by Donna | Jan 22, 2013
Do you like to read Language Lady everyday or every day? Let me help you with that!
Every day
1. Two words
2. An adjective (every) describing a noun (day)
3. Used when you want to say EACH day or ALL days.
Everyday
1,. One word
2. Usually an adjective together (the entire word is an adjective–everyday)
3. Used when you want to say something is NORMAL or TYPICAL.
Tips:
1. Every day is an adjective and noun together already–do not use these two words to describe another noun! (NO: Those are our every day dishes.)
2. Everyday is an adjective alone–use it to describe another noun. (YES: Those are our everyday dishes.)
Tricky Trick to Help It Stick: A wise grammarian recommends “testing” your words by seeing if you could put the word “single” in between every and day. (EACH single day):
1. If you can put “single” in between the two words, then you want the two separate words meaning EACH day…every single day:
a. I went to the mail box every SINGLE day. I went to the mail box every day.
b. She wrote him a letter every SINGLE day. She wrote him a letter every day.
2. If you cannot put “single” in between the two words, tehn you want the one word meaning typical or normal:
a. I wanted to use the every SINGLE day dishes. NO. I wanted to use the everyday dishes.
b. She is the every SINGLE day kind of gal. NO. She is the everyday kind of gal.
So…to answer the first question: You like to read Language Lady every day (each day) because she is not your everyday (typical) grammar teacher! Smile…
by Donna | Jan 21, 2013
The third Monday in January is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday–Martin Luther King Jr. Day. With every multi-word proper noun, there are potential errors for capitalizing and punctuating.
This is the case with today’s holiday as well, especially since it has some words that are three words or fewer (potentially indicating we should not cap them, depending on where they fall within the proper noun). It has an abbreviation (Jr.), which makes for a potential difficulty with the period (or not) and even a comma (since many incorrectly think it should be written Martin Luther King, Jr {with a comma}).
So how about a little capitalization, proper noun, punctuation lesson to start the week off right? According to the Associated Press Style Book and the Chicago Manual of Style, this holiday should be written as follows (my notes below that):
Martin Luther King Jr. Day:
1. Proper nouns, including holidays, should be capitalized.
2. A proper noun containing two or more words should follow these capitalization rules:
a. Capitalize the first and last word regardless of those words’ lengths: Fourth of July, Training for Triumph, Ode to Joy
b. Capitalize any internal words of a proper noun that are four letter or longer: World Book Encyclopedia
c. Capitalize any internal words of a proper noun that are three words or fewer if they are not one of the following:
i. Prepositions: Ode to Joy (NOT cap the prep to)
ii. Articles/Noun Markers: “For the Beauty of the Earth”
d. Capitalize any internal words of a proper noun that are three words or fewer if they are important to the title, regardless of the part of speech:
i. “This Is My Father’s World” (Is=linking verb important to title; My=pronoun important to title)
ii. Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jr. is important to title)
3. Capitalize Day in this holiday because it is part of the official title of the holiday (whereas Christmas day is not since day is not really the holiday’s name).
4. Write Jr. with a capital J, lower case r., period following it–and no comma anywhere. As one of my handbooks tells it: Names do not contain commas!
5. Also note that the official holiday does not have Rev. or Dr. as part of it, though those are titles given to him. Neither one is given in the holiday (just like General or President is not used in George Washington’s Birthday). (That holiday is also called Presidents’ Day.)
6. Lastly, note that this holiday is also called Martin Luther King Day (with no Jr.).
Now you know how to write and punctuate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Hope it’s a good one!
by Donna | Jan 18, 2013
A comma or not following an “unofficial” speech tag? When you write a true opening speech tag (he said, she responded, he asked), you need a comma separating it from your quoted words:
She said, “I love to write Language Lady blog posts.”
However, if you write an “unofficial” opening speech tag (According to Websters Dictionary, kindness is or Kindness can be defined as), do not place a comma before your quoted words.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, kindness is “an act of compassion.”
Kindness can be defined as “an act of compassion.”
The “official” rule on this is that other than true speech tags with quoted material following, you can not use a comma between a verb and its object or a preposition and its object:
NOT: According to Webster’s Dictionary, kindness is, “an act of compassion.” That would be a comma between the verb is and its object (predicate nominative in this case…)
NOT: Kindness can be defined as, “an act of compassion.” That would be a comma between the preposition as and its object (a phrasal object in this case).
by Donna | Jan 16, 2013
In my language arts series for grades two through twelve, I have a weekly lesson called “Wacky Words.” (Yeah, I’m all about alliteration. Um, Language Lady??!!) Anyway, the title fits a little better than calling them homophone lessons because not all confusing word are true homophones. Some are just, well, confusing–and wacky!
Here are some tricks and tips I have used recently in a Wacky Word lesson. Maybe some of these will help you remember which word is which (not witch!). Smile…
1. Hear—There is an ear in hear.
2. Here—There is not an ear in here.
3. There—It is here and there. There is a here in there!
4. Their—The word heir, which can mean ownership, is in the word their, and their is a pronoun that shows ownership!
5. See—Do you see two eyes in the word see ?
6. Boar–Boar has an a and is an animal.
7. Then—Then has an e and means next. According to one of my students (Isaac!), then means when.
8. Isle— Isle is like the word island.
9. Chord—Chord has an h like chorus (both musical).
10. Compliment—Compliment has an i–I like compliments.
11. Sensor—Sensor relates to the senses.
12. Herd—Herd of deer—almost the same letters in a different order!
13. Heard—Heard has the word ear in it
14. Through—It is rough when you go through hard times
15. Threw— He threw a new screw.
16. Pair—Love is in the air for this loving pair.
17. Pare—After he caught it, he was gong to pare the hare.
18. Pear—A pear half looks like an ear—and has the word ear in it.
19. Desert—has one s and you only want to be stuck in the desert one time!
20. Dessert—has two s’—and you want two desserts!
21. Main—The main (for first) murderer was Cain—both spelled ain.
22. Mane—The lion has a mane and is not tame!
23. Its—pronoun that shows ownership—never use an apostrophe to show ownership to a pronoun; that makes a contraction.
24. It’s—always say the two words uncontracted—if you say it is when you see this word, you will never use it’s for possession—the dog lost it’s (it is!?) collar—WRONG.
25. Sense— He was tense, so he lost his sense.
26. Cents—There are one hundred cents in a dollar and one hundred years in a century.
27. Since— Since the prince was tense he began to wince.
28. Presence— Can you think of a trick?
29. Present—have you ever heard the saying that “the present is a true present”?
by Donna | Jan 9, 2013
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Wordy Wednesday!
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Welcome to Wordy Wednesday! Did you know that strengthlessnesses is the longest word containing only one (albeit very repeating) vowel? Neither did I. And I don’t really care for it. I mean, it is cumbersome to say–and that is a whole lot of e’s and s’s to remember to spell the crazy word.
But I love unique and unusual–and strengthlessnesses is definitely both of those! Here are some vitals about this “longest word containing only one (albeit very repeating) vowel”:
1. It is a noun–did you know that when a word ends in ness, it is almost always a noun? This helps with standardized testing greatly. Ness words are nearly always nouns, so in a “fill in the blank” type of assignment, if the word in question ends in ness, it has to go in a spot where a noun fits.
Tricky Trick to Help It Stick: We have students learn key words to remember things. For instance, to remember that ness words are nearly always nouns, memorize a key word or two that you know is a noun and that ends in ness.
Other ness nouns: happiness, hopefulness, craziness, gratefulness, joyfulness, smartness
2. It has to do with having strength–we teach our students to think about what you already know–anytime–but especially when approaching a new word. Is there anything about the word strengthlessnesses that you already know?
a. You know what its base means. You already what strength means!
b. You know that less means less or not having that quality. (We do a lot of root and affix studies here!)
Because of those two “things you already know,” you can know that strengthlessnesses has something to do with not having strength (i.e. less strength).
Note: You know more than you think you know! Repeat this over and over to yourself: “I know more than I think I know. I know more than I think I know.” Use what you know to learn more!
3. It can be spelled syllable-by-syllable (if you are a biphonic man or biphonic woman!): strength-less-ness-es.
4. You can also make up a trick to remember how to spell it, such as “It contains four e’s and six s’s. Or that it has four syllables–which tells you that it will have at least four vowels in it (or y’s acting like vowels)–because a syllable always contains at least one vowel. A vowel is what makes a syllable!
5. You can learn the variations of this word–because you can remember from your vocabulary studies with Language Lady that suffixes (affixes added to the ends of words) might change the SPELLING of the base word (pity is changed to piti in pitiful) but does not change the MEANING of the base word. Even with three suffixes added (less, ness, and es), the base word of strength still means strength.
a. stengthless–adjective meaning without strength (less words are often adjectives!)
b. strengthlessly–adverb meaning without strength (ly words are often adverbs)
c. strengthelessness–a noun describing someone or something that is without strength (ness words are often nouns)
d. strengthlessnesses–a noun that means more than one someone or something that is without strength (es makes the word plural).
So there you have it–the longest word with only one repeating vowel. Did you know that you could learn so much from one word? You know a lot more than you think you know! Smile…
by Donna | Jan 8, 2013
Recently, my son and I were meeting about our novel. Joshua started to describe the changes he thought we should make to a particular scene and told me I could just jot down whatever I thought I needed to. I told him to hold on for a minute while I got a blank sheet of paper, then I promptly did the following:
1. Numbered each note as he spoke
2. Put sub notes under the note with the character’s initial and the motivational changes that Joshua thought we needed (M: Needs to begin this scene….)
3. Drew arrows to and from things as he spoke
Then when I was ready to rewrite that scene, guess what I did? I typed those notes all up–complete with the numbering and sub-numbering, etc.
Why am I telling you this? If you are a student, pay close attention to HOW you learn. I could not have written from paragraph notes. I could not have written with a word or two for each point. I could not have written from my handwritten notes–I needed to type it up in order to further understand it.
Whatever you do as a student to learn tells you a lot about how you learn! Utilize this information for test preparation, writing projects, and more. And like I always tell my students: “You know more than you realize you know!”
