Thursday, January 31, 2013

PREVIOUS GRAMMAR QUESTION



My sons teacher talked to my husband and I about the difficulty he was having with reading, writing and he couldn’t complete the math homework. He said some testing is required.
1. Possessive noun: an apostrophe is missing from son’s.
2.  Pronoun: “my husband and I” are the object of the verb “talked”, so the pronoun needs to be in the objective case—“me”.
3. Ambiguity: who does the first usage of the pronoun “he” refer to? The nearest appropriate antecedent is the noun “husband”, but that doesn’t make sense. The noun “son”  needs to be specified.
4. Parallel construction: reading, writing and ?? these are gerunds, and  next noun needs to be a gerund, too: “completing math homework” would work.
5. Ambiguity: The second usage of “he” is also ambiguous. It should refer to the teacher.
6. Direct or indirect speech: The final sentence can be either direct speech in which case quotation marks are needed (The teacher said, “Some ….”) or indirect speech (The teacher said that some ….”).
Possible Answer: My son’s teacher talked to my husband and me about the difficulty our son was having with reading, writing and completing the math homework, The  teacher said that some testing is required.

GRAMMAR QUESTION, Jan. 31st, 2013



Much stores and shopping centres prepare for chinese new year and Valentines day, there is a special display, traditionally Chinese food, and decoration, although chocolate and flowers for Valentines day,  greetings cards, and cloths with hearts and roses are common.

PUZZLE, Jan. 31st, 2013

Previous Puzzle
Congratulations to Helen for being the first to solve the puzzle.
The following list of words has been altered from the original word list:
Change the first letter of each word above with the first letter of another word in the list.
What are the words in the new list? See below. Is there a theme to this new list? Food.  And which one word which does not fit the theme? Test.
heat (meat)      jeans (beans)    ram (ham)           silk (milk)             mice (rice)           malt (salt)           
pest (test)         belly (jelly)      tears (pears)      drapes (grapes)       bill (dill)              gutter (butter) 

New Puzzle       
Use real names to find the common words that is the name of their son or daughter:
Example: Mr and Mrs Voyant - Clare (as in Clairvoyant)

1. Mr and Mrs Tress =
2. Mr and Mrs Nasium =
3. Mr and Mrs Tate =
4. Mr and Mrs Anthemum =
5. Mr and Mrs Mander =
6. Mr and Mrs Mite =
7. Mr and Mrs Time =

ALL CHANGE! Jan. 31st, 2013



Change the words in the sentence below as indicated. You can only change the exact word in the sequence given; after someone else has posted the next change, then you can post another change. For instance, student 1 writes #1 Subject Noun, and changes the subject noun; Student 2 writes #2 Direct Object Noun, and changes that noun. Each student only makes one change at a time and keeps to the order indicated.If you complete all 7 changes, then start making more changes again from 1 to 7. Each student should build on the changes that the previous students make.

Tom usually gives red roses to his wife on Valentine’s Day.

Changes: #1 Subject noun      #2  Direct object noun         #3 Indirect object noun          
#4 Adjective               #5 Adverb          #6 Verb name                  #7 Verb tense

Please number the change you make.

COMPLETE THE SENTENCE, Jan. 31st, 2013

Use the type of clause, phrase, or grammar indicated to complete the following sentence; you can add the phrase or clause before or after the clause below:

... Valentine’s Day is on a Thursday this year…

Sentence 1. Add a phrase
Sentence 2. Add a dependent clause
Sentence 3. Add an independent clause

VOCABULARY, Jan. 31st, 2013

Vocabulary building is important for both reading comprehension and writing. Use the following two words (note the part of speech) in one sentence.

disproportionate      (adjective)     +       antipathy      (noun)

ACTIVE & PASSIVE, Jan. 31st, 2013



Use the verb with the base form of discover in two different sentences. Sentence 1 should be in the active voice; sentence 2 should reword the sentence to the passive voice.

SENTENCE COMBINATION, Jan. 31st, 2013

Learning to combine ideas into more complex sentences is an important skill in writing. There are many ways to do this--many possible bonus points! Combine the following three sentences.

Sentence 1: The snowfall lay heavily on the ground.
Sentence 2: People were shovelling driveways and sidewalks and piling up snow into snow mountains.
Sentence 3: There was little traffic on the roads until the snow ploughs had cleared the major routes.

HALF-WAY THERE CHALLENGE! Jan. 31st. 2013



This exercise is advanced sentence combining; it is designed for students who have completed Lesson 9 in Engl 177.

Sentence 1: We were very worried about the latest news to come out of our homeland.
Sentence 2: Our homeland has been in the news lately because of the widespread political unrest and violence.

Grammar:1. Use an appositive to combine the sentences.
                2. Use a gerund to combine the sentences.
                3. Use a relative pronoun to combine the sentences.