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Young Writers Society


I have A Cunning Plan: A Grammer Lesson!



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Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:10 pm
Twit says...



I hope these are in the right forum.

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1. Verbs has to agree with their subject.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentances with.

3. And don't start a sentance with a conjugation.

4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat).

6. Always avoid annoying alliteration.

7. Be more or less specific.

8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.

9. Also, too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

10. No sentance fragments. No comma splices, run-ons are bad too.

11. Contractions aren't helpful and shouldn't be used.

12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.

14. One should never generalize.

15. Comparasons are as bad as cliches.

16. Don't use no double negatives.

17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

18. One-word sentances? Eliminate.

19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

20. The passive voice is to be ignored.

21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

22. Never use a big word where a dimunitive one would suffice.

23. Kill all exclamation points!!!!

24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

25. Understatement is probably not the best way to propose earth
shattering ideas.

26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.

27. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.

30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

31. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

32. Who needs rhetorical questions?

33. Exaggeration is a million times worse than understatement.

34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

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Yeah, there's a lot, but I saw them, liked them, decided to share them. :D
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


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Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:21 pm
Firestarter says...



Read them before. I don't agree with half of them but the whole way it's put together is quite amusing.

But yeah, if these were rules half of good fiction would be dead.
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Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:24 pm
Emerson says...



I disagree with some of these...

And don't start a sentance with a conjugation.
This is actually a rule that is taught to children in school to teach them to use complete sentences. But honestly, it isn't too big of a grammar rule. It is but... in writing, as an author, you can break this rule. Open one of your favorite books, I'm sure you'll find a sentence that begins with a conjunction. [not a conjugation ;-) that is a verb form... thing]

Always avoid annoying alliteration.
Ah, only if the alliteration is annoying, though. Sometimes they are witty and beautiful. I remember Nabokov occasionally used Alliterations.

I used slight alliteration in this:

Bavaria: spelt with three ‘a’s, an ‘i’, and the consonants b,v, and r. The word itself is rather trivial, it is a country in some area that no one cares much about. No one leaves Bavaria, and no one goes in it. You could even say it is a state of being, and for some of us, there truly is no escape from Bavaria. Our bavariums become entwined with our bavariers, and there is nothing left to do but kill ourselves with a pair of bavarions. But once we are dead, what of that? Then We must be in Bavaratory-purgatory.

Just slight...

11. Contractions aren't helpful and shouldn't be used.
quoi? are you saying to use them or..? You have me confused. I don't use attractions in certain writing. If I'm writing in my 19th century style, I usually cut some contractions, because the writing feels more real to the era. Also, contractions don't always need to be used. It's a matter of taste, I think. Sometimes not using them fits.

Comparasons are as bad as cliches.
They are? Does this include metaphors? Because as far as I knew, metaphors were amazing in writing.

Don't use no double negatives.
unless in dialog and for a reason. It's good characterization.

One-word sentances? Eliminate.
Eh. It's good for suspense/surprise/what ever.

Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
...seriously?

Never use a big word where a dimunitive one would suffice.
unless the larger word explains the idea better than the "diminutive" one would.

I don't exactly l ike this... a lot of these seem useless. Sort of. I'd much rather learn from a grammar guide then from this. This is why I prefer foreign languages, we learn about grammar in a particular way rather than how we learn our first language, by repetition we know that is how we do something. In foreign language you are told how to do things. And you are told why. Eh, I need to go take English as a foreign language.
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Fri Jul 06, 2007 6:41 pm
Rydia says...



I don't agree with many of these. In fact, I think I only agree with two or three but it's quite amusing to read.
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Sat Jul 07, 2007 3:37 pm
Writersdomain says...



Like Claudette and Jack mentioned, I don't agree with many of these. That, and the spelling bugged me to no end. :shock:

Things such as beginning a sentence with a conjunction, using one word sentences and some repetition can be used to create emphasis on certain words in a sentence, and if nobody ever used conjunctions, language would be awfully stilted. Exclamation points have their uses. Passive voice is appropriate in some situations, and comparisons are not always bad.
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Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:53 pm
Sam says...



I only agree with like...seven. XD

Granted, you've got to know the rules before you break them, but really- don't preach about the rules if you don't know them yourself. (Which I take it is not you, Twitty, so I can rant. ^_~)

Apropos isn't a foreign word. It's Anglicized Greek. It's been in our language for hundreds of years.

If we got rid of all of our foreign vocabulary, we could only use...erm, nothing. The Japanese or Chinese could get away with it, because they don't really have a base language. But since we're derived from Latin and Greek, and steal words from every language it is possible to steal from, we're a patchwork quilt. Only specific English geological terms- mire, for example- are truly English and nothing else.

But it's true. Multiple exclamation points should be shot immediately.
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Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:57 pm
Black Ghost says...



Seriously, who wrote these? :?
  





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Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:03 pm
Twit says...



I dunno who wrote these, I just put them on here because I found them funny. And, yeah, I don't know half of what these "rules" are talking about. :lol:
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


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Why should Caesar just get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar, right? Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar, and when did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody because that's not what Rome is about! We should totally just stab Caesar!
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