Conjunctions Merging into One pt 3 Grammar with Leslie

You are going to learn some new categories for words today. Stop and take notes and write them down since it is mighty hard to remember new things if you treat them like a television show, as something you are just observing. My methods work best for people willing to interact with our living language.

After this lesson, you should be able to identify compound subjects, compound nouns, compound objects, and one "conjunction."

Do you remember way back when you were learning simple math? Do you remember 1 + 1? You said, "One and one." Well this lesson builds on that usage of "+," the "and." The word "and" when it appears in a sentence can have several usages. But I am not running a deep-level grammar class, just helping you fix your sentence skill issues such as fragments, run-ons, comma-splices, and such-like. I am going to simplify the heck out of the discussion and simply ask you to accept the label "and" is a "conjunction" used to create a sentence part called "compound subject noun," "compound verb" or compound object noun." So "and" is the equivalent of a you saying "plus" in a match equation, and the category it fits within is "and" = "conjunction."

Confusing, right? Well, interact with the video and then read below.




A conjunction "pounds" two subject nouns into one unit.
A conjunction "pounds" two object nouns into one unit.
A conjunction "pounds" two verbs into one unit.

Draw these sentences, and label each word with the category it fits within.

1. Sandy and Leslie drink gin.
2. Tom and Sue watch television.
3. Tom loves apples and oranges.
4. Brian eats and drinks at the bar.
5. The cat on the couch sat and purred.

Note that it is possible to have compound subjects, compound verbs, and compound objects all in the same sentence.

Sandy and Leslie ordered and drank martinis and margaritas.

Now come up with several of your own, every day. Notice the use of compounds and propositions in sentence you read. Note the way words and sentences interact with us in the world around us. And tune back in next week. Or hire me.

Visual Kinestic Simple Sentences pt 2 of Grammar with Leslie

Welcome back to the Leslie Ormandy blog. Last week I began by introducing viewers to the very basics of simple sentences -- the subject noun, verb, and together we discovered where the verb hides when you are trying to find it in your sentences (inside the subject noun). I showed how the verb is actually fairly easy to locate in a sentence though drawing the sentence. For instance, in the image at left you see "The boy stood." By drawing the sentence, you find out that the part you are drawing is the subject, and the verb is hidden inside him. One can not draw a verb. Those of you "in the know" understand that there are other parts of a sentence that one can not draw, but a person whose language has always been English will instinctively draw first the subject noun. Well, at least 90% of the time amongst my own student pool of observation.

This week the lesson advances to discover the next piece of the simple sentence -- object nouns and prepositions. Watch the video over on "Grammar with Leslie" over at YouTube, then come back -- the list of words you need is below, as are some sample easy sentences to draw. Video link: http://youtu.be/pBkcxJinqMo

Common prepositions -- and I advise making or buying flashcards and memorizing them since they feel like verbs are:

about above across after among around at before behind below beneath beside between by down during except for from in into of off on over since through through to toward under up with without

Practice sentences:

1. The cat lazed on the pillow.
2. The dog ran after the cat.
3. The boy bounced the ball.
4. The girl ate a cookie.
5. The vampire chased the victim.

(Do you notice how many of the subject and object nouns have an article (A, An, The) in front of them?)

Now come up with some of your own. If you don't practice, you don't learn. But the rule is, if you can't label it, you can't use it.

Subjects, Objects and Verbs -- Gosh Darn!

Subjects, objects, and verbs really aren't so scary after all!

I possess a great deal of creativity and an ability to see problems at angles. Thus my approach to what I saw as the prime issue of writers -- the inability to structure their sentences to standards -- was not head-on. It was not "read the book, dunderhead!" Instead I looked at the society which my students live inside, and that has so strongly influenced their learning styles, in hope of finding a solution which would let them fix their sentence fragments, comma splices, fused sentences, and run-ons.

I discovered over a few years of teaching basic grammar classes, that many of my students were simply incapable of identifying the verb in a sentence. To simply parrot, "it's the action" at them was counterproductive. For some reason their brains were hard-wired to see movement potential in any word. It wasn't lack of wanting to learn, it was material presented in ways that didn't allow them to learn.

One brainstorm and earth-shaking "ah-ha" moment gave me the following exercise which allows 90% of my students to learn what goes inside a sentence, how to merge their sentences, and when to end a sentence. (And let me tell you, a 90 - 95% pass rate is astronomical -- and is inside an "A" realm.)

Identifying verbs, however, first requires imparting the ability to find the two types of nouns within a sentences. So, with little further ado, I share:

Ask: "What is a noun?"

The invariable answers come from most sides, "A person, place, or thing." And then a voice or two will chime, "And an idea!"

After affirmation, and because my students need all the grammar affirmation they can get, I let them know that we aren't going to talk about that fourth additional category of "ideas." They are highfalutin and we want to deal with the everyday.

So: Nouns = person, place, or thing.

Draw a person. NO! Don't just sit there staring at your damn screen. Treat me interactively! DRAW a PERSON! Participate with the Video. (Click here and return after watching!)

Can you find the verbs in the following sentences? Draw each and every one if you are serious about fixing your writing, and attaining A's. (Take your time!)

1. The girl sat.
2. The dog howled.
3. The cat slept.
4. The ball bounced.
   
5. The car exploded.
   

Now DRAW and WRITE five sentences of your own and label each part. NO! If you can not label the word as a subject, verb, or article, you may NOT use it. (Your sentences will be simple in the extreme.) If you really want to fix your sentence issues, you won't shortcut the process.

Watch for part 2 of the series....

Little Things Count: Commas Count

Little things count when attempting to communicate clearly, especially when communicating in writing. And what is smaller, yet more important, than a comma? So, what function does a comma perform? When speaking, tone and word meaning and the breaths and pauses used to speak sentences are mixed with body-language cues and a long pause versus a short pause causes less confusion. Although you might ask an actor or actress if all pauses are equal. My best bet is they'd tell you they are not.

So, why is the small, lowly little comma so vital? Because it indicates pauses between the parts of sentences which together join a whole -- a communication.

To the uninitiated, comma usage seems random, as though it is a game of poker with "dealers choice" rules. And to some degree this is true, and nothing exemplifies the on-again off-again rules as surely as the "Oxford Comma."

It is the "list comma" gone wacko. Some specific formats want the comma inserted before the "and," and some don't. This wackiness stems from a different value placed on the "and." To the people demanding the "Oxford Comma," the "and" take the item on either side and treats it as a unit; the "and" is equal to a plus (+) sign.

I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (The "and" forms the peanut butter AND the jelly into one unit.

The above cartoon (and sorry whoever designed it, it just appeared in my inbox, sent by a student) demonstrates what happens when the "toast and orange juice" are treated as a unit. A mess occurs. But only if you are working within a media which treats the "and" as a "plus" sign. Wacko, right?

So, how is the writer attempting to communicate to tweeps around the world supposed to know how the reader will interpret the "list comma" (AKA "items in a series" or "Oxford Comma"). The answer is that the writer can't know, ever, if what they have written, the words they have ordered onto the page, communicate the ideas woven into them. The writer can only make their best attempt, and let the words, the letters, commas, and ideas free.

Life Cycle of Ideas

Ideas never die; they just float around waiting for someone else to snatch them, wrestle them through to reality, and put them to use. This is their life cycle.

Our Grandparents -- or parents depending upon your age -- had a much better grasp of the idea of writing as communication than we do (arguably, and based upon my small student sample). To a large degree, an ability to communicate ideas in well-written and grammatical writing equaled how smart they were perceived to be. So they tried to write well. They put in the time and energy and practice to attain a competency which should embarrass my Freshman by comparison. They understood that thoughts could only be really communicated though language expressed in sentences. And sentences, written down with care and transmitted to someone else, could communicate the idea of the originator to the reader.

We live in a different age. We live with the idea that communication can be effective when one dimensional and uni-alpabetical -- texting, for instance. AYTMTB, you ask. I'm telling you this because so much is lost in the margins, and not just the rest of the letters making up the implied words. The ability to use capitalization and punctuation are purely cosmetic, but worse yet, the nuances are lost, or worse, are left to the reader to imply, interpret, or somehow mind-read.

AYTMTB? Are you being snarky? Are you really expressing puzzlement? Are you somewhere in between snark and curiosity and needing information? How I read your text is mood dependent, frankly.

My grandmother just rolled over in her grave; did you feel it? She believed in the cycle of an idea; she would have it, express it in words held in complete and well chosen sentences via language: spoken or written, and the recipient of her missive would "get" what she had said because she took the time to form the letters into words into sentences into paragraphs which were not random, but chosen to communicate her idea.

And I am really not a Luddite. I am a thoroughly 21st century type gal. I can blog and tweet and microblog and facebook and run a website as well as the next gal, but I also teach communication, in the oldest and most detailed way -- I teach writing.

And much of what I teach stems from ideas expressed in texts which in our minds are ancient; you know, more than 30 seconds ago.

Welcome to the Leslie World