Modern Grammar and Usage

Take-Home Exam 1 – Word Up! DUE: Noon, Friday, September 25, in Hixon’s office door pocket (50/214) WRITING LAB GRAMMAR CHECK PAPER READING REQUIRED (Students who do not fulfill the paper-reading requirement will be ineligible for Points Retrievable.) A 120-point exam - 10 POINTS PER QUESTION Please provide succinct answers for each of the following questions. Edit carefully and submit the assignment in polished, computer-generated, MLA format. Don't assume that I have a copy of the questions with me while I'm reading your paper: provide clear, concrete responses. The point value of each essay is shown. When the question elicits an original response, be original--not creative (don't make up concepts or terminology). Let your answers give an excellent impression of your accuracy of information and your depth of understanding. That is, don't write everything from my lecture and the book verbatim, punctuatim. If you quote from UEG, be sure to use parenthetical page references. Don't contrive any answers either-contrived answers are tell-tale signs that "you just don't understand." If the question elicits a listing, provide a listing; if the question elicits an essay-type response, write a succinct essay. If a sample response is provided, use this model unless instructed otherwise. Respond to the question-prompt. Don't write a 500-word essay simply because you are responding to a socalled "essay question." You should be able to answer each question in one short paragraph. Allow the point value of the question to suggest the length and depth and breadth of your response. Please pay close attention to the punctuation used in the question – italics and quotation marks, for instance. You should follow suit and use the same punctuation marks in your response, punctuation, by the way, that is used purposefully and deliberately because of a specific rule. YOU MUST GET A GRAMMAR CHECK DONE IN THE WRITING LAB UNLESS YOUR DIAGNOSTIC TEST SCORE IS 80% OR ABOVE. 1A.

VERBING NOUNS [10 points] Do A OR B Cell phone language and email technology have been responsible for “verbing” a number of words that are either traditional nouns or new nouns introduced into the English language vocabulary as a result of technology. Choose 5 of these “hi-tech nouns” below and prove that they can be used as verbs by first conjugating each one and then using one of the five forms of each verb in a sentence. text Webcast IM Pay-Per-View Google Blog password power

OR 1B. CREATIVE POTENTIAL OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE [10 points] The words in Column I illustrate the creative potential of the English language; that is, they illustrate how native speakers of English make use of their inherent language ability (Kolln 254) by verbing nouns (biopsied, for instance), verbing adjectives (pregnatified), and turning nouns into adjectives (Haliburtony). Explain how the form of 5 “new” words below contributes to each new word’s reclassification. Remember, choose only 5 words, but you must have at least one from each color-coded category.

2 EXAMPLE: FORM CLASS WORD Enronized

ORIGINAL CLASSIFICATION Noun

RECLASSIFICATION Verb

The proper noun Enron has been turned into a verb with the addition of the derivational verb suffix –ize and the inflectional past tense verb suffix –ed. FORM CLASS WORD deliverables unknowns friendlies persuadables annualize weirds headquartered credentialize home schooled compartmentalized Webcasting Mirandized nothinged Google d IMed architectured Webified regift rehome unchored therapize aerobicized Googleable studly autumnally slamdunkously telephonically the Not Exactlys 2A.

ORIGINAL CLASSIFICATION Adjective Adjective Adjective Adjective Adjective Adjective Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Pronoun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Adverb

RECLASSIFICATION Noun Noun Noun Noun Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Verb Adjective Adjective Adjective, then Adverb Adjective, then Adverb Adjective, then Adverb Noun

SHARED CHARACTERISTICS (DO A OR B) [10 Points] Group I: affordable, economical, roomy, neighborly, spacious, stylish, beautiful, reddish Group II: accommodation, accomplishment, teacher, delivery, breakage, departure, arrival, assistant Group III: economize, brighten, validate, purify, enforce, bewitch, undo Group IV: cautiously, immediately, correctly, homeward, lengthwise

3 Using ONLY ONE OF THE GROUPS above, illustrate how the most reliable clue for classifying words is form. That is, what are the shared form characteristics of the group you’ve chosen? What is the form class of each word in the group? What other shared characteristics do the words in the group have that help you to classify them correctly? Provide the following information for the one group you have selected: Word Class to which the words in the group belong: NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE, ADVERB Proof of the classification of the words in the group • Shared characteristics: list any noun-making, verb-making, adjective-making, or adverbmaking morphemes (prefixes or suffixes) • Inflectional paradigm for nounness, verbness, or adjectivalness • Frame sentence you used to test each word for nounness, verbness, adjectivalness, or adverbialness • Syntactical clues: determiner, auxiliary, qualifier or intensifier you used to help classify the word DO NOT USE A DICTIONARY. USE ONLY THE “TESTS.” EXAMPLE: funny, wonderful, fortunate, lovely, manly, boyish, primitive, complimentary Word Class to which all the words belong: ADJECTIVE Proof of the classification of the words in the group • Shared characteristics: adjective-making suffixes –y, -ful, -ate, -ish, -ive, -ary • Inflectional paradigm for adjectivalness: all will accept the –er (more), -est (most) inflection: funnier, lovelier, manlier; funniest, loveliest, manliest; more wonderful, fortunate, boyish, primitive, complimentary; most wonderful, fortunate, boyish, primitive, complimentary • Frame sentence used to test each word for adjectivalness: The funny, wonderful, etc. man is very funny, wonderful, etc. • Syntactical clues: qualifier or intensifier used to help classify the word: very funny, wonderful, fortunate, lovely, etc. OR 2B.

SHARED CHARACTERISTICS: “UNPACK YOUR ADJECTIVES” [10 points] List the SHARED CHARACTERISTICS of following words that are used in a television commercial to advertise a wireless equipment company: believable brilliant phenomenal incredible fantastic flexible powerful wonderful witty marvelous

SEE EXAMPLE IN 2A. 3. WORD CLASSES [10 points] Using the inflectional paradigm, classify each of the following words as a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. economy economize economical economically

4 EXAMPLE beauty: NOUN – beauties, beauty’s effect beautify: VERB – beautify, beautifies, beautifying, beautified, (have) beautified beautiful: ADJECTIVE – more beautiful, most beautiful beautifully: ADVERB – No inflectional paradigm for adverbs 4.

“LOLLY, LOLLY, LOLLY, GET YOUR ADVERBS HERE” Do A, B, C, OR D.

[10 points]

4A. The movie titles below end in –ly. Are they adjectives or adverbs? Explain. Disorderly Conduct Heavenly Creatures OR

4B. Is each word below an adverb? Explain. neighborly cowardly comely friendly lovely lonely

5A. “HOW, WHEN, WHERE, AND WHAT DEGREE” [10 points] Any City, USA, plans to hang a banner across its city's main street to recognize the local bus company's ten years of service to the community. On it will be printed the company's name, followed by the phrase "SERVING OUR COMMUNITY" and, in bold print, these three words: SAFELY

ECONOMICALLY

FRIENDLY

The banner committee has asked for your advice since you are a grammarian or wannabe grammarian. Write the SHORT explanation/advice you would give the banner committee in the tone and point of view you would write to the committee. OR 5B. Road signs sprinkled liberally throughout Oklahoma read DRIVE FRIENDLY. Probably because the word friendly ends in -ly, someone thought that it belongs with words like safely, cautiously, and carefully. DRIVE CAREFULLY works, so why not DRIVE FRIENDLY . Assume that the Oklahoma DOT (Department of Transportation) office is staffed by modern grammarians. (They make more money making incorrect road signs than they do teaching correct grammar.) Using formal contrasts, paradigms, or any other modern grammar tools, write a statement convincing the sign makers that friendly does not belong to the same word class as the -ly words above. Prove that friendly belongs to another word class. Then give other examples of -ly words that belong to the same subclass as friendly. Finally, recommend a corrected wording using the proper adverbial for m of friendly. 6A.

FORM AND STRUCTURE CLASSES [10 points] Do A, B, C, OR D 1. X can smark; X smarks; X smarked; X is smarking; X has smarked 2. Give me that smark. No, I mean those smarks. Where's your smark's ik? 3. You're pretty smark, but X is smarker and Y is smarkest of all.

5 What can be concluded from the above sets? That is, what role do the structure class words play in helping to determined whether the nonsense words are nouns, verbs, or adjectives? In which set is smark an adjective? A verb? A noun? Specify the formal contrasts and syntactical/structural clues that tell you so (use only the formal contrasts and syntactical/structural clues that are in the sets/sentences above). OR 6B. What does this sentence containing nonsense words illustrate about the function of structure class words in the English language? My greebies have been zarbing the gransflons rather sturtly. 6C. STRUCTURE CLASS WORDS [10 Points] Signal words (also called function words or structure words) make a difference in meaning. Notice that the following is ambiguous: SHIP SAILS TODAY. The problem is the word ship--is it a noun or a verb? Addition of a structure class word--the signal word the shows which is the noun phrase: The ship sails today or Ship the sails today. Disambiguate one of the following newspaper headlines by supplying some appropriate function or signal word(s); then explain what you've done--that is, tell what your addition shows; explain how missing structure words help to account for the ambiguity of the headlines. You should not have to change the word order (refer to the example: Ship sails today). DO NOT ADD COMMAS OR OTHER PUNCTUATION TO DISAMBIGUATE THE HEADLINES. ADD ONLY STRUCTURE CLASS WORDS! Add an apostrophe to create a possessive noun determiner only. (See sample response BELOW.) EXAMPLE: In the headline U.S. ADVICE: KEEP DRINKING WATER FROM SEWAGE, the ambiguous word is drinking – is it a verb in the verb phrase keep drinking or an adjectival (a verb form in an adjective slot describing what kind of water)? Inserting a signal word--a determiner before drinking helps identify which word is the noun phrase: Keep the drinking water from sewage. POLICE WALKING MARKET STREET STRIP ON REGULAR BASIS TEACHERS STRIKE ANNOYING STUDENTS KICKING BABY CONSIDERED TO BE HEALTHY INFANT ABDUCTED FROM HOSPITAL SAFE UNION DEMANDS CHANGE GIVE POOR INFORMATION ON BIRTH CONTROL COPS LOOKING FOR SEX ASSAULT SUSPECT

7.

HOW’S YOUR NONSENSE SENSE?

[10 points]

1.

Brool froobling greebies mes spolt smarmishly zarbing frib granflons herl sturtly.

2.

Brool calling birds mes spolt willingly tempting frib cats herl frequently.

3.

My froobling greebies have been smarmishly zarbing the gransflons rather sturtly.

How do the above nonsense sentences provide a good demonstration of the difference between form and structure class words? Specifically, explain why the first and second sentences seem not to have any meaning and do not sound like English sentences, while the third sentence, even with its nonsense words, sounds like English.

6 8A.

I’M A GRAMMARIAN, PREPOSITION ME ! [10 points] Do A, B, C OR D Write a justification for each terminal preposition below by explaining either why it is superfluous and then revising the sentence or by explaining why the terminal preposition is acceptable.

TERMINAL PREPOSITIONS Traditional grammarians define a preposition as a word you shouldn’t end a sentence with. That’s a really interesting concept to think about. It’s a concept that helps us appreciate what good writing stands for. When using prepositions, you must constantly make decisions regarding their placement, and most of the time, you have only yourself to rely on. Then you find that sometimes you end up ending a sentence with a preposition even though you don’t want to. As you can see, ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to sneer at. OR 8B. You are now a high school English teacher. Write the prepared statement you would give to your class regarding the terminal prepositions in the sentences below--in the tone and voice you would use to deliver the message to your class. Your prepared statement should include enough information to make clear this issue of ending a sentence with a preposition: is it acceptable or unacceptable? Your prepared statement should include 5 sentences from these below. Here are the sentences from which you will choose 5: Americans admire everything the presidency stands for. The townspeople built the home the McCoys are living in. Employees may work on weekends if they want to. Mowing the law was a chore he didn’t want to be bothered with. My mother is a person I’m very proud of. The senior class trip and the prom are events all high school seniors look forward to. In using language, you must constantly make decisions that determine how well you communicate, and most of the time, you have only yourself to rely on (Analyzing English Grammar, 6).

OR

8C.

POSTPOSED VS SUPERFLUOUS PREPOSITIONS [10 Points]

My computer green-lined “at” in the first three sentences below but did not green-line the terminal prepositions in the other seven sentences. Become my computer and write the explanation my Grammar Checker would provide in the grammar pop-up box about the prepositions that are highlighted and those that are not. Where’s the library at? Where are you at? I don't know where the book is at. That’s what friends are for? Which building is the class in? When you’re in a crowd of unfamiliar people, try to blend in. What are you waiting for? What are you looking at? What are you driving at? Whom would you like to speak to?

7 OR 8D. YOUR TURN TO PAY ATTENTION: What terminal/postposed prepositions have you seen lately--in your textbooks, in a novel, in the newspaper or a magazine, on a flyer, on a bulletin board, on a billboard, on a marquee? List 5 and document the source (attach a copy of the page or flyer on which the prepositions appear in their original positions and include parenthetical notation of the sources on your test)). Then explain whether or not the terminal prepositions are acceptable or unacceptable. 9A.

PARTICLE OR PREPOSITION [10 Points] Do A OR B Remembering that “use dictates meaning,” select five (5) of the underlined words and identify each as a PARTICLE or a PREPOSITION. If it is a particle, use the same word in another sentence as a preposition; if it is a preposition, use the same word in another sentence as a particle. EXAMPLE: Professor Peterson looked over the paper for obvious errors. Over – Particle Preposition Use: Professor Peterson looked over her glasses at the students. 1. Miriam frowns upon gambling. 2. Laura ran into Shana at the supermarket. 3. I will look up those words in the dictionary myself. 4. Don’t bring up arguments that you can’t support. 5. I finally found out the reason they were always late for class. 6. We talked about the good old days. 7. The triathletes swam into view. 8. I looked at the painting. 9. The visitors may have turned up at the airport. 10. The plane took off at midnight. 11. Martha really stands out in a crowd. 12. We can hold out until dinner. 13. Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. 14. My car broke down in the middle of the desert. 15. Ali usually knocked out his opponents.

OR 9B. PARTICLE OR PREPOSITION [10 points] Identify the underlined word as a particle or a preposition by writing Particle or Prep in the space provided. You will NOT be given credit for writing “P,” “Part” or “Participle”; you must write “Particle” if the word is in fact a part of the verb. _____1. The amateur boxer knocked out his opponent. _____2. In the middle of the fourth quarter, some of the fans walked out. _____3. Enrique studied in the library. _____4. Gary kicked in the door. _____5. The young couple strolled up the boulevard. _____6. Rob made up the story. _____7. Mamie turned into a teenybopper when she turned sixty. _____8. Wendy turned into an empty parking lot. _____9. Oprah looked up the aisle for Tom Cruise. _____10. Jay Leno looked up Elton John's phone number.

8 10.

“MOODALS” [10 Points] Use five different modals in original sentences – one modal per sentence. Underline each modal once and the verb it signals twice.

11. EXPLETIVES [10 Points] Considering what you know about expletives, explain what the root of the agreement problem is in the sentences below. There’s two sides to every story. There’s lots of books on sale at the bookstore. There’s good teachers and bad teachers. There’s seven coordinating conjunctions. There’s other witnesses willing to testify. There’s a lot of pieces to this puzzle. 12.

“REFLEXIONS”

[10 points]

On the following page is a New York Times article by renowned writer and Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist William Safire who quotes me regarding the function of reflexive pronouns. Using what you know from your text and what I say about reflexive pronouns in Safire’s article (in red bold type – paragraphs 6 and 7), compose five sentences in which you correctly use a reflexive pronoun in each sentence. On Language

Reflexions By WILLIAM SAFIRE Published: August 27, 2006 The man whose words are parsed more closely than anybody else’s in the world opined in early June to a bunch of bankers that this year’s “core inflation” — setting aside volatile food and gas prices — “has reached a level that, if sustained, would be at or above the upper end of the range that many economists, including myself, would consider consistent with price stability.” So said Ben Bernanke, current chairman of the Federal Reserve, in a written sentence that he must have sweated over for a week. I think his point was that inflation may be getting too high (in which case it would be inconsistent with price stability), and so I ran his words past Floyd Norris of The Times, a practiced Fedspeak cryptologist. “What bugged me most about the sentence is its reliance on ‘core’ inflation,” noted my colleague. “Using the core figure for very short periods of a few months may make sense as a way to avoid meaningless volatility, but using it for six months or even longer is hard to understand.” Even harder to understand is why economists have picked up a vogue word in politics — every “power base” now boasts a “core constituency” — and are using it to modify “inflation.” It is a word with beautiful poetic associations, from Shakespeare’s “I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart” to Keats’s “A virgin purest lipp’d, yet in the lore/Of love deep learned to the red heart’s core.” Now here it is qualifying the rising cost of living. “The ‘core inflation’ rate,” Norris says, “is relevant for those who neither eat nor use energy.”

9 Myself, Himself Why did bearded Ben, who seems like a nice guy, choose the reflexive myself rather than the simple, objective me? “Including myself,” the Fed chairman can rest assured, is not a grammatical mistake; the loosey-goosey Merriam-Webster usage dictionary gives 40 examples of writers throughout history who use the reflexive myself in lieu of me — even including a citation of myself. But I changed me to myself in that last sentence to illustrate an insensitivity to style. That self-centering myself carries a ring of intellectual arrogance that clanks on many ears; a plain me as the object of including, in contrast, has a subtle touch of modesty. A good stylist zings in a reflexive self only when an intensifier is needed to call more attention to the subject. Mamie Hixon of the deliciously prescriptive Grammar Hotline at the University of West Florida says that “a reflexive pronoun is used as the object in a sentence when the word to which the reflexive pronoun refers is the subject.” That’s an instruction in desperate need of a f’r-instance. She explains: “In the sentence ‘I am giving myself a raise,’ I is the subject and myself is a reflexive pronoun referring back to I. It is also the object of the verb am giving. So in that sentence, myself refers back to the subject and is also the object of the verb. It meets both criteria of a reflexive pronoun.” Hixon takes to task those who respond to “How are you?” with the familiar but curious answer “Fine — how’s yourself?” She holds that it’s ungrammatical. “That’s because ‘How are you?’ transposes to ‘You are how,”’ she notes, “and that’s a strange but grammatical sentence. But ‘How’s yourself?’ transposes to ‘Yourself is how,’ and that’s ungrammatical, because yourself cannot function as the subject of a sentence — it can only work as a reflexive or intensive pronoun.”

Granted, but that’s where good grammar and common usage lock horns. The longtime usage of “How’s yourself?” has broken through the gravity of grammar to enter the stratosphere of idiom, as infuriating to us half-purists as “could care less.” In a language that knows when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em, one wild card trumps all others: Idioms is idioms. (“An idiom is an idiom” is not idiomatic.) Though it sneaks into the English language through the back doors of dialect and slang or repeated error, a word, once it becomes an entrenched idiom, cannot be heaved out of the saloon by beefy bouncers battling bad form. How’s Yourself? Let me speculate about the roots of the idiom How’s yourself? It was probably influenced by the Irish-American dialectical use of Himself — capitalized as a proper noun — meaning “top dog.” It’s the intensifier understood in “He, himself. . .,” with the “he” unspoken.

10

Example: The historian Robert Schlesinger came by this week, researching a book about the Judson Welliver Society, a group of speechwriters from the past 11 presidencies that calls me foundering president. He asked about the waning policymaking influence of today’s speechwriters (a trend often deplored by his father, Arthur Jr., the historian and Kennedy adviser-speechwriter) and asked me to recount a moment when a mere writer could believe himself to be at the zenith of White House power.

In 1971, Chief Justice Warren Burger asked President Nixon to speak at a Law Day conference in Williamsburg, Va. As a nonlawyer drawing the assignment, I was told to be sure to clear my draft of the president’s remarks with Burger. While dutifully following that instruction in a long phone conversation with the meticulous Burger, I looked up to see my secretary, the ordinarily serene Sally Cutting, running into the room gesticulating at the telephone extension: “It’s Himself!” she cried, repeating, “Himself is on Line 2.” President Nixon had apparently dialed my extension directly and was holding on, hardly the customary procedure of chief executives. What was an aide to do, with his boss hanging on, probably drumming his fingers as vital affairs of state demanded his attention? I covered the phone mouthpiece with my hand and said, “Tell the president I can’t take his call now, I’m on with the chief justice.” That stunning sentence, enshrined in my memory as no other, is now part of Welliver speechwriting lore. (As for Himself, he understood.) Send comments and suggestions to: [email protected].