A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
A question mark walks into a bar?
Two quotation marks “Walk into” a bar.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink.
The bar was walked into by a passive voice.
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave.
(via spanz-spectral)
This is so clever. Or maybe it’s just the English major in me that gets it.
(via who-me--couldnt-be)
![fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo:
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “Study” Bottom text: “More than most Psych majors”]
I honestly learned more about Freud in my English classes than in my Psych ones. And we had to read his writing too, and uuuuugggghhhh](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m44x2uefs51qhe5udo1_400.jpg)
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “Study” Bottom text: “More than most Psych majors”]
I honestly learned more about Freud in my English classes than in my Psych ones. And we had to read his writing too, and uuuuugggghhhh
![fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo:
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ [Beginning of the semester: Four writing based classes? No problem.] ” Bottom text: “ [End of the semester: I’ve made a huge mistake.] ”]
Too many essays!
Sure, sure, I can take two heavy writing classes and do my twenty-page senior project and portfolio and an internship! No problem!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3b526vw4N1qhe5udo1_400.jpg)
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ [Beginning of the semester: Four writing based classes? No problem.] ” Bottom text: “ [End of the semester: I’ve made a huge mistake.] ”]
Too many essays!
Sure, sure, I can take two heavy writing classes and do my twenty-page senior project and portfolio and an internship! No problem!
From the Open University: “ Voiced by Clive Anderson, this entertaining romp through ‘The History of English’ squeezes 1600 years of history into 10 one-minute bites”
![fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo:
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ [Classmate reads Hamlet and asks if it’s a tragedy] ” Bottom text: “ […are you fucking kidding me?] ”]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnq48p8aEr1qhe5udo1_400.png)
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ [Classmate reads Hamlet and asks if it’s a tragedy] ” Bottom text: “ […are you fucking kidding me?] ”]
(via stayambitious)
Here’s a nice example of how to show not tell in your writing:
You might, for example, write:
Sarah felt a sinking feeling as she realized she’d forgotten her purse back at the cafe across the street. She saw cars filing past, their bumpers end-to-end. She heard the impatient honk of horns and wondered how she could quickly cross the busy road before someone took off with her bag. But the traffic seemed impenetrable, and she decided to run to the intersection at the end of the block.
Eliminating the bolded words removes the filters that distances us, the readers, from this character’s experience:
Sarah’s stomach sank. Her purse—she’d forgotten it back at the cafe across the street. Cars filed past, their bumpers end-to-end. Horns honked impatiently. Could she make it across the road before someone took off with her bag? She ran past the impenetrable stream of traffic, toward the intersection at the end of the block.
The article is about fiction, but the principle applies to all writing. Don’t use unnecessary words. Let your sentences breathe.
![fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo:
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?” Bottom text: “One has claws at the end of its claws and one is a pause at the end of a clause.”]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnhcuusbz31qhe5udo1_400.png)
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?” Bottom text: “One has claws at the end of its claws and one is a pause at the end of a clause.”]
Here is a rap I made for my students at the beginning of the year to help them loosen up around each other by letting them know that their teacher is sillier than any of them.
“Why is English Important?”
Lyrics by Adam Hunt
Sample: Dr. No, “The Funk”
English is possibly the most important class you’ll ever take,
exploring ways to divulge the things in your think tank.
Learning to write, and writing to learn,
and flying through reading so fast that it burns,
you become new people, and through their eyes understand
that this life is yours, residing in your hands.
All you have to do is grab the wheel,
then you’ll feel all the steel in you come real,
and then you’ll heal.
After much confusion, you graduate in groups n’
are cast out on your own with no one that you’ve known.
All your high school peeps disperse across universities,
or get in different lines of work from me, with new kinds of security.
Thank God that you learned how to think, write, and speak,
so you can be a Lion instead of a sheep.
Or you can stand up like a human and find yourself pursuing
any beautiful thing you ever dreamed you’d be doing.
Academic success, $$$, or fame,
parenting your kids, or building A-frames:
there’s not a single thing you cannot bring
that language cannot make cha-ching,
or sing, or take wing, or make more fulfilling.
It’ll even make you giant-sized, trade to generalist from specialized, bring a twinkle to your eyes,
and people will think you’re the guy to be hired,
because the person who wins is the person who speaks, reads, and writes.
Y’all don’t seem to get that we’re in a sort of war.
Not the kind with bombs, but it means as much, or more.
It’s fought with sunsets, and upsets,
and friends we won’t forget,
and students3 who are kids that come first.
Penciling your lessons,
writing sessions,
soul progressions,
crossing diurnal progressions
under the roof of HHS;
you’re competing with the children of the Land of Qin,
of India, and of our own men,
sitting in a building full of fair-to-middling students
who want what you want,
just like kids all over the world want it.
So you better bring it,
and remember that the person who wins
is the person who reads, and speaks, and writes.
(via fuckyeahgrammarquestions)
![fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo:
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ Must choose between going out with girlfriend and working on novel ” Bottom text: “ Prose before hoes ”]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmyr68udUU1qhe5udo1_400.png)
[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ Must choose between going out with girlfriend and working on novel ” Bottom text: “ Prose before hoes ”]
Like, “I raped that test” or “that movie plotline raped my brain”
I always want to say
You took advantage of that test? That movie had sex with you even though you said no?
I don’t think so.
When you use that word so carelessly, it starts to lose its meaning. It erases those that are victims…
I took a nap and wrote a comic in my dream. It seemed like a great idea, a cracking script destined to be a classic.
Of course, dream logic doesn’t necessarily hold in the light of day. But this time, when I woke up, I seized onto that script — “No,” I thought, “this one really…
If someone invents a word and are not being malaproptastic, then they are not to be corrected. The flexibility of the English language is one of its greatest beauties, don’t just waste it because you think something isn’t a real word or that a noun shouldn’t be transformed into a verb like that….