Thanks to the fine folks at SPOGG for an excellent 2010 National Grammar Week
One More Trip to the Clemens Font
“I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me. To misplace an adverb is a thing which I am able to do with frozen indifference; it can never give me a pang. ... There are subtleties which I cannot master at all—they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me—and this adverb plague is one of them. ... Yes, there are things which we cannot learn, and there is no use in fretting about it. I cannot learn adverbs; and what is more I won’t.”
—Mark Twain (1835-1910), “Reply to a Boston Girl,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1880
and . . .
“As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.”
—Mark Twain
Editor’s Note: (Interactive element: Pls edit this...) Hopefully, more overly erudite and verbose writers will take heed.
The National Grammar Day Limerick Contest, conducted by Mark Ragan
(Peez sez: The first one submitted used “klaxon,” which was impressive, but scrolling through the dozens of doggerrel, I liked this one (since I have a pile of stuff to grade...). Winners to be announced later today (I think).)
There once was a teacher of grammar
Who’s now spending life in the slammer.
When students would err,
She’d shriek and she’d swear,
And drive home her point with a hammer.
. . . by Doug Hughes
Today’s Wish-I-Were-Here Photo: Pelicans Jumping
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