Tag Archives: grammar

Freak Speak

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW GRAMMAR?

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Post #159 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

Well, here’s another way to prove how smart you are. I kind of like these tests ’cause most people I know can’t get them all right and they start arguing with me about the answers. (And anyone who knows me knows I love to argue.) But the answers are RIGHT, I promise you. This time you’ll find out how much (or how little) you know about basic grammar and spelling. Now this ain’t — and yeah, I know “ain’t” ain’t a word – a test that will have stuff like whether you need to use who or whom. That’s really hard for anybody. Naw, these are concepts that anyone over eight or nine should know about. And that’s because your third or fourth grade teacher taught you these things.

See how you do. Get out a sheet of paper and number to 10. (Remember to start with 1, not 0.) Put your answers down and then go to the answer page I link to at the bottom. Be honest though. No fair changing your answers after you see you’ve missed half them. These are just some of the mistakes I see people making all the time in class or in blogs or even in news articles written by adults. the last one really annoys me ‘cause if these grown-up writers can’t get these easy things right, why should I believe them when they talk about the harder stuff?

You ready, Eddie?

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW GRAMMAR?
TEST #1
Created by Dr. Crankenfuss

First off, dudes, notice how “grammar” is spelled. Did you know that? If you did, you’ll probably do just fine on this test. Now let’s get going.

1. _____________ the smartest, coolest dude in the universe.
a. Your
b. You’r
c. You’re
d. Dr. Crankenfuss is

2. Sam says, “I want some ice cream.”
Then his sister Hortensia says, “I want some _______.”
a. to
b. too
c. two

3. I’m on the swim team. I have ___________ hundreds of laps this summer.
a. swum
b. swimmed
c. swam

4. It is a true fact that there are ___________ men in the United States than women.
a. fewer
b. less
c. fewest

5. There are two brothers who live in the same house. The two __________ bikes were stolen from their garage.
a. boys
b. boy’s
c. boys’

6. Dr. Crankenfuss probably has written more blog posts _______ most of you.
a. than
b. then

7. ______________ went to the mall.
a. Him and I
b. Him and me
c. He and me
d. He and I
e. He and myself

8. I can’t drive the car because ______ battery is dead.
a. its
b. it’s
c. its’

9. It is _______ late to go to the movie theater since it’s past midnight.
a. to
b. too
c. two

10. They gave the award to my sister and _____________.
a. myself
b. I
c. me
d. to Dr. Crankenfuss, of course

Now that you’re done, look over your answers and then click here to find out how you did. Ooh, I can see your head swelling with excitement from here.

And be sure to write me and tell me how easy or hard these were for you. I tried this out on three friends and only one of them got a 100. And sure enough, the other two wanted to argue with me that I was wrong. BUT THEY’RE THE WRONG ONES!

Anyway, spread the word and thanks for your visit.

Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

-DIS makes no sense! So I’m gonna dis it.

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Humor Post #65 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Question: Why do so many people have trouble reading?
Answer: Because English is messed up, that’s why. If it made more sense, people wouldn’t get so mixed up.

Here’s a total screw-up I figured out all on my own. Just by thinking, you know. And I’m just a kid. So there must be gajillions of other things I haven’t even noticed yet.

We’re working on prefixes in English class and there’s a bunch of them that mean “no” or “opposite of.” Like -un, -im, -in, -non, and -dis. I think you know pretty much what I’m talking about. Our teacher says knowing these prefixes will help us on those standardized tests they give us all the time. But I had to ask about -dis in class last week and my teacher couldn’t really answer me. So I’ll ask you.

-DIS — Like disrespect is the opposite of respect, like dislike means to not like, like dishonest means not honest. Easy, huh?

But I thought of a couple that make NO SENSE! Now how are we supposed to do gooder in school if English is such a wreck. (And yes, that was supposed to be funny. Epic fail, huh? So what’s new?)

Here they are:
The wind is gusting.
The wind is disgusting.
Huh? I don’t think the second sentence means the opposite of the first.

Or how about this?
She’s stressed.
She’s distressed.
Huh? again. This time both sentences mean the same thing. Here –dis is a prefix that means absolutely nothing. Must be there for decoration, I guess.

Like I said, I asked about these in class, but my teacher didn’t have a good answer for me. At least she seemed interested and said she’d look it up. I’m not sure anyone else noticed because most people weren’t paying much attention. That’s because prefixes aren’t the most exciting thing for most people. More people listened to me at the beginning of the lesson when I tried to be my usual brilliant self. The teacher asked someone to give a sentence that used disperse. So I raised my hand and said, “Dis purse is made of leather so it costs a lot.” At least I got a few groans and the teacher gave one of her “Oh, please” looks so I guess that counts as a success.

So anyway, getting back to the “disgusting” and “distressing” examples from above, it takes Dr. Crankenfuss once again to point out why American kids have such a hard time in school. It’s not our fault. It’s English’s fault. Why don’t they fix it? One of these days, they’ll hire you-know-who to fix the world and everyone’ll have it a lot easier.

But till then, keep checking her for beautiful pearls of wisdom from Dr. Crankenfuss,
The Dude with the ‘Tude

Freak Speak

Let’s get excited like they do in Mexico

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Humor Post #34 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

English is a great language, I’ll say that right up front. First off, it’s probably spoken by more people than anyone else in the world. Now Chinese might be catching up but I’m pretty sure that since they speak English in India, good ol’ English is still on top. Second off, stuff sounds good in English. Songs sound good in English, movies and TV shows sound good in English, my jokes sound good in English, and hey, what else is there that really matters?

But what I’m really getting at is even though English is cool, it could still use a bit of tweaking. Especially with a couple punctuation marks I’ll be talking about today. That would be the question mark and the exclamation point. I never thought much about these two little guys till I started taking Spanish. And it was there that I found out that Spanish speakers have got two things right that we really should copy.

And don’t go telling me we shouldn’t be copycats. (BTW, where did the word “copycat” come from? Cats can’t even write, much less copy.) We copied pizza and ice cream from Italy and China and I don’t hear anyone complaining.

So anyway to get my ADD brain back on topic, here’s the way we ask a question in English:
Hey, Joe, whatcha know?
And here’s how they ask the same question in Spanish:
¿Oye, José, qué sabes?

Do you see a big difference?
No, no, banana head, I can see that the words are different. I’m talking about the punctuation. Yeah, that’s it. They put an upside down question mark at the beginning of the Spanish question. Now why do I like that? Because it warns you that the next sentence is going to be a question, that’s why. Just last week we were taking turns reading out loud from this novel in English class. (Our teacher is big on getting us to practice our “public speaking voice.”) And I was near the end of this sentence that went something like, “And then you’re going to the market and you’re going to talk to Maria?” But I didn’t see the question mark till I was almost at the end of the sentence and it didn’t sound right. If someone had warned me a question was coming up, I could have been prepared. In Spanish, I would’ve been.

They also do the same thing with exclamation points. If you see an upside down exclamation mark at the beginning, you know you’re going to act excited for the whole sentence. Look at these two examples:

With English punctuation:
“I love you incredibly, so much that it makes my heart ache and my eyes tear up to look at you!”

With Spanish punctuation:
“¡I love you incredibly, so much that it makes my heart ache and my eyes tear up to look at you!”

See the difference? It’s huge! In the first one you could be using a romantic, sexy voice and you think you’re supposed to act all sad. Then you see that ending punctuation mark and you have to come to a screeching half on the mushy stuff and start yelling the last few words. Not good. But in the second sentence, you get that warning so you’re all excited right from the get-go. By the time you get to “heart ache,” you’re practically ripping your heart out of your chest and by the end of the sentence, that girl would need Noah’s Ark. Now THAT’S what you could deliver if you knew what was coming.

So, to all of you people out there who can read — and I hope that’s a good percentage of you — if you know who I can write to ask about making this a new grammar law, I’d really appreciate it. I was thinking of writing my Congressman, but my mom says Congress never gets anything done except giving themselves pay raises so that’s probably not the way to go. But who’s in charge of punctuation out there? Guess this’ll take some real research. Maybe the Mexican or Argentinian government can help me. Hope they speak English.

from your gifted gabber, your seeker of sagacity (ooh, sagacity, whoo-hoo!), your middle school master of merriment,
Dr. Crankenfuss, the Dude with the ‘tude