The Grammar Gestapo are out there!

If you slip up they’ll be onto you faster than a bull shark on a whale carcass.

Even as I write this, I keep asking myself … should I have put an ellipsis there? And is it ellipsis or ellipses?

You may have had the same thoughts.

Are you making simple grammatical errors when you write? Here’s a quick quiz to help you find out and keep you out of the clutches of the Grammar Gestapo.

1. What is a gerund?

(a) a non finite verb that can function as a noun

(b) an adverbial participle

(c) A sort of hamster

(d) A what?

2. What is a modal verb?

(a) a verb that doesn’t eat very much and poses on the front of sports cars

(b) a verb that always does what it’s told to do

(c) special verbs which behave very differently from normal verbs and cannot be used in the past or future tense

(d) A what?

3. Which of the following is in the future perfect continuous tense?

(a) You will have been waiting for more than two hours when her plane finally arrives

(b) Yes, and I would like to have been able to get someone to feed my gerund while I’m gone

(c) To hell with it, let’s go and get rat-legged in the bar

(d) Future perfect what?

4. When should you use a semi colon?

(a) in place of a period to separate two sentences where the conjunction has been left out.

(b) between two sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction when one or more commas appear in the first sentence.

(c) only when writing non-fiction

(d) when you can’t think of what to write next

5. Should a period go inside parentheses?

(a) No, it always go inside

(b) No, it always goes outside

(c) only if the entire sentence is inside parentheses

(d) only if there’s a gerund with a semi colon in front of it

6. Which sentence is correct?

(a) There gerund has escaped

(b) Their frantic with worry

(c) We’re going in they’re car to look for it

(d) There was fur in the cat box so they’re going to have their cat X-rayed

7. What is an apostrophe?

(a) a kind of disaster

(b) like a bishop, only in the Greek Orthodox church

(c) something you use to form plural’s

(d) a punctuation mark used to indicate possession or the omission of words and numbers

8. Which is correct?

(a) Sorry, weir closed, we have to go to the airport to pick up the wife’s sister

(b) Sorry we’re closed, our gerund escaped while we were gone

(c) Sorry were closed, we have to bury it and the kids are upset

(d) Sorry where closed, we have to go and buy another one

9. What is wrong with the following sentences?

(a) But I have promises to keep

(b) And did those feet in ancient times?

(c) Because the world is round it turns me on

(d) And God said, let there be light

10. What’s a split infinitive?

(a) A semi colon between an apostrophe and a subjunctive mood

(b) When a past conditional perfect tense is put in parentheses

(c) When you put an adverb between the to and the verb root

(d) I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to go and feed my new gerund

ANSWERS

1. (a) It’s a non finite verb that can function as a noun. Eg John enjoys swimming.

2. (c) A modal verb is an auxiliary verb that expresses necessity or possibility and cannot be used in the future or past tense. Eg must, shall, will, should. You don’t say ‘musted’ or ‘will must’. Well you can, but if you do you’re probably a member of Congress.

3. (a) It’s something that will have been happening once it’s happened. Clear? You form the tense by using the subject with three auxiliary verbs plus a main verb. It’s easy if you don’t have to think about it, but it’s much harder if you’re a Lithuanian waiting at an American airport trying to explain to an English-speaking friend that your gerund is at home and hasn’t been fed.

4. A semi colon connects two independent clauses. (b) is also correct. In layman’s terms a semi colon is like a super comma. If a comma is a short breath, a semi colon is a dramatic pause. Some people don’t like semi colons; they think they are unnecessary.

5. (c) There is a strict rule for this one (if you like rules). The period only goes inside if it’s a complete sentence. (Like this one, for example.)

6. (d) They’re, their and there sound the same and so are called homonyms, (which is why the Westboro Baptist Church doesn’t like using them). Their is the possessive form of they; there indicates a place or location; they’re is a contraction of ‘they are’.

7. (d) If you answered (c) you’re thinking of the word Stavrophore. Not even close. Take off one point.

8. (b) More homonyms. More trouble with those Westboro boys. Were is the past tense of are. We’re is a contraction of we are. Where refers to location.

9. All four sentences display bad grammar as they begin with a conjunction. If we were to be grammatically correct we would have to tear up the best work of William Blake, Robert Frost, Lennon and McCartney and the Book of Genesis.

10. It’s when you put an adverb between ‘to’ and the verb root, the most famous example of which is: ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before.’ Remember: to split an infinitive you have to be traveling at least at warp speed factor three.

YOUR RESULTS:

More than 8. You’re a grammar nerd. You’ll never be William Blake or write classic songs.

Between 5 and 7. You should have spent more time with homework instead of feeding your gerund.

4 or less: Were where you when you’re teacher was showing you the rule’s?

Professionally edited to eliminate grammatical errors:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGRR8hGJXk&w=420&h=315]

And also available as POD from COOLGUS publishing

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LAST WEEK 5 OF MY SUBSCRIBERS WON COPIES OF NAKED IN HAVANA AND EVERY 3-4 WEEKS THERE’S A CHANCE TO WIN MORE.

JUST FILL IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS HERE

COLIN FALCONER

Before we set out as writers we imagine a life marlin fishing off our boat in Havana, or knocking out a leisurely sentence or two while swapping bon mots with French existentialists or just appearing on Oprah week after week so we can be reminded of how brilliant we are.

Reality, when it hits, is sobering.

But others have been there before us.

Here are 22 kinda funny, kinda painful reminders of what the writing life is really like.

Just remember: you are not alone.

1. A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~G.K. Chesterton

2. He that uses many words for explaining any subject doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. ~John Ray

3. Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. ~Samuel Johnson.

4. Life can’t ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant. ~Edna Ferber.

5. Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. ~Jules Renard.

6. The artist’s only responsibility is his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one…. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate: The “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies. ~William Faulkner.

7. An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. ~Gustave Flaubert

8. It’s not plagiarism - I’m recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do. ~Uniek Swain

9. It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write. ~Sinclair Lewis

10. The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible. ~Washington Irving

11. The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~Stephen King

12. Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers. ~T.S. Eliot

13. An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners’ names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought. ~Mignon McLaughlin.

14. Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. ~Sholem Asch

15. A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one. ~Baltasar Gracián.

16. When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man. ~Blaise Pascal

17. It seems to me that the problem with diaries, and the reason that most of them are so boring, is that every day we vacillate between examining our hangnails and speculating on cosmic order. ~Ann Beattie.

18. A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. ~John K. Hutchens.

19. A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote. ~Mignon McLaughlin.

20. Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow

21. A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. ~Charles Peguy

And my personal favourite, because it works:

22. No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman. ~Van Wyck Brooks

Here is my form of schizophrenia. I’ve had it adverb proofed:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGRR8hGJXk&w=420&h=315]

And also available as POD from COOLGUS publishing

I’D LOVE YOU TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY EMAIL LIST – IT’S DIFFERENT TO SUBSCRIBING TO THE BLOG. YOU’LL GET THE CHANCE TO GET FREE BOOKS AND OFFERS.

LAST WEEK 5 OF MY SUBSCRIBERS HAD THE CHANCE TO WIN COPIES OF NAKED IN HAVANA AND EVERY 3-4 WEEKS THERE’S A CHANCE TO WIN OTHERS.

JUST FILL IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS HERE

COLIN FALCONER

You were born with an overactive imagination and you liked to write stories.

One of your first stories, written when you were five, is about a rabbit called ‘Rabbit.’

He has a friend who is a bee. He is called ‘Miss Bee.’

This imaginative flair persists into teenagerhood. Your good friend Sean reads some of your early stories and is the first fan you ever have.

You reward him by featuring his battered Ford Anglia in a later story - one that actually gets published.

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you
 live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, 
in which case you have failed by default."

Your teenage years are miserable. You have a difficult relationship with your father, your mother is often ill, and you are shy and awkward. Continue reading

THE SITUATION

Washington DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. People rushed past on their way to work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About 4 minutes later:

The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

At 10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent – without exception – forced their children to move on quickly.

He finished playing. He had collected $32.17 contributed by 27 of 1097 travellers. He collected $32.17 contributed by 27 of 1097 travellers. Just seven stopped to listen and only one recognized him.

The violinist was Continue reading