Grammar Review

Appositives An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that renames another noun right beside it. Penny, my French bulldog, loves to eat peanut butter.

Most common Mistake: “The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the color of the magazine you buy at the newsstand when you want to catch the train” This sentence just physically describes the kid, but it doesn’t rename him Turning this into an appositive would look like: The boy was a kid of ten, a freckled young boy, with hair the color of the magazine…”

Phrases vs. Clauses Phrase: A phrase is two or more words that do not contain the subject-verb pair necessary to form a clause. The dance. Clause: Every clause has at least a subject and a verb. The dance was crowded.

Phrases The easiest way to identify a phrase is to look for one at the beginning of a sentence: After the party In front of the house Before the school year

Dependent Clauses These have a subject and a verb, but don’t stand on their own, often because of a conjunction: After the party was over Due to the raccoon attack on Pawnee three weeks ago Even after Leslie had apologized to the picnic-goers

Independent Clauses These have a subject and a verb and can stand on their own Everyone went home dissatisfied. The picnic was completely ruined. The town meeting was incredibly hostile.

Here’s how they come together: After the party was over, everyone went home dissatisfied. Due to the raccoon attack on Pawnee three weeks ago, The picnic was completely ruined. Even after Leslie had apologized to the picnic-goers, the town meeting was incredibly hostile.

Fragments A fragment occurs whenever you do these three things: You begin a group of words with a capital letter. You conclude this group of words with an end mark—either a period [ . ], question mark [ ? ], or exclamation point [ ! ]. You neglect to insert a main clause somewhere between the capital letter at the beginning and the end mark concluding the word group. Example: Outside, the wind was crashing around us. Like cannonfire.

Coordinating Conjunctions And, but, for, nor, or, so, and yet—these are the seven coordinating conjunctions. To remember all seven, remember: FANBOYS Coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases, and clauses. Use a coordinating conjunction when you want to give equal emphasis to two main clauses. The pattern for coordination looks like this: Main Clause + Coordinating Conjunction + Main Clause Example: The fall leaves were bright and beautiful See, it combines “The fall leaves were bright” and “the fall leaves were beautiful” into one

Subordinate Conjunctions Some sentences are complex. Such sentences have two clauses, one main [or independent] and one subordinate [or dependent]. The subordinate conjunction has two jobs. First, it provides a necessary transition between the two ideas in the sentence. This transition will indicate a time, place, or cause and effect relationship. Example: My dog begins eating her dinner after I begin eating mine. My dog eats dinner > I eat dinner The second job of the subordinate conjunction is to reduce the importance of one clause so that a reader understands which of the two ideas is more important. The more important idea belongs in the main clause, the less important in the clause introduced by the subordinate conjunction. Example: As Samson blew out the birthday candles atop the cake, he burned the tip of his nose on a stubborn flame. Burning his nose > Blowing out the candles

Check Your Work: Coordinating: Daisy, my pug, loves having her head scratched but hates getting her claws trimmed. Coordinating: I hate to waste a single scoop of home-made ice cream, for it is tedious and time-consuming to make. Subordinate: We looked on top of the refrigerator, where Jenny will often hide a bag of chocolate chip cookies. Subordinate: Marco begins to sneeze violently whenever he opens the door to greet a fresh spring day. Coordinating: The bowl of squid eyeball stew is hot and delicious.

Irony

Irony The use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or usual meaning; incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the expected result.

Situational Irony: when the opposite of what you expect happens: Howard, after working an eight hour shift at the fork factory, walked to the break room to eat his salad. He was dismayed to find he had forgotten his fork. When he went to the silverware drawer, he found only spoons.

What’s not ironic? When, on the one day you cannot be late for school, there is an enormous traffic jam. That’s not ironic. That’s unfortunate. You didn’t expect the opposite to happen, you were just hoping it would. When you were just talking about someone, and you happen to see them the very next minute. That’s not ironic. That’s a coincidence.

Discuss with your Group How did Zusak use irony in his novel?

Homework Study for Grammar Quiz on Friday Read p. 168-184