRAMMAR - PARTS OF SPEECH - ADJECTIVES

Definition

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives.

• the tall professor
• the lugubrious lieutenant
• a solid commitment
• a month's pay
• a six-year-old child
• the unhappiest, richest man

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adjective, it is called an Adjective Clause. My sister, who is much older than I am, is an engineer. If an adjective clause is stripped of its subject and verb, the resulting modifier becomes an Adjective Phrase: He is the man who is keeping my family in the poorhouse.

Before getting into other usage considerations, one general note about the use — or over-use — of adjectives: Adjectives are frail; don't ask them to do more work than they should. Let your broad-shouldered verbs and nouns do the hard work of description. Be particularly cautious in your use of adjectives that don't have much to say in the first place: interesting, beautiful, lovely, exciting. It is your job as a writer to create beauty and excitement and interest, and when you simply insist on its presence without showing it to your reader — well, you're convincing no one.

Consider the uses of modifiers in this adjectivally rich paragraph from Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel. (Charles Scribner's, 1929, p. 69.) Adjectives are highlighted in this color; participles, verb forms acting as adjectives, are highlighted in this blue. Some people would argue that words that are part of a name — like "East India Tea House — are not really adjectival and that possessive nouns — father's, farmer's — are not technically adjectives, but we've included them in our analysis of Wolfe's text.

He remembered yet the East India Tea House at the Fair, the sandalwood, the turbans, and the robes, the cool interior and the smell of India tea; and he had felt now the nostalgic thrill of dew-wet mornings in Spring, the cherry scent, the cool clarion earth, the wet loaminess of the garden, the pungent breakfast smells and the floating snow of blossoms. He knew the inchoate sharp excitement of hot dandelions in young earth; in July, of watermelons bedded in sweet hay, inside a farmer's covered wagon; of cantaloupe and crated peaches; and the scent of orange rind, bitter-sweet, before a fire of coals. He knew the good male smell of his father's sitting-room; of the smooth worn leather sofa, with the gaping horse-hair rent; of the blistered varnished wood upon the hearth; of the heated calf-skin bindings; of the flat moist plug of apple tobacco, stuck with a red flag; of wood-smoke and burnt leaves in October; of thebrown tired autumn earth; of honey-suckle at night; of warm nasturtiums, of a clean ruddy farmer who comes weekly with printed butter, eggs, and milk; of fat limp underdone bacon and of coffee; of a bakery-oven in the wind; of large deep-hued stringbeans smoking-hot and seasoned well with salt and butter; of a room of old pine boards in which books and carpets have been stored, long closed; of Concord grapes in their long white baskets.

An abundance of adjectives like this would be uncommon in contemporary prose. Too many adjectives are frowned on these days.

Position of Adjectives

Unlike Adverbs, which often seem capable of popping up almost anywhere in a sentence, adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category. (See Below.) When indefinite pronouns — such as something, someone, anybody — are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun:

Anyone capable of doing something horrible to someone nice should be punished.
Something wicked this way comes.

And there are certain adjectives that, in combination with certain words, are always "postpositive" (coming after the thing they modify):

The president elect, heir apparent to the Glitzy fortune, lives in New York proper.

See, also, the note on a- adjectives, below, for the position of such words as "ablaze, aloof, aghast."

Degrees of Adjectives

Adjectives can express degrees of modification:

• Gladys is a rich woman, but Josie is richer than Gladys, and Sadie is the richest woman in town.

The degrees of comparison are known as the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. (Actually, only the comparative and superlative show degrees.) We use the comparative for comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things. Notice that the word than frequently accompanies the comparative and the word the precedes the superlative. The inflected suffixes -er and -est suffice to form most comparatives and superlatives, although we need -ier and -iest when a two-syllable adjective ends in y (happier and happiest); otherwise we use more and most when an adjective has more than one syllable.

Click on the "scary bear" to read and hear George Newall's "Unpack Your Adjectives" (from Scholastic Rock, 1975). Schoolhouse Rock® and its characters and other elements are trademarks and service marks of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. Used with permission.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
rich	richer	richest
lovely	lovelier	loveliest
beautiful	more beautiful	most beautiful

Certain adjectives have irregular forms in the comparative and superlative degrees:

Irregular Comparative and Superlative Forms
good	better	best
bad	worse	worst
little	less	least
much many some	more	most
far	further	furthest

Be careful not to form comparatives or superlatives of adjectives which already express an extreme of comparison — unique, for instance — although it probably is possible to form comparative forms of most adjectives: something can be more perfect, and someone can have a fuller figure. People who argue that one woman cannot be more pregnant than another have never been nine-months pregnant with twins.

Grammar's Response

According to Bryan Garner, "complete" is one of those adjectives that does not admit of comparative degrees. We could say, however, "more nearly complete." I am sure that I have not been consistent in my application of this principle in the Guide (I can hear myself, now, saying something like "less adequate" or "more preferable" or "less fatal"). Other adjectives that Garner would include in this list are as follows:

absolute	impossible	principal
adequate	inevitable	stationary
chief	irrevocable	sufficient
complete	main	unanimous
devoid	manifest	unavoidable
entire	minor	unbroken
fatal	paramount	unique
final	perpetual	universal
ideal	preferable	whole

Be careful, also, not to use more along with a comparative adjective formed with -er nor to use most along with a superlative adjective formed with -est (e.g., do not write that something is more heavier or most heaviest).

The as — as construction is used to create a comparison expressing equality:

• He is as foolish as he is large.
• She is as bright as her mother.

Premodifiers with Degrees of Adjectives

Both adverbs and adjectives in their comparative and superlative forms can be accompanied by premodifiers, single words and phrases, that intensify the degree.

• We were a lot more careful this time.
• He works a lot less carefully than the other jeweler in town.
• We like his work so much better.
• You'll get your watch back all the faster.

The same process can be used to downplay the degree:

• The weather this week has been somewhat better.
• He approaches his schoolwork a little less industriously than his brother does.

And sometimes a set phrase, usually an informal noun phrase, is used for this purpose:

• He arrived a whole lot sooner than we expected.
• That's a heck of a lot better.

If the intensifier very accompanies the superlative, a determiner is also required:

• She is wearing her very finest outfit for the interview.
• They're doing the very best they can.

Occasionally, the comparative or superlative form appears with a determiner and the thing being modified is understood:

• Of all the wines produced in Connecticut, I like this one the most.
• The quicker you finish this project, the better.
• Of the two brothers, he is by far the faster.

For a QUIZ on Adjectives, go here...

With thanks to Capital Community College, a non-profit organisation.

GRAMMAR - PARTS OF SPEECH - PRONOUNS - 'WHICH' VERSUS 'THAT' and a QUIZ

WHICH VERSUS THAT

The word which can be used to introduce both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, although many writers use it exclusively to introduce nonrestrictive clauses; the word that can be used to introduce only restrictive clauses. Think of the difference between "The garage that my uncle built is falling down." and "The garage, which my uncle built, is falling down." I can say the first sentence anywhere and the listener will know exactly which garage I'm talking about — the one my uncle built. The second sentence, however, I would have to utter, say, in my back yard, while I'm pointing to the dilapidated garage. In other words, the "that clause" has introduced information that you need or you wouldn't know what garage I'm talking about (so you don't need/can't have commas); the "which clause" has introduced nonessential, "added" information (so you do need the commas). Incidentally, some writers insist that the word that cannot be used to refer to people, but in situations where the people are not specifically named, or if it refers to a group of people, it is acceptable. “The students that study most usually do the best.”

Take a Quiz on the 'which', 'that', 'who' pronouns here.

THE LORD OF THE FLIES - READING COMPREHENSION

The Lord of the Flies

CHARACTERS

RALPH

1.       Why do you think the boys chose Ralph as their leader?

2.      Was Ralph a good leader? Why/why not?

3.      What did Ralph mean when he became an outcast and said:  ‘cos I had some sense.’ (p.176)

PIGGY

4.      Was Piggy right when he said, unimpressed by the behaviour of the kids – ‘Like kids!’ (p.37)

5.      Was Ralph’s description of Piggy as the ‘true, wise friend…’ (p.192) a correct one?

6.      Piggy declared: ‘I know there isn’t no beast!’ (p.80). Was he right?

SIMON

7.      Why do you think it’s Simon who talks to the Lord of the Flies?

8.      Simon is the boy who confronts both of the beasts – the dead pilot and the LOTF. Why do the boys kill him when he tries to explain his discoveries?

9.      The writer, Golding, describes Simon as a ‘saint’. ‘…someone who voluntarily embraces this beast, goes…and tries to get rid of him and goes to give the good news to the ordinary bestial man on the beach and gets killed for it.’ Do you see Simon as a ‘saint’?

William Golding uses the image of the sea at key stages in the book to represent the solar system, the cosmos. For example, when Simon’s noble mission, to enlighten the boys, fails, and he is killed, he floats out to sea and becomes at one with the noble forces of the universe.

JACK

10.  Ralph represents man the preserver, Jack soon represents man the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.

11.  What are some of the things Jack does early in the novel?

12.  Why did the other boys, even though accepting Ralph as chief, soon see Jack as ‘the most obvious leader’ (p.22)

13.  One by one, the creative insight of Simon, the scientific thinking of Piggy and the moral authority of Ralph, all give way to the brute force of Jack and the boys who blindly follow him. Is this a comment on society as a whole? Why?

14.  In this context, what do ‘rocks’ symbolise?

THE AUTHOR’S IDEAL

Golding has said his purpose in Lord of the Flies was ‘to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature’. Each of the four main characters has his insight into human nature in his own, individual way.

Who’s who?

…smears his face with clay and peers into the water at his reflection. He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger. (p.61)

In front of …. the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last ..gave up and looked back…and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition. (p.132)

‘With filthy matted hair, and unwiped nose, … wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.’

‘Which is better – to be a pack of painted niggers like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?...Which is better – to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?’ (p.171)

Who do you measure yourself against – Jack, Ralph, Piggy or Simon?

Golding has demonstrated a choice for society – between order and disorder – between brute force and the rule of law – between surrendering to our baser instincts and being ‘rescued’. Do you think society has heeded this message? Explain.