Proper Grammar

[Sparhawk]

Well, I felt like posting this. It seems like Krauersaut would have posted something like this by now, but... Then again,

it's a nice reminder that I have good grammar, and that I have no life.

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Rule 1: Punctuation.

Punctuation is a wonderful thing.

Full stops (periods, for you Americans) are used at the end of a sentence. Do. Not. Use. Them. After. Every. Word.

Commas are used to separate items in lists, to separate parts of sentences (typically when a conjunction [a word like “but” or “or”] is used) and after adverbs like “however” and “therefore”.

Apostrophes are used to show possession and in contractions like “I’m” and “don’t”. They are not used for pluralisation!

Question marks are used at the end of questions, surprisingly. Only questions, however. Not statements.

Exclamation marks are used to show emotion. You only need to use a single one and you don’t need to use them all of the bloody time.

The rest aren't as important, but it would be nice if you could look up the uses of punctuation marks like colons, brackets (parentheses for you Americans), semi-colons, hyphens and the like.

 

Rule 2: “I” and Capitalisation.

The pronoun “I” is always capitalised. It is also always capitalised when in the contractions “I’m” and "I'll".

Capital letters are also used at the beginning of sentences, proper nouns, titles, days, weeks and in titles, like the title of this thread. You do not capitalise every word in a sentence.

 

Rule 3: Spaces.

Surprisingly enough, spaces are used after words and punctuation marks. For some reason, many people cannot grasp this. You put the space after the punctuation mark, not before it, by the way.

 

Rule 4: Spelling.

This really should not be here, but it’s necessary. Spelling words correctly generally helps people understand you. This includes putting apostrophes in contractions (“I’m” being the biggest offender).

 

Rule 5: Pluralisation.

In most cases, you simply add an “s” to the end of a word to pluralise it. If it ends with “s” or “x”, you tend to add “es”. If it ends with a “y”, with a consonant before the “y”, you change the y to “ies”. You do not add apostrophes when pluralising words.

 

Rule 6: Adjectives and Adverbs (“Good” and “Well”).

An adjective is used to describe a noun. An adverb is used to describe a verb, an adjective or another adverb. “Good” is an adjective. “Well” is an adverb, except when referring to health.

e.g. “After being ill for three weeks, I am well again and am able to eat. This food is really good! The chef cooked it really well!”

In this case, the first use of “well” is an adjective, while the second use of it is an adverb. “Really” is also an adverb. It is modifying the adverb “well”.

 

Rule 7: “Your” and “You’re”.

“Your” is a possessive adjective. “You’re” is a contraction of “You are”, the second person singular of the verb “To be”. The correct phrase is "You're welcome", by the way.

e.g. “Your bag is here, while you’re over there.”

 

Rule 8: “Their”, “There” and “They’re”.

Similar to the above rule, “Their” is a possessive adjective and “They’re” is a contraction of “They are”, the third person plural of the verb “To be”.

“There” is used to when referring to location. e.g. “There is the pen” or “The ball is over there”.

e.g. “They’re over there, getting their dinner.”

 

Rule 9: “Its” and “It’s”.

This is the exact same thing as the above two rules. “Its” is a possessive adjective and “It’s” is a contraction of “It is” or “It has”. It’s worth mentioning that if you want to say “’Tis” for whatever reason, the apostrophe goes before the “T”. Same rule goes for “’Twas”.

e.g. “It's a really rubbish day. The universe is using all its power in order to **** up this day.”

Thanks to SuperPichu for the example.

 

Rule 10: “Affect” and “Effect”.

“Affect” is a verb. “Effect” is a noun.

e.g. “The war has affected us all greatly. The effects it is having are disastrous.”

 

Rule 11: “Than” and “Then”.

“Than” is used when comparing things. “Then” is used when referring to time.

e.g. “Then you will know that using correct grammar in posts is more important than posting quickly.”

 

Rule 12: “Should of”.

“Should of” is not a phrase. People make this mistake all of the time. What you mean is “Should’ve”, a contraction of “Should have”.

 

I hope this has allowed you to understand English grammar a little better and I also hope that you will put more effort into your posts in the future! I will update this post as I think of more. Suggestions are welcome!

 

Rule 13: “Apart” and “A part”.

“Apart” means “separate”. “A part” means “a component/member/piece”.

e.g. “The storm ripped our fence apart. I found a part twenty houses down the road!”

 

Rule 14: “Alot”.

“Alot” is not a word. You mean “A lot”.

Read this too.

 

Fun fact: Auto-correct on Word messed this one up. :/

 

Rule 15: ”Freind”.

“Friend” is spelled as such, with the “i” before the “e”. While the “i” before “e” rule is stupid and incorrect half of the time, it does apply to “friend”.

 

Rule 16: ”Allowed” and “Aloud”.

“Allowed” means “Permitted”. “Aloud” means “Out loud”.

e.g. “He is not allowed to play music aloud.”

 

Rule 17: “Except”, “Expect” and “Accept”.

“Except” means “Apart from”. “Expect” means “Anticipate”. “Accept” means “Receive”, “Acknowledge” or “Allow”.

e.g. “I expected them to accept everybody except for Gary.”

 

Rule 18: “Random”.

Chances are when you use the word “Random” you mean either “Arbitrary” or “Nonsensical”. It really hurts when people constantly misuse this word, so don ‘t.

 

Rule 19: "To", "Too" and "Two".

"Too" means "As well" or "Beyond a desirable amount". "Two" is the number. Any other use of the homophone is covered by "To".

 

Maybe I'll add to this if I feel like it. I dun tink I will.

[Krauersaut]

The tl;dr version for people who are too lazy to read a few sentences:

 

http://theoatmeal.co...ics/misspelling

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally

[SinfulRaevyn]

The Gayroller 2000 is amazing.

[LuCkY*13]

The Gayroller 2000 is amazing.

ahahaha i was thinking the same

[speedfact]

As ive stated before:

 

wud u plz xplan thhis gramar 2 I?

[LuCkY*13]

wud u plz xplan thhis gramar 2 I?

 

 

 

Wut d yu min wid dat?

[UAdave]

The Gayroller 2000 is amazing.

 

The pink exhaust made me literally lol

[Saizou]

Please add indefinite article usage to the list, especially when to use "a" and when to use "an". I had to remind myself how to use them properly. I wasn't quite sure how an adjective between an indefinite article and a noun affects the article.

[RedBaird]

[Sparhawk]

Please add indefinite article usage to the list, especially when to use "a" and when to use "an". I had to remind myself how to use them properly. I wasn't quite sure how an adjective between an indefinite article and a noun affects the article.

 

Hey Saizou, with the two main articles in the English language, ("the" and "a/an,") there also come two main categories:

 

Definite and

Indefinite.

 

They are actually somewhat self explanatory, as definite means precise and for sure, and indefinite is the exact opposite.

The is Definite, and A/An is indefinite.

 

For example:

 

I want to see the movie.

I want to see a movie.

 

Example A shows that you want to see a specific movie, whereas example B implies that you want to go out to see a movie.

 

The differences between using A and An are just determined on whether the next word begins with a vowel.

 

For example:

 

I would like to see a movie.

I am watching an episode of Star Trek.

 

In example A, the word directly after A is Movie, and movie begins with a consonant. In example B, Episode starts with a vowel, so you must use An.

 

Hopefully that cleared some things up

Lux~

[Lulu]

As ive stated before:

 

wud u plz xplan thhis gramar 2 I?

 

Wut d yu min wid dat?

 

This makes my brain hurt.

[CookieMonsta]

Aint nobody got time fo dat!

[Chameleon]

Well I am from the south in the USA and around here a lot of these are pretty common terms to be honest (Where I live). It isn't as much lazy or not caring or even paying attention, but when you are raised this way from birth, some of these things become common place and are hard habits to break. That being said, I do wish there was something that could be done to change it.

[Sparhawk]

Bump... This requires reading from the majority of the members here. =.=

[Corey]

I like the gayroller 2000

 

It needs to roll right over this thread!!

 

Aint nobody got time for dat!

Edited January 24, 2013 by Corey