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Good Grammar Like You Never Knowed

We thought you might enjoy brushing up on your grammar. Here’s a little fun post on “good grammar” to brighten your day.

This list has been making its way around the internet, and we thought it was enough of a new twist on grammar that it would make your high school English teacher’s hair stand on end. (I can’t vouch that it’s all good grammar!)

New Rules like you never knowed

  1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
  2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
  3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
  4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
  5. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
  6. Always avoid annoying alliteration.
  7. Be more or less specific.
  8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
  9. Also, too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
  10. No sentence fragments. No comma splices, run-ons are bad, too.
  11. Contractions aren’t helpful and shouldn’t b used.
  12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
  13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous and unnecessary.
  14. One should never generalize.
  15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés
  16. Don’t use no double negatives.
  17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

More on good grammar

  1. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
  2. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
  3. The passive voice is to be ignored.
  4. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
  5. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
  6. Kill all exclamation points!!!!
  7. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
  8. Understatement is probably not the best way to propose earth shattering ideas.
  9. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
  10. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations Tell me what you know.”
  11. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
  12. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
  13. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
  14. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
  15. Who needs rhetorical questions?
  16. Exaggeration is a million times worse than understatement.
  17. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

There you have it. For those who say good grammar don’t matter, this should help real good!

PS: Here’s a link to an article on real good grammar.

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