Six Correct Words Saturday

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Last night, I dreamed about grammar.

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I need to find a life.  Or at least a hobby.

Images from Grammarly’s Facebook page.

Joke 821

How To Write Good, by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

Joke 820

As you seem to like them so much…

A boy answers the phone. The caller asks, “Where are your parents?”

“They ain’t here!”

“Come on, son. Where’s your grammar?”

“My gramma ain’t here neither. She’s gone to church!”

• If “can’t” is the contraction for “cannot,” what is “don’t” short for?   Doughnut.
• Is there a word in English that uses all the vowels including “y”?    Unquestionably!
• “I am” is said to be the shortest sentence in the English language.  The longest is “I do.”
• A pregnant woman went into labour and began to yell, “Couldn’t! Wouldn’t! Shouldn’t! Didn’t! Can’t!”  She was having contractions.    Garrison Keillor
• What kind of word would you invite to a fancy tea party?   A proper noun.
• What word allows you to take away two letters and get one in return?    Alone.
• Which two letters of the alphabet mean nothing?   MT.

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Jokes from grammarabout.com.  Click on the cartoons for their links.

Joke 816

I’m going to confess up front that I don’t know enough about grammar to understand all of these jokes; but I know some of my readers do, so their four ewe.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave.
• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
• A dangling modifier walks into a bar. After finishing a drink, the bartender asks it to leave.
• A Question mark walks into a bar?
• Two Quotation marks “walk into” a bar.
• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking a drink.
• The bar was walked into by the passive voice.
• The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.
• A synonym ambles into a pub.
• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink.
• A hyperbole totally ripped into this bar and destroyed everything.
• A run on sentence walks into a bar it is thirsty.
• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapsed to the bar floor.
• A group of homophones wok inn two a bar. 

UPDATE:

Al left this clever one in the comments:

• An antonym walks out of a bar.

 

 

 

 

What Big ‘I’s You’ve Got, Grammar

Before I begin this post about daft spelling and grammatical errors, I’d better ‘fess up right away that I am not innocent: reblogging Al’s post a week last Sunday, I took a poke at the spelling of his name – Cvillean instead of civilian – and I spelled it Cvllean, thus proving the rule that she who pokes fun at another’s grammar or spelling will get a slap in the face from her own slup-ip.

I was inspired to write this post by Janie Jones, who told us of her university cafeteria, where they serve Bisquits and gravy.

I was affronted on two fronts: the incorrect spelling, and the realisation that Janie lives in frontier country.  The sooner I send her airfare to come over here and visit me, the better: she can have chips and gravy, like cvllised people.

Not five minutes after reading her post, I was overjoyed to learn that one of my favourite writers, Jackie Kay, will be singing copies of  ‘Reality, Reality’  at the Didsbury Arts Festival.

Then I picked this up from Facebook:

I scheduled this post yesterday for today – although I wrote it a week ago and forgot about it, fortunately – because I may not get to visit you today.  Virgin want to work on something or other which means I may be without broadband all day.  Which means no internet.  Which means you may wake up on Saturday to a Tilly a little bit off, having gone cold turkey Friday.  Or not.  Same old same old.

Talking of off, sorry about yesterday’s post.  I didn’t mean to gross you out.  But you had your revenge in the comments.  You made me feel sick.

Same old same old.

Joke 351

I got this one off Facebook.  It has its uses.

The past, the present and the future walk into a bar.  It was tense.

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I Have A Funny Son: Fact.

I have a funny son: fact.

Spud was on form yesterday.

On Tory Boy’s session playing Warhammer at the Warhammer shop the other night:

Spud: Was Ponytail Paul there?

TB: His name’s not Paul.

Spud: I go to a grammar school; we use alliteration when we insult people.

The ongoing struggle between Spud and me about the fact that he never, ever, goes barefoot.

Spud [Having taken off his fluffy black school socks and shown me fluffy black feet]: Sorry if I leave a mess on the carpets, Mum.

Me [Exasperated]: One day out of 365 you decide to take your socks off…look at them – wash your feet!

Spud: Hey, I’m just strutting my fluff.

And finally, a joke he read that he knew I’d appreciate:

What noise does a grammatically correct owl make?

‘Whom.’

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Read more Six Word Saturdays here.

Joke 136

What is the difference between a cat and a comma?

One has the paws before the claws and the other has the clause before the pause.

I Think I Should Change My Email Account

Image via Wikipedia

The subject line of an email from The Arts Council: New Handmade Market In Warwickshire.  I bet the tables were hard to knit.

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And another: Arts Jobs: Dorset Smuggler Required.  I didn’t think the cutbacks were that bad.

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A Freegle request to my inbox: wanted: sports car (preferbly a bugatti veyron)

if anyone has a sports car they no longer wants i would be very grateful.
i just thought that other people ask for over the top items, i should aswell

thanks in advance

The moderator wasn’t happy with the request, having this to say:

Please do not type in CAPITALS, as this may be seen as shouting by other members.

I did think about giving them mine, but the poor grammar and spelling  left me feeling they don’t deserve it.  By which reasoning, I should at least own a Ford Focus.

I can’t decide if I’m more amused or appalled.  I hope it was a joke but the moderators do let some greedy requests through (I’ve just split from my boyfriend and I need to furnish my house so give me everything and make it new and deliver it while you’re at it, is usually the gist). 

What do you think?  Was it a joke?

Let That Be A Lesson To You

What’s the biggest lesson you learned so far this year?

WordPress prompters can’t grammar.