My beautiful Grandma Martin was an English school teacher. She wasn't from England, she taught English. Just clarifying. Anyway, she passed on the eloquent use of proper grammar to my dad, and my dad lovingly demanded that my brothers and I learn how to speak correctly as well. My dad made it fun though, always teaching us good tricks, creatively correcting our errors, humorously correcting our teachers' errors, and in the end I grew to love the English language as well. I by no means think I know it all, but I do know a few things about English that I fear others may not. So, every once in a while I think I'll bust out with a Grandma's Grammar blog and share a fact or two.
***Please know that I have no intent to offend or hurt feelings. The end.***
Today's fact:
I's is not a word. C's and I's favorite food is not pizza. However, C's and my favorite food is absolutely pizza.
Today's trick:
When trying to decide between the use of me, my, mine, I, myself, or any other funky option, take out the other people in the sentence. For instance, take the sentence,
"C's and I's favorite food is pizza"
and take out the other person (in this case it's C). Your sentence then becomes:
"I's favorite food is pizza."
Doesn't sound correct, right? (Please tell me you're saying right.)
So what does sound right? Hopefully the word "my" comes to mind.
Insert "my" in place of "I's" and you have yourself a happier, smarter-sounding, sentence!
**I can't wait for comments from my dad and/or brothers (or anyone else for that matter) correcting my use of quotation marks, italics, and a bunch of other stuff. Don't worry, I's can take it.
)
17 comments:
Could the next post be about using apostrophe's in place's where they are not needed? Like the Martin's, for example.
Thank's.
Bryan
Oh sweetness I bet the Martin's die at the poor Davis Family! We struggle with this kind of stuff. Keep this up I might need help with grammar now that MK is starting school!
If you have more than one book, you have books. If you have more than one dog, you have dogs. If a family is made up of more than one Martin, they are called the Martins. Just add an s. No apostrophe needed. See.. grammar is easy and fun!
i've had this phone conversation plenty of times:
me: "hi uncle bob, can i talk to aunt tonna?"
u.bob: "i don't know...CAN you??"
me: "ugh, MAY i speak with aunt tonna please??"
u.bob: "yes you may."
everytime i use the word may, even though its my first instinct to say can i always think of uncle bob.
and yes i know i wrote in all lowercase...sorry to all the martins that may read this!!
LOVED THIS POST by the way!
Haha Ryles your phone conversation is killing me. I have had that conversation with my dad on many occasions!
question for bryan...
if your last name ends in an s, like davis for instance, how do you pluralize that? is it davises, davii, davis's, davis'??
this is an honest to goodness question, i've never really known.
Seriously, do answer that, now my babies name is Davis, so if it is Davis's toys, is it Davis's, Davis' really that gets so confusing!!!
Ok, this has caused contention and some disturbances in our household tonight......really I am a little disturbed after researching this...I found this:
When a family name (a proper noun) is pluralized, we almost always simply add an "s." So we go to visit the Smiths, the Kennedys, the Grays, etc.When a family name ends in s, x, ch, sh, or z, however, we form the plural by added -es, as in the Marches, the Joneses, the Maddoxes, the Bushes, the Rodriguezes. Do not form a family name plural by using an apostrophe; that device is reserved for creating possessive forms.
When a proper noun ends in an "s" with a hard "z" sound, we don't add any ending to form the plural: "The Chambers are coming to dinner" (not the Chamberses); "The Hodges used to live here" (not the Hodgeses). There are exceptions even to this: we say "The Joneses are coming over," and we'd probably write "The Stevenses are coming, too." A modest proposal: women whose last names end in "s" (pronounced "z") should marry and take the names of men whose last names do not end with that sound, and eventually this problem will disappear.
So, basically my whole life I have been wrong! Our family should be known as the DAVISES. I am not going to lie, this is totally freaking me out.
And I totally agree with the modest proposal, just get married and the problem disappears!
This post has caused some contention and disturbances in our household tonight. As I have researched Rylee's question further I found this:
When a family name (a proper noun) is pluralized, we almost always simply add an "s." So we go to visit the Smiths, the Kennedys, the Grays, etc.When a family name ends in s, x, ch, sh, or z, however, we form the plural by added -es, as in the Marches, the Joneses, the Maddoxes, the Bushes, the Rodriguezes. Do not form a family name plural by using an apostrophe; that device is reserved for creating possessive forms.
When a proper noun ends in an "s" with a hard "z" sound, we don't add any ending to form the plural: "The Chambers are coming to dinner" (not the Chamberses); "The Hodges used to live here" (not the Hodgeses). There are exceptions even to this: we say "The Joneses are coming over," and we'd probably write "The Stevenses are coming, too." A modest proposal: women whose last names end in "s" (pronounced "z") should marry and take the names of men whose last names do not end with that sound, and eventually this problem will disappear.
My entire life I have written my last name wrong. We are the DAVISES, does that freak anyone else out? It really has been disturbing to me tonight.....o'well.....I think I agree with the modest proposal above!
Fantastic questions.
There are two different areas where there could be some confusion. The first deals with making Davis plural (talking about more than one Davis). The second deals with possession (talking about something that belongs to a Davis or to multiple people with the name Davis).
The truth is that different organizations treat these issues differently. For example the AP writing style (used for writing technical papers and research articles) gives different recommendations for this than the commonly used Chicago writing manual.
So you could pluralize the name Davis or make it possessive in different ways and you'd probably be correct either way. For elaboration on how to do this, visit the link below and scroll about halfway down the page.
http://www.editpros.com/news0405.html
HOL'Y CRA'P
from sherrod
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read!! Probably because I just plain don't get it but really?!!
oh crap. i'm am THE WORST. my grandma (who also taugh english, her students called her mrs. denhitler...) please don't tell me this post was inspiried by me...
wait that comment from chelsee was really from me markee... like how i didn't capitalize anything?!?!
I had a science teacher ALWAYS say after we asked to go to the bathroom, I dont know can you? It drove me nuts!! But anyways... Im very excited for English class on your blog.
Can you say "Can 'O Worms"? (Someone, please fix my punctuation.)
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