Grammar with Kate

Hello and Happy Friday!

My mind has been locked on grammar lately. I teach a communications course for Axia College (of University of Phoenix) and I have this fabulous group of students right now. They are so interactive--digitally--and they ask phenomenal questions.

Since I love the English language and I love to "communicate" (talk--haha ;)), I thought I'd share a few tips with you and one sassy blog post (someone else's blog--you're gonna love it).

Here goes...

• Use commas!!! You need them!

For example: Let's eat Grandpa vs. Let's eat, Grandpa. Yikes! Please don't eat your dear, sweet grandfather. However, feel free to share a meal with him. ;)

• For goodness' sake ((*apostrophe may or may not be needed--depending on how you interpret the meaning of the aforementioned idiom): capitalize i when it's a pronoun.

Unless you are ee cummings or desire to flex your artistic freedom, please don't forget to capitalize the pronoun, I. I promise, it won't take but a nano second.

For example: It's Friday night; im so glad! vs. It's Friday night; I'm so glad!

• Semicolons are stronger than commas! This is how it works in my mind anyway. A comma is a simple guy. But, a semicolon has that extra dot on top, which gives him extra strength. Where a comma cannot join two independent thoughts (because he's weak--sweet guy), a semicolon can!

For example: wrong: Blakely has red hair, she's quite adorable. vs. right: Blakely has red hair; she's quite adorable. Of course, you could also add a conjunction to strengthen the well-meaning, ol' comma--right: Blakely has red hair, and she's quite adorable.

• Don't use an apostrophe when you are just making your noun plural--por favor and mahalo!

For example: wrong: Amy Grant has many amazing album's. vs. right: Amy Grant has many amazing albums.

Okay--I really hope this post doesn't sound grammatically arrogant! I certainly don't mean it that way. The beauty of my specialty (teaching English) is that I'm in no way a pro. I'm constantly learning right alongside my students! *In fact, I just spell-checked my post--yup, lots o' errors. ;)

Sometimes I see the same errors all the time. I figure, hey, why not share some easy tips. Maybe I'll copy this blog post into my online classroom sometime! I already taught my high school kiddos how to blog in digital media--perhaps they'll stumble across these notes just when they need them.

Now for that worth-your-time blog I mentioned: click here.

I don't know this blogger, but my friend Carrie passed this humorous, word-lover post on to me.

Check out the pic below--alot being a fuzzy monster because if you wanted to care about something a lot--let's say you care about Oahu's West Coast (which is currently contaminated)--then you'd say, I care about that a lot. Right?! Right. So check out the link--it'll make you smile and who can't use a quick grammar lesson every  now and then?!: