Like nails on a chalkboard
We’ve talked about grammar before and together, we’ve gone over the differences between its and it’s and their and there but no one is perfect… even those of us (like me) who have degrees in English and cringe at phrases like “I did good on that test.” It is perfectly acceptable in the blogging community to be imperfect and some bloggers even relish in their blemishes whereas others labor over every word as if it were a press release.
Both behaviors are fine, but I personally believe in a happy medium where you know the basic rules or have at least brushed up on them since grammar class, circa 1967. Recently, I found an additional aide that you might find helpful in recalling the building blocks of super sexy syntax, shown below.
Grammar stickers for the cool kids:
Click here to see a closeup of the sections. Once you know the rules, you have the basic building blocks for blog coherency. Plus, you can only rebel against the rules if you know them, right!?!
Kevin Tomlinson
October 16, 2009 at 1:16 am
I’m a freak about this stuff, too. What about punctuation always goes inside quotation marks.
If you every see heinousness on my stuff PLEASE let me know!
Kevin Tomlinson
October 16, 2009 at 1:16 am
oh gawd, “heinousness” would be considered slang, right? So, therefore, it would get quotation marks, correct?
Sarah Basel
October 16, 2009 at 2:26 am
Great article! I thought this was common kowledge! I get a kick out of the fact that these are stickers!
Joe Loomer
October 16, 2009 at 7:08 am
Punctuation does not go inside quotation marks if it’s (uh, is it its or it’s, which is it?) a ship’s name. Their, my contribution to the fray, uh, I meant “There,” did I do that right?
Navy Chief, Navy Pride
Jim Duncan
October 16, 2009 at 7:28 am
ThankyouThankyouThankyou.
You know, most kids don’t diagram sentences anymore, right?
The sign’s missing you’re/your – one of the most simple but most frequently seen grammatical faux-pas.
Brian Miller
October 16, 2009 at 8:15 am
Lani,
I’m with ya on this. My toughest teacher in high school was my English teacher. Everyone dreaded being assigned to her class, and going through what we were sure was going to be one step from death. In the end she was by far THE best teacher I had in high school and probably college. She instilled in us an enormous sense of the importance of writing well. It amazing to me that today, I am still very concious of using proper grammar, spelling, etc. (like I am hearing her words, and I’m getting nervous writing this…HA!)
I know I am far from being an “accomplished” author, but she has sent me out into the world with a confidence in writing that has carried through many writing tasks.
Atlanta Real Estate
October 17, 2009 at 11:22 am
At this point, I’m going to just have to go with what I was taught in 5th grade, for better or worse.
And, of course, whatever MS Word flags down for me..
LOL!