Posts
from The Grammar Girl
While we're on the subject of things I didn't learn in school, also see The Grammar Vandal's Everything's More Erroneous in Texas.
Actually, I am perfectly capable of spelling "authorized" and "personnel." Don't know when and where I learned how, but I can handle it.
What I cannot spell is flokati.
Scratch that.
What I could not spell in last February's spelling bee was flokati. My team decided to go with floccati.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Another way to decide between "that" vs. "which" is to say the sentence out loud and see if it's natural to pause first. "which" follows a pause (and, typically, a slight rise in pitch); "that" doesn't. (An exception is "That which", as in "that which seems hardest is...", but here we only use "which" because "that that" is so awkward).
Speech melody/rhythm can also guide punctuation questions like comma (rising pitch) vs. period (drop in pitch).
Indeed, it seems to me that melody/rhythm is an under-appreciated resource for precision with written language.
And, vice versa, if you teach a child how punctuation should guide their intonation when reading aloud, for reading comprehension.
Post a Comment