Myth Busting: Ending Sentences With Prepositions

 

Okay, it's time to dispel a common grammar myth.  Despite what you may have heard, it is perfectly acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition (prepositions are words that indicate position, such as over, under, through, up, down, etc.).  When you go out of your way to avoid doing so, you end up with a sentence like this:

Image from grammarly.com



My Favorite Resources

As a teacher, writer, and editor, it is important that I stay on top of trends and changes in language and style guides.  While I use a plethora of resources, the following are my favorites.  Between the three, I am almost always able to find what I need.

Haiku Challenge Met

Leave it to my brother to issue this challenge:

Nelson Mandela's Sign Language Interpreter, as written by a Cockney laborer during the final outbreak of the Black Plague in 1666.

As written, it would appear that the subject is the sign language interpreter.  Piece of cake.  But the Cockney laborer part was more difficult.  What I would say in one syllable (sick) takes three in Cockney (Tom and Dick) Still, with a little bit of research (and a lot of rewrites), I think I nailed it.

Why the two an' eight?

Mutt an' Jeff 'ave Tom an' Dick,

But I ain't creamed 'ere.

Image from wriggleplum.blogspot.com

 

So, my sweet younger brother, got any more brain busters for me?

Don't Be a Serial Killer; Save the Oxford Comma!

After hating on Oxford two posts ago, I felt the need to give them some credit for my second favorite punctuation mark, the Oxford (or serial) comma.  The Oxford comma is an optional comma used before the conjunction in a list of three or more things. It may not always be necessary, but it certainly adds clarity. Instead of my typical type of lesson, I thought I would use pictures to illustrate why I always use my beloved Oxford comma.

Ban the Apostrophe? Balderdash!

As if the news I posted last week wasn't bad enough, here is another gem from across the pond:

Dropped Apostrophes Spark Grammar War in Britain
By HARVEY MORRIS
 
LONDON — A local council in southern England has sparked a grammar war with proposals to ban the apostrophe from its street signs to avoid what it calls “adverse consequences in times of emergency.”

Et Tu, Oxford English Dictionary?

Last April, I had the opportunity to visit with a few of my favorite former students. I'm afraid a serial killer was born that day, friends, because I noticed a language trend that made me feel positively murderous: the unabashed misuse of the word literally. These young women had literally crapped their pants, literally guzzled an entire bottle of vodka in one sitting, and literally died laughing among other literal events. When I returned to work the following Monday, I tuned in to the casual conversations of the students and found that the misuse was rampant! My only solace was that I could correct the linguistic lawbreakers with my standard "Is that how literally is defined in the dictionary? Go look it up!" Imagine my distress when I learned that my beloved Oxford English Dictionary had altered the definition to include the colloquial usage.

Television Does NOT Rot Your Brain?

I watch an absurd amount of television.  During the school year (which happens to coincide with the traditional "TV season"), I am far too brain-wasted to force my mind to create images while reading.  It's not that I don't enjoy reading.  I love it, in fact.  It's just that, after performing in front of one hundred and seventy-five teenagers all day, it is easier to sit back and enjoy a suspense-filled, explicative-laden, character-driven serial.  As an English teacher, I have always felt a bit guilty about my shameful habit.  Shouldn't I model the behavior that I expect from my students and devour novels like Tony Soprano devours ice cream?  When the Writers Guild of America published its list of the 101 Best Written TV Series, however, my guilt was assuaged. 

Than vs. Then: Another Lesson for the Kids

Than/then confusion is not just a problem for my sophomore English students.  I see an increasing number of educated adults make this mistake ALL THE TIME!  Whether it be in emails, blog posts, or status updates, people just can't seem to wrap their minds around the difference. Fear not, reader: By the time you have finished this post, you will no longer be one of the great offenders of this oft repeated mistake.

I H8 2 READ THIS GARBAGE: Coming To Grips With Technology

With the new school year beginning in just over two weeks and professional workshops looming in the more immediate future, my mind has started spinning over how to incorporate technology in the classroom.  While I acknowledge that blogs, Tweets, GoogleDocs, and other such marvels can engage today's students, there is one by-product that I can't stand: text lingo.

The Evolution of Language

On a recent trip abroad, I was in the company of a delightful woman in her sixties whose middle name happened to be "Gay."  When she was born, of course, gay had a completely different connotation than it does today.  Our conversation about this made me think about how rapidly language evolves.  Bad means good, sick means awesome, and Frankenfood (food that has been genetically modified) is now in the Oxford dictionary!  After reading this excerpt from an article by Nicole Mahoney with the National Science Foundation, you may think twice before telling someone, "That's not really a word, you know."

Language Change 

In some ways, it is surprising that languages change. After all, they are passed down through the generations reliably enough for parents and children to communicate with each other. Yet linguists find that all languages change over time—albeit at different rates. For example, while Japanese has changed relatively little over 1,000 years, English evolved rapidly in just a few centuries. Many present-day speakers find Shakespeare’s sixteenth century texts difficult and Chaucer’s fourteenth century Canterbury Tales nearly impossible to read.

 Why They Change - Languages change for a variety of reasons. Large-scale shifts often occur in response to social, economic and political pressures. History records many examples of language change fueled by invasions, colonization and migration. Even without these kinds of influences, a language can change dramatically if enough users alter the way they speak it.

Frequently, the needs of speakers drive language change. New technologies, industries, products and experiences simply require new words. Plastic, cell phones and the Internet didn’t exist in Shakespeare’s time, for example. By using new and emerging terms, we all drive language change. But the unique way that individuals speak also fuels language change. That’s because no two individuals use a language in exactly the same way. The vocabulary and phrases people use depend on where they live, their age, education level, social status and other factors. Through our interactions, we pick up new words and sayings and integrate them into our speech. Teens and young adults for example, often use different words and phrases from their parents. Some of them spread through the population and slowly change the language.

Types of Change - Three main aspects of language change over time: vocabulary, sentence structure and pronunciations. Vocabulary can change quickly as new words are borrowed from other languages, or as words get combined or shortened. Some words are even created by mistake. As noted in the Linguistic Society of America's publication Is English Changing?, pea is one such example. Up until about 400 years ago, pease referred to either a single pea or many peas. At some point, people mistakenly assumed that the word pease was the plural form of pea, and a new word was born. While vocabulary can change quickly, sentence structure—the order of words in a sentence—changes more slowly. Yet it’s clear that today’s English speakers construct sentences very differently from Chaucer and Shakespeare’s contemporaries (see illustration above). Changes in sound are somewhat harder to document, but at least as interesting. For example, during the so-called “Great Vowel Shift” 500 years ago, English speakers modified their vowel pronunciation dramatically. This shift represents the biggest difference between the pronunciations of so called Middle and Modern English.

                                                               Image by Google Images

To read more on the phenomenon of language change, view the entire article at http://nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/change.jsp

 

I vs. Me: A Lesson For the Kids

Last week, while writing the caption for a photo I included in my post, it occurred to me that there would be readers who question my use of "me" versus "I." Our elementary school teachers oversimplified the rule for our developing little brains: Always put yourself last and use I when referring to yourself with another person.  Not necessarily so, scholars.  I find myself explaining this rule about once a month, when asked to do so (Okay - mostly when asked).  Because it is difficult to showcase my editing skills, an occasional lesson in grammar and usage might be a way to demonstrate my competency.  Today is your first lesson, kids.

My Fitness Biography

For the past three and a half years, I have been subjecting myself to the torture of boot camp at Carrie Kukuda's Get a Grip Total Fitness.  Carrie is a nut about positive reinforcement and posts an article about member achievements in her weekly e-newsletter.  When Carrie asked me to submit a fitness biography for her "Spotlight Sunday," my first reaction was to feel honored: My trainer considered me a success!  Then the panic set in: How would I write a positive story while staying true to my personality?  I'm not known for having a sunny disposition.  In fact, I'm downright surly at boot camp most days (Carrie deserves a medal for all of the sass, eye-rolling, and colorful language that she suffers).  Contributing to the success of Carrie's business was important to me, however, so I set off to find my voice.  I have had no feedback about the motivational efficacy of my story, but I am pleased with what I came up with, regardless:

A Quote From a Favorite

When I am trying to avoid grading essays, folding laundry, or any other tedious chore, I find myself perusing the gargantuan time-suck that is Pinterest. While I get much enjoyment from the hair tutorials, kale recipes, and paper towel roll crafts, one of my favorite things to pin is quotes. From inappropriate humor to fitness inspiration, I can always find something worth saving and today's quote is no exception.

The reason I selected this quote as my first is because, with his prescient novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury has given me the tools to be a better teacher. While I have not necessarily instilled in my students a love of writing as the quote suggests, I have managed to make them aware than not all assigned reading has to be excruciating. As we tore through the pages, students would stay behind after the bell to discuss the relevance of this dystopian tome. When we would focus on other essentials such as grammar, they would BEG me to read, instead. But it was when my department put dilapidated copies of Fahrenheit in the recycle bin to make room for newer copies and I saw my sophomores RESCUING them that I knew I had them hooked on the escapism of reading. Today's adolescents have instant access to whatever their hearts desire. As far as I am concerned, the fact that the words of his novel from the 50's can engage a student in this day and age is proof enough of his wisdom.  If writing is not your passion, then "stay drunk" on something.

SEO Article Sample

The following is a sample from a 700+ word SEO article that I wrote for Alicia Streger at Forte Fitness in Orlando, Florida.

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization.  SEO articles and posts ensure that key words are used with enough frequency to increase the visibility of the targeted site when searched for on Internet search engines.  A well-written SEO article will increase visibility with relevant, substantial content that is not interpreted as spam by search engine algorithms.
 

Under threat of having Heather Thomas eviscerate me and then hide my gutless body at her family's farm, I have created a blog.