The Monarchs of Grammar

I love to tell people I married the Grammar King; that title perfectly captures the geeky yet noble qualities of my husband, and it serves to emphasize my cool qualities in contrast to his nerdier ones. What I mean is, for years at the odd party or social engagement, the term underscored the fact that I was not geeky enough to be too invested in grammar. But, surprise, surprise. Just when you are certain of who you are - no stodgy, boring grammar for me - you change; you learn; you grow! I now find myself espousing (pardon the pun) the benefits and the necessity of grammatical excellence at every turn. You see, young people, you just never know how differently you might see things in the future. Be warned - it really is useless to become too entrenched in the "you" you are at any given stage - you'll change whether you like it or not! And, despite our human penchant for clinging to certainty, a changing, expanding mind is cause for celebration.

Anyway, all that to introduce one of my favorite lessons: simple, compound, and complex sentences; coordination and subordination; independent and dependent clauses. I gave notes on those worthy topics, and you completed the Grade 8 Sentence Quiz. I will happily give you another quiz for marks on the same subjects next Friday.

The story above is also intended to encourage you to do the mountains of reading (there I go with the puns again) I assigned today. First off, you had class time to read Ngugi Wa Thiongo'o's (best name EVER) selection from Decolonising the Mind (page 547). Next, I assigned a close reading of Eric Liu's Notes of a Native Speaker. This was a handout, and I gave extra copies to Carmen for Michelle and Megan, and one to Blondie (second best name EVER) for Taylor. Jeorgia, can you please try to get this from someone or find it online?

Anyway, I'm off to read about nominalizations and passive voice. Yes, I'll share this gem with you next week.

Yours imperially and humbly all at once,

The Grammar Queen

This blog posted with official approval from The King.