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So I'm like,
"Who needs this grammar stuff?"
By Betty Hooten, Instructor
Department of English and Foreign Languages
During the past several years, I've read
quite a few articles about the value _ or rather the lack of value _ of
teaching grammar as a collegiate course. They all say about the same
thing -- DON'T BOTHER. The problem is that I want to bother. Judging
from the 20 or 30 grammar and punctuation errors that my own students
often make on their 500-word essays, I conclude that the need for
teaching grammar at the university level still exists.
LIN 2670 Practical Grammar is
necessary for the betterment of student writing. I am sold on this fact,
and students should be, too. Perhaps I need to call upon the Grammar
Lady, Mary Newton Bruder, who maintains her own Web site to Stamp Out
Bad Grammar. As a grammar cop, she's a little touchy these days about
personal pronoun abuse. Frankly, so am I. If I get one more essay like
the first ones, I may have to be sworn in as one of Bruder's deputies.
Who Knows About Whom?
By Heather Stadelhofer
Many students wish
Ernest Hemingway had never written For
Whom the Bell Tolls. After all, if
Hemingway's novel didn't exist, then grammarians would allow the word whom
to disappear from the English language, right? Well, as tempting an
option as banning whom might be, it is not a very practical one.
Though many rules govern pronoun case, it helps to remember that who
serves that same purpose as he, and
whom equates with him.
The reason I want to try and improve my grammer and writeing skills, and
learn to write real good, is because I'am trying to get my bachelors
degree.
Can you find the 10 mistakes in the above sentence?
Call the Grammar Hotline at 474-2129 for the answer.
WHICH SPELLING IS CORRECT?
a.supercede
b.superceed
c.supersede
Call the Writing Lab (474-2129) for
the answer.
You
can e-mail questions about grammar and usage to the Grammar Hotline at
writelab@uwf.edu.
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"Whom's
Doom"
By Mamie Webb Hixon
The Grammar Guru
In informal spoken English, usage is relaxed, and speakers tend to
use who in almost all spoken situations.
Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!
Who would you like to speak to?
He is a person who we all respect.
Who do you believe _ the politicians or the media?
In fact, many writers and speakers don't use whom any more. Here
are the myths explaining why:
MYTH 1: Whom
has become obsolete; it's just not used anymore in formal speech or
writing.
FACT 1: Careful writers and speakers
still use whom.
MYTH 2: Only Northerners use whom.
FACT 2: Whom
is no more a Northern pronoun than are the other objective case
pronouns: me, him, her, them, and us. Whom is used
in objective case instances _ the direct object or indirect object of a
verb, and the object of a preposition.
MYTH 3: It's difficult to distinguish
between who and whom.
FACT 3: Actually, distinguishing
between who and whom is quite easy if you follow these 4
steps:
1. Substitute he for who, and him for whom.
Whom (Him) do your believe _ the celebrities or the tabloids?
2. Isolate the clause(s) in which the who/whom is
functioning.
Whom (Him) do you believe?
3. Using only the clause in which the who or whom is
functioning, place these words in their natural sentence order _
subject-verb pattern. This step may be omitted when the words in the
clause are already in this pattern.
You do believe him.
4. Read or write the sentences correctly.
Whom do you believe _ the celebrities or the tabloids?
GRAMMAR CHECKERS
Be especially skeptical of grammar
checker programs. They are not always accurate. Remember, they can only
mechanically match what they are programmed to do. The Grammar Checker
didn't find the mistakes in this sentence. Can you?
Thanks to employees whom participated in the Children's Festival.
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