Writing Tips: 481 - 490

"Here's two great performance stories you should know about."

"Here's seven reasons why Hialeah leads the rest."

The true subjects of each sentence --stories and reasons---are plural and require the verb "are." The error is common because the word order is inverted (Here+verb+subject) and causes writers to make a mistake in subject-verb agreement. This same problem occurs when a sentence begins with "there's."

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Correct the following sentences:

1. The boss summoned Alice and I to her office.

2. He ordered rods of 10 foot long lengths.

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"The question of each man to settle is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence, and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things he has."
(Hamilton Wright Mabee)

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Suggested answers:

1. The boss summoned Alice and me to her office.

2. He ordered rods of 10-foot lengths.




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For example:

Sonny:
That's outstanding news about the Acme. Get some rest now - you deserve it.

Harry

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Please punctuate the following paragraph with its compound-complex sentences:

At the same time that the new system improves employee morale it provides incentives for better productivity it uses a variation of "flex-time" working hours which the union has been advocating and since the system involves employees in the decision-making process it helps them appreciate the dilemmas faced by management.

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"You see things and say 'Why?'; but I dream things that never were and I say 'Why not?'"
(George Bernard Shaw, British playwright, 1856 - 1950)

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Suggested answer:

At the same time that the new system improves employee morale, it provides incentives for better productivity; it uses a variation of "flex-time" working hours, which the union has been advocating; and since the system involves employees in the decision-making process, it helps them appreciate the dilemmas faced by management.



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Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by
adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supplying a new definition.

These are some of the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.):
The act of buying (or building) a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus:
A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3 Intaxication:
Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize that it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation:
Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.):
The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little
sign of breaking down in the near future.

(I thought you might like to smile at the above.)




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The ability to make and understand puns is the highest level of language development. (Taken from a web site my husband sent to me. It was fun to read so I am sharing it with you.)

Here are the ten first place winners in the International Pun Contest:

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says 'Dam!'

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my Electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. 'But why?', they asked, as they moved off. 'Because,' he said,' I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.'

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to Spain, they name him 'Juan'; the other went to a family in Egypt and is named 'Ahmal.' Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, 'They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal.'

8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to persuade them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, in the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No Pun in ten did.


 

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This is how language grows: Someone complained that "mad at" sounded wrong. He said you need to say "mad with you," not "mad at you." For several hundred years the English words "mad" and "madness" were tied to concepts of insanity.

King Lear (Shakespeare) was mad; the Hatter (Alice In Wonderland) was mad; and half of Ibsen's characters were just a little nuts. The mad/angry sense developed in the 19th century.

The same thing happened to the word "sore." This word meant physical pain and now means "annoyed at." Language grows from not
only forging new words but also by finding new meanings for old ones.
(adapted from The Writer's Art)

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Which phrases are correct:

1. The mushrooming talent of a young actress
2. The burgeoning talent of a young actress
3. The burgeoning population of China
4. The mushrooming population of China

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"Smart people speak from experience; smarter people, from experience, don't speak." (Unknown)

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Comments: Sally commented about tip #485 concerning the question about the sentence: "Everyone has been written."

Everyone has been written will never make sense as it is incomplete - everyone had been written is also not correct as you cannot avoid what has been written about and "everyone has been writing" is such a  different thing that they cannot really be compared.

I agree that the addition of 'to' makes it make sense, but it seems as if the person with the original question is miles away, or the
question is not being answered.

Not my clearest day - sorry, but I'm not sure that the person is being answered for the question they're asking and further, they should
have been asking that question in the first place.

Good luck if any of that makes sense.

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Here's another pun sent in by Gary Stofan:

Whenever Gandhi walked, in support of his cause, it was said that he was always trying to log a rithm.

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Answers:

1. The burgeoning talent of a young actress
2. The mushrooming population of China

Burgeoning means "emerging," and mushrooming means "has been growing for a long time."




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