How2Grammar

Subject: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:50 pm

The "How-To" On Grammar

I decided to make this thread to help people who have a hard time with grammar. No prepositions or anything like that, because I don't want to confuse people who have a hard time with grammar using long and complicated words. Hopefully everyone can benefit from this and use this thread as a reference if they want to make a post with good grammar. So, I'll start off with the most common errors and end off with the least common grammatical errors.

First of all, it's spelled "grammar", not anything else. If you complain about someone's "grammer", you'll look like an idiot.

Then, than: "Then" is used to describe an event after an event. e.g. "I posted in the Word Link thread, then realized that thread is full of spam." You are saying that you posted in the thread(event 1), then realized the thread is full of spam(event 2). Always remember to use a comma after the word preceding "then". "Than" is used when comparing two objects, as in: "The Earth is bigger than the Moon." It's almost always used in-between two or more nouns. I can't actually think of when it's not used outside of the nouns, so just remember to use it if you're comparing two or more objects.

There, they're, their: "There" is used to describe the location of something, never describe someone using any other of the "there" forms. It's also used when asking someone if something exists. e.g. "I swear I saw a dead body over there," or "Does anyone know if there is a speed limit on this road?" "They're" is a contraction of "they are," so it's used to describe what something or someone is. e.g. "They're making no sense," or "They're speaking French, can someone help me translate?" "Their" is used to describe what someone or something possesses. If you want to tell someone that your friend's dog has rabies, you'd say, "Their dog has rabies." When you use "their," make sure an object is in the same sentence.

Your, you're: "Your" is used to in the same context as "their," except you use "your" when you're speaking to someone directly. e.g. "Your dog has rabies," or "Your house is blue." "You're" is used the same way as "they're," except you use "you're" when you're speaking to someone directly. e.g. "You're always acting like a kid," or "Why is it that you're always acting like a kid?"

To, too: "To" is too hard to explain, since it's hard to explain, so I'll just tell you when to use "too." "Too" is used when you're explaining someone or something has an excess of something, and can be used in place of "also." e.g. "Too much spam is bad for your health," or "I want to stare at Kyek's blue balls, too."

His, he's: Not sure how this came up, but I often see people getting the two mixed up. "His" is used to describe what a guy possessed. e.g. "His dog has rabies." "He's" is used to describe what a guy is. e.g. "He's 24 years-old."

A, an: "A" and "an" are the same exact words, with the same exact meaning, but you use "an" when the word following it starts with a vowel(a, e, i, o, u). e.g. "Is there a problem?" or "Did you just eat an alligator?"

Is, are. A lot of people don't know when to use is/are(or maybe just accidentally use the wrong word), and it's easy to know when to use each. For singular objects, use "is," for plural objects, use "are." e.g. "There is a horse in that barn," and "There are horses in that barn." Those are examples of using each correctly. People never use "are" wrongfully, so I'll show you examples of using "is" wrongfully: "There's horses in that barn," or "There's people in that car." NOTE: "It" is an exception for this rule. It would be correct to say, "It's the things like this that bother me." Although, I would suggest saying something along the lines of, "The things like this are what bother me most."

No one: "No one" isn't spelled "noone," nor is it hyphenated. Two words. When you spell it "noone," you get "noon-ee," not "no one."

-ly, -ally: These suffixes are often misused. An easy way to remember which is used, is to look at the end of the word. If it ends with -al or -ic, you use -ally. If it ends with -le or -e, use -ly. e.g. "Accidentally," and "Fiercely." "Ironicly" would be a misuse of this suffix.

-ful: Just to add to suffixes. When you are describing something or someone that has much of something, at the end of the word, you add "-ful," with one "L," not two "L"s. e.g. "Powerful," not "Powerfull."

Al-: A prefix that is misspelled all too often. It's "already," not "allready," nor is it "allright." For more formal uses, you should spell it, "all ready." Although, a completely different word/words would be best.

Using a comma, lol, and a question mark: This one is hard to explain, so I'll just jump right to an example: "When are you going to stop doing this lol?" When you're saying something like this, what you want to do is move the "lol" to the front of the sentence, then put the question mark back where it was. The revised sentence will look like this: "Lol, when are you going to stop doing this?" DO NOT get "lol" mixed up with a person's name. e.g. "When are you going to stop doing this, Ebob?" is a correct sentence. This isn't a quite infamous mistake, but I still see it every once in a while...and bugs me.

Actually: Spelled with one "C," no more. "Actually" is correct, "acctually" isn't.

Affect, effect: "Affect" is used to describe how something will be changed, "Effect" is used to describe the results of something. They can easily be mixed up by even reading the definitions, so here are some examples: "How will drinking bleach affect my health?" and "What are the effects of drinking bleach?"

Et Cetera: "Et Cetera" is Latin for "and others," or "and so on," or "and so forth." It is abbreviated as "etc.," not "ect." There is also no "X," or "K," so don't pronounce it "eck-setter-uh," because that's just wrong.

Especially: DO NOT pronounce this word as if the "S," is an "X." "Eck-specially," sounds retarded. And is retarded.

-e and -ing: When you want to make a word that ends in "e" in present-tense(by adding "ing"), you must drop the "e" before adding "ing." e.g. "Have" -> "Having," not "haveing." "Use" -> "Using," not "useing."

Would, should, could: Some people use "of," instead of "have," after one of these words when talking about something you forgot to do, or had the option to do. e.g. "I would have kicked your dog," or "I should have kicked your dog," or "I could have drop kicked your firstborn baby in the face."

Who's, whose: When you ask what someone is or has(who's is a contraction of who is/has), you use "who's." When you want to know who something belongs to, you use "whose." e.g. "Who's kicking my baby?!" and "Whose baby is being kicked?"

Quiet, quite: "Quiet" is a synonym of "silent" or "silence". "Quite" means something is full of something. It pretty much means the same as "-ful", but you can't replace "-ful" with "quite." e.g. "Be quiet!" and "That's quite amazing." This one seems more like a typo to me, however.

Congratulations: "Congratulations" does not have a single "D" in it. Nor do you sound cool when you say "congrads" to your friend in Dofus who just hit level 100. Level 100 doesn't even deserve a congratulation anymore, anyway. Same goes with "kindergarten."

Believe: Spelled like, "believe". Not, "belive", or "beleive".

Receive: 'I before E, except after C.' Quite a common rhyme to remember this rule. Only it leaves out another part of the rule. Use "ei" when it's making an "ay" sound, as in "neighbor", or "weigh". e.g. "Neighbor", "weigh", and "sleigh". Looks like whenever it's before a "gh," actually.

Necessary: Only one "C," and two "S"s, not the other way around.

Weird: Spelled "weird," not "wierd."

Much/Many: "Much," is used for singular objects, while "many," is used for plural objects. e.g. "There are many trees in that forest." Notice how "many," is used for plural, while "much," isn't used.

Disappoint(ing): Spelled with one "S" and two "P"s. D i s a p p o i n t. Not "dissapoint," like how I see it often.

Those are the most common word mistakes. Now some punctuation.

Apostrophes: Never use an apostrophe to make something plural. e.g. "I like pie's," would be wrong. Use them to describe something you like's feature. e.g. "I like pie's crusts," or "I like Kyek's blue balls." They're also used for contractions(can't, don't, won't, etc.).

Colons: Colons are used to mark the beginning of a list. e.g. "Here's what we'll need: _____, _____, _____, and _____." They're also used at the end of a sentence when you want to want to make a quick remark or suggestion. I don't even know what I just said, so here's an example: "I reviewed your essay on dogs with rabies, and I wasn't very impressed: you need to work on your grammar."

Commas: Commas are hard to explain and are way beyond a little how-to like this. Do not overuse them, because that causes more of a headache than no commas. If you have a really long sentence without any commas, read it to yourself in your head, and whenever you'd pause if you were talking to someone, put a comma there.

Semicolons: Semicolons are a mix between a colon and a comma, as you'd imagine, and are mainly used to add a relevance to your sentence, or in place of "and," "but," "yet," etc. e.g. "Your dog has rabies like no other; you should get a vaccination for it."

No more punctuation, as the rest is pretty easy to know, and no one ever gets them wrong.

That's all I can think of for now. I know, it's a lot to remember, and most people can't remember it all. But if you check which to use often, you'll remember it easier.

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:50 pm

Credits to Akio for this wonderful guide.

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:07 pm

-Points at Cryptic-

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:16 pm

>< why me lol, i had enough of it
11 years of learning it at school ._.

Junior Posts : 50 Join date : 2009-02-06

Cryptic wrote:: >< why me lol, i had enough of it
11 years of learning it at school ._.

lol im freshman and i barly know english, i do what sounds right =]

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 7:58 pm

"Barely" seems to be good enough X:

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:20 pm

i dun no how 2 speakii engelishy.

jk, ive been speaking english for 16 years. and i pwn my class.

Member Posts : 21 Join date : 2009-02-08

wut da fudge r u tlkin bout i dun needz dis Evil or Very Mad

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:52 pm

so you saying my guide fails?

QQ

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:55 pm

Nah, he just being sarcastic

Junior Posts : 50 Join date : 2009-02-06

i meant know as in grammer and crap
english is first language Razz

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:31 pm

no you lies. you Korean.

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:37 pm

english educated korean hm! much be some wealthy person son Razz

Junior Posts : 50 Join date : 2009-02-06

lol born in north carolina, for bragg been military brat my entire life
and it so happens my dad is stationed here
but yes i am asain

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:39 pm

OMG i hate Asians. Asians Suck.

Junior Posts : 50 Join date : 2009-02-06

im hispanic and fhilpino too Sad

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:46 pm

lmao, I actually learned grammar from playing a game. (Was FPS)

New Member! Posts : 8 Join date : 2009-02-08

tl;dr
I hope you copy/pasted it..

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:27 am

i added a lil' here and thar.

Credits to Akio!..

Thanks for the sticky. lol

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:44 pm

w0 n3dz dls l dun nedz et nu oose 4 meeh i h@b pr0 ingliesh skillz0rrs

lol this might help some foreigners ^^

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:45 pm

Vivi<3 wrote:: OMG i hate Asians. Asians Suck.

sorry to double post but I just noticed this... omg how do asians suck =[

if there weren't any asians there wouldn't be ms and there wouldn't be this ps... =[

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:24 pm

That was until i realized i am Asian. Asians pwn <3

Subject: Re: How2Grammar Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:49 pm

LOL LMAO nice Very Happy

Junior Posts : 50 Join date : 2009-02-06

o yes they do seeing as though im mostly asain followed by hispanic

Member Posts : 24 Join date : 2009-02-08 Age : 33

Back to ontopic. Awesome guide for people with english as a second language. Like me tongue

I'am gonna read it when I got more time. Maybe a 2nd guide for fast typing? Cool