Introducing: Grammar Man!

There's a whole heckuva lot you need to know about grammar, but you're probably so scared it'll bore you silly you just never go there.

Introducing: Grammar Man!

Grammar Man! Flying high over the mountains of speech parts, phrases, and clauses! To infinitives and beyond!

Grammar Man! Disguised as mild-mannered reporter, JHepCat, Grammar Man seeks the betterment of YOUR writing through a burgeoning and ever-increasing ability to analyze diction and syntax. Not to mention the elevation of the poetic over the prosaic. Or the use of active voice throughout, as opposed to the passive constructions so often associated with "legalese."

No, not to mention either of those.

Grammar Man begins his lesson today with the review of the eight parts of speech, aka The Eight Parts of Speech! only seven of which you need to know.

You can forget interjections. Hey! Wow! and Yikes! will never show up on a list of SAT vocabulary words.

Or any other list, other than a list of common interjections.

Sorry, Charlie.

But you do need to know The Big Four and The Little Three.

By The Big Four I mean, of course, noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. These are words you will find on a vocabulary list.

Nouns are things or ideas. People or places. Subjects are always always nouns; so are objects.

Verbs are the heart of any sentence or clause. Find the verb first and unlock the meaning of any sentence or clause. Verbs come in several varieties but the two most important are action and being. To swim, to drink, to read. These are all action verbs. Someone is doing something. To be (or not to be), is our "existence" verb. Any form of "to be" (not "not to be" -- not is never a verb, and never is not a verb. But I get ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh, yeah) Any form of to be, and there are eight: am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been is a being verb. You can't try as much as you like but you can't is. You can be, and you can are, but really, all you're doing is breathing. Bring a mirror for proof. There are helping verbs--pretty important. There are 15 of them, and you need to know them like you know the eight to bes and the 7 parts of speech worth knowing. We'll go over them soon, not today. There are transitive and intransitive verbs. And there are linking verbs, which can be pretty important. To bes and helpings are all also linkings. 'Xcuse me, not all helpings are linkings, but all beings are.

If you know what I mean. If you don't, hang in there. GrammarMan believes in keeping it silly, which a long time ago meant "wise."

Adjectives only modify, or describe nouns. They answer one of three questions: What kind? Which one? How many? Numbers are always adjectives because they tell how many. And remember--if it's not describing a noun, it's not an adjective.

Adverbs on the other hand, can modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. This is the main way you can distinguish between an adjective and an adverb: What kind of word is being modified/described?

By extension, the kind of word being modified can also be identified by answering the questions raised by adjectives and adverbs. As just mentioned, adjectives answer one of three questions: What kind? Which one? How many?

Adverbs answer one of four questions: When? Where? To what degree?/Under what conditions?/How? Or Why?

I know what you're thinking: "But GrammarMan, that's six questions!" You can see it that way, but really, throw the slashed questions into the How? bin and you'll probably be ok. I jsut think it's good to know those other phrasings, like knowing three different ways to make a chord when playing guitar.

Like that. At any rate, if your word answers When? Where? To what degree?/Under what conditions?/How? Or Why? it's an adverb. Take it to the bank.

The Little Three are so named not because they are of little importance, but because they are, in fact, little. They're not important vocabularially, either.

But they're crazy way important when you're reading. In fact, if you're trying to read faster, the small words are key. The bigger words your eye will naturally pick up, because they're bigger--the eye can't miss them. But little words telling whose, or where, or which, or whether or not, or although, or because--them's important!

GrammarMan knows the rules, and so breaks them with impunity. You can too. When you know them. Grammar is fun!

And the Little Three are prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions.

Prepositions are the smallest words. In, on, at, by, for, with, to, these are all prepositions. Prepositions never exist by themselves; they only exist in prepositional phrases. A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with a noun, known as the object of the preposition. Prepositional phrases always act as adjectives or adverbs. They're phrases, and they always begin with a preposition, but what they mean is: Something's being described--a thing, an action, another describer. But I get ahead of myself. We'll come back to this. Make sure you do, too.

Pronouns save us a lot of time and hassle. For example I could say: "GrammarMan's SAT blog is making GrammarMan's life life better by generating more income for GrammarMan, and establishing GrammarMan as a grammar, reading and writing expert."

But it's a lot simpler to say, GrammarMan is making his life better by generating more income for himself and establishing himself as a grammar expert. Not to mention making a lot of other people grammar experts, too, which is the value of GrammarMan's SAT blog."

Conjunctions come in three varieties: coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and corelative conjunctions. Coordinating conjunctions are the most important. You can remember them by the acronym FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. You may prefer to remember them in pairs; that is, two pairs and one triad: and but, or nor for, so yet. Coordinating conjunctions like to think they're pretty important, but because they subordinate--make less-- the meaning of what follows, they just don't get that status. You can recognize the subordinate conjunction because if you take it away you have an independent clause -- -- a complete sentence. Subordinating conjunctions include words like while, because, although, and the rest.

Boy that was a lot, huh? But you can't make sense of grammar and you can't be a really great reader without knowing what the parts of speech are and what they do.

So copy and paste this into your grammar handbook: GrammarMan's Guide to Really Good Grammar and Much Better Readin' and Learnin' and thank me later.