The last thing I want to do is make an ass out of you and me, so I try to be pretty careful.I learned never to ask a woman, no matter how tiny the rest of her body is compared to her belly, when she is expecting.
I learned never to express joy, no matter how in love she claimed to be two days prior, over a friend’s new relationship. (Oh, he broke up with you last night. Ooops. Um, drinks are on me.)
And I certainly never assume anything when it has to do with the English language.
We can’t even assume our most popular rules are correct.
Remember i before e except after c or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh?
What about heir and seize and weird, huh?
And most of the time we simply slap an ly on the end of an adjective to make it into an adverb:
Bad + ly = badly
Clear +ly = clearly
Genuine+ ly = genuinely
Clear +ly = clearly
Genuine+ ly = genuinely
Unfortunately, we can’t assume that this is the case for all adjectives. It’s certainly not the case for true. True loses its e before it gains its ly:
True - e + ly = truly
Isn’t that outrageous? It’s truly, truly, truly outrageous!
11 comments:
JEM!! I'm gonna live forever! *singing* - Thanks, now that song is in my head. lol
...I'm gonna learn how to fly. *still singing* Wait, are those the words to the Fame song? Sigh. I'm a mess today....
Great lessons as always! Have a great weekend. :)
Ah, the complicated workings of grammar! Thank you for the fabulous Friday lesson!
Who-o-oa-JEM!
LOL, thanks for the flashback.
Great post!
ha! I have a question today is it correct to say chloe and me instead of chloe and I?
The great thing about English is there's an exception to every rule. Keeps us on our toes.
Jem? Too young for me. I'm missing the reference here. Where's Josie and the Pussycats?
My sisters used to watch Jem every day after school, along with My Little Pony. Thankfully, I had my fill of Transformers, He-Man, Smurfs, and *ahem* Muppet Babies to get me through my afterschool afternoons.
English is such a perplexing language. I'm glad I grew up with it so that I'm used to its illogical rules - what a pain it would be to learn!
You are so good at this! Do people ever send in anonymous grammar questions for you to answer? I'd probably send in a dozen or so, but I'm way (or is that weigh? haha) too embarASSed to. - G
Loved me some Jem!! I still have her hair..sans the pink sadly...(she says slappin' her adjective)Hugs....
sound advice here. Once when a friend broke up with his girlfriend I said 'no loss - she looked like a pig' - OK I was like 17 and more insensitive than now. Let's just say he got back with her and they have been married for almost 20 years!
English has to be the most convoluted language in the world. When I took Spanish I was blown away at how easily all the rules worked.
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