 |
 |
English is a language with its own set of rules, designed to help you express yourself clearly. Here are a couple of lists to help you remember: > > > GRAMMER MADE EASY IN TWENTY-THREE STEPS > or > HOW TO RITE RITE > > 1.Don't abbrev. > 2.Check to see if you any words out. > 3.Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct. > 4.About sentence fragments. > 5.When dangling, don't use participles. > 6.Don't use no double negatives. > 7.Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent. > 8.Just between you and I, case is important. > 9.Join clauses good, like a conjunction should. > 10.Don't use commas, that aren't necessary. > 11.Its important to use apostrophe's right. > 12.It's better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive. > 13.Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object. > 14.Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should > begin with a capital and end with a period > 15.Use hyphens in compound-words, not just in any two-word phrase. > 16.In letters compositions reports and things like that we use commas > to keep a string of items apart. > 17.Watch out for irregular verbs which have creeped into our language. > 18.Verbs has to agree with their subjects. > 19.Avoid unnecessary redundancy. > 20.A writer mustn't shift your point of view. > 21.Don't write a run-on sentence you've got to punctuate it. > 22.A preposition isn't a good thing to end a sentence with. > 23.Avoid cliches like the plague. > >HOW TO WRITE GOOD > by Frank L. Visco > My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules: > > 1.Avoid alliteration. Always. > 2.Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. > 3.Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.) > 4.Employ the vernacular. > 5.Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. > 6.Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. > 7.It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. > 8.Contractions aren't necessary > 9.Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. > 10.One should never generalize. > 11.Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once > said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." > 12.Comparisons are as bad as cliches. > 13.Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; > it's highly superfluous. > 14.Profanity sucks. > 15.Be more or less specific. > 16.Understatement is always best. > 17.Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. > 18.One-word sentences? Eliminate. > 19.Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake. > 20.The passive voice is to be avoided. > 21.Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. > 22.Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. > 23.Who needs rhetorical questions? ------------------------------ Margaret Tuchman(54yrs,dx1980) [log in to unmask]