Understanding Hard Sentences

First, do you understand simple sentences? 

I:             Jack climbs up the hill. 

II:             Jack has a pail. 

III:             Jack gets his Mom a pail of water.

IV:             Jack is a good boy.

V:             Jack is hurt.

VI:             Jack’s Mom called the top of his head his crown.

VII:             Jack’s Mom declared his crown broken.

Infinitive and Gerund

This is the next or final entry on those wicked-ing forms of the verb (the Gerund).

Participles: B. Present Participles as Adjectives

B.  The Present Participle as an Adjective. 

1.  A present participle is used as an adjective to modify nouns:

a)  The stinging rebuke silenced the rowdy students.

b)  A rolling stone gathers no moss.

c)  Bring the milk to barely a rolling boil.

d)  Being a teacher, I note the use of ‘whom’ on the radio.

e)  Throwing a hay-maker punch, the big man knocked him down.

Participles: A. Past Participles as Adjectives

 First of all, let’s look at the dictionary entries of some irregular verbs.  These are verbs that are inflected with internal changes rather than just adding s, ed and ing: live lived lived living.  These words are among the Dolch Sight Words for Grade 1.

 

A.  The Past Participle as an Adjective. 

1.  A past participle is used as an adjective to modify nouns:

a)  A watched pot never boils.

b)  “There are known knowns; these are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know.
But there are also unknown unknowns; these are things we do not know we don’t know.”

—United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

c)  United, we stand; divided, we fall.  
[If we are united, … if we are divided,]

d)  Stunned by disbelief, she could not respond.

***She, being stunned by disbelief, could not respond.

c) In times past, a passed master was one who had presented a masterpiece to the masters of his guild, which masterpiece having been approved or having passed their approval, had then been admitted as a master craftsman to the guild; now a past master is one who has had a lot of experience in his profession or one who was once, in the past, elected ‘master’ of his society or lodge.  Nowadays the rule is this: When it’s used as an adjective or noun, spell it the archaic way of ‘past’; when it is the used in the perfect tense with ‘have’ spell it ‘passed’.

2. In the Passive Voice, the subject is being described rather than taking an action.  It follows the Simple Sentence Pattern V: N+LV+Adj

a)  I saw the thief. >>> The thief was seen by me.

b)  The ship sank. >>> The ship was sunk by big waves.

c)  The kite flew. >>> The kite was flown by an expert.

 NOTES:
1.  Verbals, even when being used as nouns or adjectives, retain their ability to be modified by adverbs  or by adverb phrases (stunned by disbelief) or to take their own objects (Throwing a hay-maker punch) or subjective complements (Being a teacher).

2.  Nowadays:  I used 'nowadays' so that the reader would be certain that I mean 'now, that is in these days' rather than the transitional 'now' meaning 'meanwhile'.
3.  The Passive Voice begs the question "Who did that?".  Very often politicians, bureaucrats and other management types use the passive voice to avoid taking responsibility for unpopular or harmful decisions.   On the other hand, it is used a great deal in scientific and other professional reports and literature to show that the writer is unbiased and impartial and to avoid boring the reader with repeated statements beginning with 'I" or 'we' that may sound boastful.  Students are taught to use the Passive Voice in Grade 10 for the Literary Essay so that they will sound more like an impartial observer than an ordinary reader giving a book report; this is the stance of the literary critic.

 

Santa Claus is Real

Someone sent me this story.  I liked it, so I am passing it on to you.

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma…

***I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her. On the way, my  big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

***My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.

***Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything.

***She was ready for me.

***"No Santa Claus?" she snorted..."Ridiculous! Don't you believe it! That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

***"Go? Go where Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world famous cinnamon bun.

***"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a  bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

***I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

***I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.  I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class.

***Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out at recess during the cold weather. His mother always wrote a note telling the teacher that he had a bad cough but all us kids knew Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good coat.

***I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

***"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

***"Yes ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby." The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

***That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.

***Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers.

***Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

***I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.

***Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

***Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes.

***That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

***I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.

**********************May you always have LOVE to share,

*************************HEALTH to spare and

***************************FRIENDS that care...

******************************and may you always believe in the magic of

*********************************SANTA CLAUS!

*******************Give back - what you can, where you can, whenever you can.

Reading Level Calculation by Word

Here's how your computer helps you to find the reading level of a passage.   First you have to type the passage into a document. 

Reading Level Calculation by Hand

This is how you figure out the reading level using the Fresch-Kincaid formula.  Rudolf Flesch admitted that it isn't really too accurate below Grade 4 or 5 level, because so much of a primary book story is told through the pictures.  Learning to "read" pictures is another reading skill.

The User Friendly Dictionary etymology

My book on how to read a dictionary was written for those people who want to use the dictionary, but find it overwhelming with all those entries and tiny print.  Here is a sample from the section on the "etymology" part of the entry.  That's the part in [ ] or < > brackets that tells you what language and what word that entry word came from.
 This part is important for readers and writers of English because English is a composite language.  It is basically a Germanic language based on the Anglo-Saxon languages that were the dominant language in Britain from the withdrawal of the Romans (think of the British-Celtic King Arthur who fought these invaders) to the invasion of the Normans (Norwegian-French).    The basic structure and primary vocabulary is Germanic, and the majority 80% of English vocabulary is Latin-based as introduced by the French Norman conquerors.  For almost a thousand years the King's English was Angle or Saxon, and for the next three centuries the King's English was French.  That has a lot to do with the the Hundred Years War, the legend of Robin Hood, and Dolch's list of sight words.
Here is one of those exercise pages that encourage the student to explore the history of English.  If you like it, you can find the book or part of it on my sales page.  Just click on my photo above.

What does Reading Level Mean?

First we all need to understand this definition given by Rudolf Flesch: A Grade 5 reading level of the material means that the reader must have passed Grade 5 in order to read it.  But, if Joey did not really pass, that is if he did not master his lessons with 80% accuracy, and he was just moved along with his age-mates, his “reading level” will be much lower than that of his new Grade level.

There are three reading levels that are educationally significant: Independent, Frustration, and Instructional. 

Independent•••The first is the Independent Reading Level; that’s the level at which the student can read on his own with 90% accuracy.  He needs study materials at his reading level if he is to read text on his own for seatwork or homework.  When we say “Joey is reading at Grade 5 level.”, we are talking about his Independent Reading Level.  If he is very very interested in a topic, say submarines or dinosaurs, he will struggle with more difficult text until he understands it, but he needs a very strong personal desire to read it.

Frustration•••This is the level at which a person can no longer comprehend what he is reading.  Maybe the vocabulary is too hard.  Maybe the sentences are so long that he is losing the thread of the idea.  For a student in Grade 7 whose Independent Reading Level is Grade 5, even Grade 7 material is at his frustration level.  For a student in Grade 7 who is (independently) reading at Grade 6 level, Grade 7 material is at his Instructional level.

Instructional•••This is the level of the instruction given at the student’s classroom Grade level.  This is the level of the new vocabulary that the teacher must introduce.  This is the level at which the teacher performs Guided Reading instruction of the text whether it’s literature or mathematics or social studies or science.  The teacher introduces new or technical vocabulary and gives background information to orient the students in time place and context.  The teacher gives time for silent reading and coaches struggling students in useful reading strategies.  Finally the teacher asks questions to be sure that the students have comprehended it.  If there is a comprehension gap, the teacher may give further instruction in relevant reading strategies to individuals or a group, or to the whole class.

For a Reading Lesson, that is a lesson in how to read, the teacher selects materials at the Independent Level of the student and performs Guided Reading practice.  By emphasizing and teaching new reading strategies, she raises the skill level and can increase the Grade level of the materials until the student is reading at the classroom Instructional Level.  That is the point at which the student is ready to graduate to the next Grade.

http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/strats/guided/guided.html

“Although guided reading has been traditionally associated with primary grades it can be modified and used successfully in all grade levels. For example, older students may need to learn new strategies to understand how to read an information book in a way that is going to give them access to the information they are seeking.”

http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/strats/guided/levels.html

WARNING:  The “subject” textbooks may have a reading level beyond that of the stated Grade level.  My son complained to me that he was having difficulty reading his Grade 7 Social Studies text.  Knowing how to apply the Flesch-Kinkaid Reading level formula, the one that Microsoft Word gives you in the Tools section under Spelling Options, I tested the reading level of different parts of his text.  What I discovered was that the reading material, although it said Grade 7, was actually at Grade 9.  Now my son is a reader, and he was reading at Grade level, but his text was two Grades above that at his frustration level, so he was having difficulty reading independently for homework study.

It is no wonder that many students are dropping out of school.  How many years of continual never-ending frustration.  But the teachers are frustrated, too.  They must select the texts that they use from the recommended (required) list provided by the Ministry of Education.  The Ministry of Education is also frustrated because they have a limited number of texts to select from.  The author, of course, wrote what he was assigned, given the topics determined to be suitable for the Grade, and he wrote to impress the potential purchasers, the teachers and Ministries, with his expertise so that the book would be desired by the purchasers.  The publisher did his best to provide educational aides such as colours and bolding, glossaries and sidebars, and pictures and all of the modern conventions of textbook writing.

So what went wrong?  That 's a topic for another blog entry.

The User Friendly Dictionary

I have finally completed the answer section to my book on how to use a dictionary.  I hope you find it as awesome as the students who looked at it found it.

Making the Obvious Apparent

Today I am working on the answers to my booklet on using the dictionary.  I came to the confusable pair observation/observant and wrote this sentence:

1.     The child made the observation that [subject-verb] word order in questions is opposite the word order in statements; his teacher praise him for being so observant.

 

I wrote that sentence because it was about a boy in Grade 2 that I had in my Remedial Reading class.  He was referred to me by his teacher for special attention to writing sentences: he made no spaces between words and between sentences.  I showed him a book at his reading level and asked him to read a paragraph, which he did.  Then I asked him to look at it again and asked him if he saw the spaces between the words.  "No," he said.  So I took him to the copy room to watch while I  photocopied the page.  (Children enjoy doing this and it gives you a chance to shat about things that are of interest to the child.)  Back we came and I used a highlighter to show the spaces between the words.  Now he saw them, and I explained why we put in the spaces and highlighted the spaces between the sentences, between the paragraphs and around the text.  His teacher was very pleased because he started spacing his own writing that very day.  No one had pointed this spacing out to the boy before because it was so obvious that anyone could observe it for themselves, right?

This boy joined my group for a while, and I taught them my colour-scheme to find the Who? and Did what? of sentences.  One day while I was in his class, his teacher said "He has figured out the difference between questions and statements on his own!"  I praised him for being so clever.  But I knew that I had been feeding the group with "obvious" information, and I knew that those repetitious lessons would pay off.

Teaching primary grades is not "playing with the babies".

Missing Words: Unto

Unlike in skiing, in human interaction we do not gain the capacity to generate from within the appropriate actions and responses until maturity.  23 words

Error:  Unlike in skiing

This error is based on the incorrect use of ‘like’.  ‘Like’ is an adjective.  It modifies a noun.  Being an adjective, it can be modified (think ‘decorated’) by an adverb as in “very like”, or it can be modified by an adverb prepositional phrase as in ‘like unto a horse’.  Now, we would never say ‘like unto a horse’; ‘unto’ has become a forgotten word.  

But you can still find “unto” in the Bible.  The Golden Rule is “Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you.” Luke 6:31

Psalm 119:105  Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. 

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Correction:  Unlike the way it is in skiing

‘Unlike’ is an adjective.  Where is the noun that it modifies? Let’s re-arrange the given sentence.  The intent of the sentence is to give a Definition (N+LV+N).

Why don’t we write the full sentence?  First, we are familiar with the preposition and the writer expects us to fill in the missing words automatically as we often do.  We are told to keep the words in a sentence to 20 words or less to facilitate reading ease.  Finally, we leave out words because we are rushing to say the idea and don’t take the time to be absolutely certain that we are saying what we mean.

Missing Words: something up with which I shall not put

About the rule “Never end a sentence with a preposition.”, Sir Winston Churchill said “That is something up with which I shall not put.”  His statement is perfectly grammatical and follows the rule, but he said it to demonstrate that idiomatic English just doesn’t follow that rule.  The idiomatic construction would be "That is something I shall not put up with."  “Put” is one of those phrasal verbs whose meaning is given new meaning by the aid of adverbial particles: run at/run to/run into/run through…; get up/get in/get out…; put in/put out/put through/put up with etc.

•••••From that sentence a word has been left out — that.

 

••••The sentence in question is being placed in the pattern of the definition IV: N+V+N.  The word ‘something’ is standing in relation to the verb ‘is’ as the subjective complement to the subject ‘that’, and equally it is actually the direct object of the preposition ‘with’.

•••••‘Thət’ is being taken as the relative pronoun.  An adjective is a lesser word when it is not one of the key words in the pattern and is not, therefore, stressed.  Unstressed syllables are usually given the vowel schwa ə.  If you read or say a sentence in which the word ‘that’ is pronounced /ŦHət/ or /ðət/, you can be sure that it is an adjective or starting an adjective clause (i.e. a defining relative clause), and it is a relative pronoun, not a subordinate conjunction, a word that joins a subordinate clause to the main clause.

•••••‘That’ would be a subordinate conjunction when the noun clause or adjective clause is a key part of the sentence pattern, and you give its vowel full value /ŦHăt/ or /∂æt/:

•••••So, what is happening here?  It is clear to everyone that you are right.

‘That you are right’ is actually a noun clause in apposition (or parenthetical) to the subject ‘it’, and it should be set off, for that reason, by a comma and never is.  It is still a noun substitute, but it is in an adjectival function to add detail. It, that you are right, is clear to everyone that you are right.  The inverted order is to supply emphasis to the final words.

•••••When you say this last sentence, drop the pitch of your voice for the parenthetical clause in apposition to show that it is not part of the main clause, that it is added information.  Remember that this construction is considered to be formal, and perhaps pedantic, and the the informal colloquial form is "It is clear to everyone that you are right."

Gowers, Sir Ernest. Fowler's Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press, 1968  473-75, 451-52, 625-30

Missing words: him, Jack and Jill revisited

English is slippery.  We leave words out.  Today I want to look at another missing word in Jack and Jill.  I asked friends who speak German to check the Google translation of the poem for me.  This is the result.

When I got this back, I noticed another word that had been missing from the original: him.

 

So the French would be this:

Of course, Google Translate is a computer dictionary working word for word; so, if you leave out a word in the English, as we often do, it leaves that word out too.

Of course the reason that 'him' was left out of this little poem was to preserve the rhythm and rhyme.  And we are expected to supply the understanding even without the missing word because the pattern 'after him' is so familiar.

The thing is that prepositions, which take nouns as objects, are often also adverbs that can stand on their own.  So, we don't notice that something is missing when they show up alone at the end of a sentence.  "Never end a sentence with a preposition." is the rule that comes down to us from scholars who study Latin.  When corrected on this issue, Sir Winston Churchill agreed with this response: "That is something up with which I shall not put."  A master of the English idiom, he knew that his grammatically 'correct' sentence is very un-English.  To be idiomatic, it would be "That is something I shall not put up with."  

Sometimes we get these collections of "adverbs" and wonder about them.  Here is what's going on.  Since English is a combination of French and German, we have developed a collection of verbs that use prepositions to create new meanings.  For example, 'run at the store' would result in a crash of some sort but 'run to the store' means a quick trip.  These prepositions are sometimes called adverbial particles. 

Missing words: had, would

Here's another dropped sound: 'd. 

"I'd better go."  "He'd better go."  "I'd rather go."  These sentences may be rendered with fewer sounds in quick speech:  "I better go,"  "He better go."   Of course, they should be "I had better go."  "He had better go." and "I would rather go."

And in the last case the ellision results in a new word: "I druther go." and 'If I have my druthers, ..."
 

Missing words: have

"I gotta go."  "You better behave."  We've all said something like this, and you might write them in dialogue to show that the conversation is casual.

However, they demonstrate another missing word:  "I have got to go." "You had better behave."

Where does this come from?  It is obviously an ellision due to "lazy tongue".  When we speak the abbreviations, especially when we are quickly speaking familiar constructions, we may find the transition back and forth from v to g to t to g too difficult.   We can make all of the transitions when we slow down. 

Conveniently, we often leave out the subject, too: "Gotta go." normally means "I've got to go."  Of course, you could say the standard "I have to go."  The "got" is redundant.

Missing Words: for

When you want to explain English grammar to a new-Canadian or a new-American or a child or an adult who didn't get grammar, you may yourself be confused.  One reason is that we leave out those words that would make the relationships clear.

One word that is often missing is the preposition 'for'.  You may hear it in old songs.  My favourite is Springfield Mountain:
•••••On Springfield Mountain there did dwell
•••••A lovely youth; I knew him well.
            (Chorus omitted.)
•••••This lovely youth one day did go
•••••Down to the meadow for to mow.

Let's look at Jack and Jill:

I have written the word 'for' in grey to show that this word is being left out.  It is the preposition that takes 'to fetch', an infinitive, as its object.  'Pail' is object of the verbal 'to fetch' and 'of water' is modifying 'pail'.  You see all of those relationships in the French. too:

In the German version the word 'for' is there.  It's 'um'.  The infinitive 'to get' is given at the end of the prepositional phrase.  This is what Google Translate gave me.  It may be translating word-for-word rather than in idiomatic German.  I give it here to show you that in both French and German, the foundational languages for English, the preposition 'for' is stated, not left out. 

When you are trying to figure out English, it might help you to see how the sentence would be stated in another language.  We may leave 'for' out in very familiar constructions.   Perhaps we are trying to avoid repeating "prepositions" as in the combination "for to", as there is a desire to reduce redundancies.  However, the 'to' in an infinitive is not a preposition as such.  In Latin and French, the infinitive is only one word with a particular suffix: agere, amare, audere, obtenir, aller, chercher.   In German as you can see, the infinitive is usually formed with a preposition such as zu, om, von.  So, in English infinitives, I feel that the 'to' is now more like a title as in 'the go", "the sing", "the fetch" or as might be said in some dialects "t' go", "t' sing", "t' fetch".

Run-on Sentence

Your typical run-on sentence is an example of commas being used to join sentences.  This is how you can splice wires:

 A comma is a separating punctuation mark.  You cannot use it to splice sentences.  You may use it to set off the end of the first of two main clauses in a compound sentence.  This is how you join sentences.

1.  Coordinate conjunctions join main clauses in compound sentences: and, but, for, or, nor, yet, so.  In the past, and still today, you may see a semi-colon set off the first sentence.

 •••••Jane likes salad with her sandwich, and John prefers soup.  Jane would make a big salad, but John would not eat it.  She makes both salad and soup, for John is hard to please.  She can do this extra work, or she can risk his wrath.  She loves John, yet she is getting weary.  She makes soup and serves it with a smile, so John does not complain.

    In years past 'so' would be considered an adverb, and it would be preceded by a semicolon.   But many people are using it the way it is given above.  When in doubt, see if you should put 'that' in.  If you mean 'so that', you have a complex sentence.   Then, as it would be an adverb clause in the adverb position, it does not require a comma.  This reason is being subordinated to the main clause.
•••••She makes soup and serves it with a smile so that John does not complain.

2.  Semi-colons and colons join main clauses in compound sentences.  They make you slow down at the end of the first sentence, and then let you proceed to the next one.

 •••••Jane makes soup and serves it with a smile; thus, John does not complain.
••••• Jane makes soup and serves it with a smile; therefore, John thinks her well-trained.
••••• Jane makes soup and serves it with a smile; she is serving him arsenic, too. 

3.   An idea subordinated into an adverb clause or an adjective clause or a noun clause does not have to be set off by a comma unless it is out of its normal place.
 •••••Jane likes salad with her sandwich while John prefers soup.  Jane would make a big salad except that John would not eat it.  She makes both salad and soup as John is hard to please.  She must do this extra work unless she would risk his wrath.  She loves John although she is getting weary.  She makes soup and serves it with a smile since John does not have much time left to complain.

Please let me know what else you want to know.



 

Sentence fragments

What is smaller than a sentence?
•••••Run! Jump!  No, these are complete sentences with the subject 'you' unspoken.

•••••No!  Really? Disgusting! What a creep!  Yes, these are not sentences.  They are interjections and make sense only if you have a context such as an on-going conversation:

•••••"My sister is getting married," I revealed.  

•••••"No!" exclaimed my best friend.  "Really? To whom?"  

•••••"To my old boy-friend."

•••••"Get outta here.  Disgusting!  What a creep!"

•••••"I don't care.  I think they deserve one another."

•••••on the wagon, over the moon, of all,  These are prepositional phrases.  A prepositional phrase starts with a preposition and ends with a noun.
•••••Paul is on the wagon now.  "Jumping on the water wagon" means not drinking alcohol.  It's from the early days of Prohibition when water wagon were used as speaking platforms.
•••••Annie is over the moon.  Annie is so happy that her spirits are as high as the moon or more.
•••••Their daughter, Jill, is happiest of all of them. 

•••••flicking their fans, caught on a bus  These are participial phrases.  A participial phrase starts with a participle and includes its object, complement or modifier.  A participle is a verbal that is actins as an adjective.
•••••Flicking their fans, the Spanish girls showed their interest or disinterest.
•••••Caught on a bush, the tufts of wool looked like cotton bolls. 

•••••flicking their fans, getting stuck These are gerundial phrases.  A gerundial phrase starts with a gerund and includes its object, complement or modifier.  A gerund is a verbal ending in 'ing' that is acting as a noun.
•••••Spanish girls showed their interest or disinterest by flicking their fans. 
•••••Getting stuck fast on a bush is one way to attract the shepherd's attention.
•••••Babies want to learn all the grown-up skills like blowing bubbles.

•••••to flick their fans, to blow bubbles These are infinitive phrases.  An infinitive phrase starts with a participle and includes its object, complement or modifier.  The infinitive is the name of the verb and it acts as a noun.

•••••Spanish girls use a practised wrist action to flick their fans.
•••••Carmen will show us how to flick a fan.
•••••Babies want to blow bubbles.

•••••what a fan flick means, when I grow up, because they are older These are subordinate clauses.   They are little sentences within a complex sentence.
•••••Spanish girls learn from their mothers and sisters what a fan flick means.
•••••When I grow up, I will blow BIG bubbles.

•••••Adults are more skilled because they have practised not because they are older.
•••••Because they are more practised, adults are more skilled not because they are older.

   The point of this exercise is to show you that phrases and clauses may be set off by commas, but they are not punctuated as sentences with capitals and end stops on their own.
   When your Grade 5 teacher said "Never start a sentence with 'because'.", it was because she wanted to avoid those non-sentence answers such as "because he was crazy" or "because I am smarter".  She wanted you to practise writing complete sentences so that you would make better stories and essays.
   


 


  

Noun Clauses act like nouns.

Ok.  I am still learning.  I got this onto my blog.

Selling My Lessons

I have posted my current lessons on the website www.teacherspayteachers.com

You don't have to be a teacher to sign up.  And you don't have pay for a membership unless you want to sell on the site.   Search for Seven Simple Sentences w Phrases and Clauses for Adults.   Just put the word Seven Simple Sentences in the search panel, and you'll get a lot of items about sentences.  Mine is different from the others because these particular lessons were designed for a group of adults who are returning to school to upgrade their reading and writing skills.  I invented my colour-code for a similar group of students.  It is $2.50.

The version for teachers has all the answers and parsing done for you: Seven Simple Sentences w Phrases and Clauses for Adults Teacher.  What you get is a pdf of 19 pages for $3.  You can download the sample ( only a few pages) for free.

I just cannot show all of the details in this blog.  The details just get lost.  For instance the I should be double-underlined in magenta, and the main verb is supposed to be double-underlined in sky blue.  The whole infinitive phrase from "to" to "Life" should have an additional double orange line under it.  The clause "what you mean" did show up correctly boxed, but the internal underlining isn't coloured.

       I see what you mean
       I like to go line dancing in Second Life at lunchtime.

I recommend double underlining the key pattern words.  If you find that you have made a mistake, you can highlight the correct word later.

This is the safest way I can think of to get them to you and maintain our mutual privacy.  Of course, I'm madly curious to know how you found my blog and why you are interested in grammar. 

Maybe I will feel braver later on.  I could put my email address on my profile.  You might pay me through PayPal by sending money to my email account.  If that would be acceptable to you, we could do that.  Please let me know what you think of this idea and of the lessons.

The reason that I am not giving these lesson away is that, as so many other people have experienced, I have no retirement plan apart from this.

The Seven Simple Sentences of English

As I told you in my last blog, I stumbled across this fact by accident while looking for textbook for the course I was taking.  I had always done well in English.  You would expect that being in the 95% percentile in vocabulary should have helped.  Without really trying, I had absorbed unconsciously the lessons that my teachers had taught.  But I did not know the Seven Patterns of English Sentences.  Do you?

1.  N-V  I am here.  You go, girl.  Help!  Did he win? 
You can teach Grade 2 students to recognise statements and questions using my handy colour-code.  Then you can teach them to scan for the information that they need to answer comprehension exercises.  You need to do that in order to teach them how to write complete sentences.

2.  N-V-N  The dog bit the man.  The man bit the dog.  (The meaning is different, but the pattern is the same.)

Here you learn/teach about subjective case and objective case. Now you can talk about transitive and intransitive verbs:  look at .../ see the ...; go to .../ help me; listen to .../hear the ...
3.  N-V-N-N He threw me a surprise party. She read us a story.  Did he give you an apple?
Now you can teach about shortening sentences and the fact that we shorten sentences (and phrases) when the pattern is familiar.  Of course, often we leave out some words that would help us understand the grammar if we had them in. 

4.  N-V-N  He is a kind man.  She is a thoughtful teacher.  Foxes are canines.  A = lw

We are back to N-V-N, but the relationships between the words are different.  Here we have an expository sentences of the sort called a Definition. 

 5. N-V-Adj  He is kind.  She is thoughtful.  Foxes are dog-like.  A = 5

This is another expository sentences, called a Description.  In these two expository patterns, the key words in the predicate complement the subject. 

Here is an example of a missing word: unto.  Like is an adjective.  It is modified by an adverb prepositional phrase.   We never use unto anymore, but you can find it used in the Bible. 

6. N-V-N-N   He named his dog Tray.  They elected him chairman.   He designated her cook.

Now we are back to the narrative story-telling sentence.  This time the extra noun complements the object of the verb.  

7. N-V-N-Adj  He thought his dog better than all the rest.  They voted her most beautiful.

Here the adjective complements the object. 

   These last two patterns, 6 and 7, as with Pattern 3, come from leaving out function words.  If we put them back in, we return to the earlier more basic pattern Pattern 2. 

You can use my colour code with little children and with adults.  It doesn't matter if the student hasn't learned the technical teminology of grammar, but by the end a week of lessons, you will be able to tell that he understands the principles of the patterns when he picks up the right coloured pencils.  Of course there is a little bit more to the parsing lessons than just colouring sentences.

Let me know if you want to know more.