Grammar 101, ... or, pet peeves Options

[bakbam]

Question in the front row. The eager girl with her hand held high. Does anyone see her?
OK I will get to it.

Harry said "I am a magician".

Or

Harry said "I am a magician."

If you notice I have both ways throughout my stories

[evlpez]

Harry completed a sentence. I am a magician. So the period comes before the quotation marks. Punctuation (I think) is always inside the quotation marks.

I'm a bit rusty, so maybe there are exceptions I'm not aware of. Agrippa is the guru...

Here is something I wonder if I'm doing right:

"I am a wizard," Neville said tentatively, "but not a very good one."

This post has been edited by evlpez: Jan 6 2004, 01:35 AM

[McGonagall's Cat]

OK...


Harry said(,) "I am a magician (.)"

However if it’s the other way around you DON’T put a regular punctuation mark inside the end quotation mark. Instead use a comma because you haven't really ended the sentence at that point

"I am a magician(,)" Harry said.



As to who and whom:

Who is he? “who” asks what or which.
In this sentence "who" is the Subject, "is" is the verb, "he" is the object.

Whom did you see? Whom is the object of the verb “see” in this sentence. If you pull this little sentence apart and put it back together the way most sentences are constructed it is easier to follow why you use “Whom” instead of “Who”. You did see whom?
“You”=Subject, the person place or thing that is “doing”.
“did see”= the verb which shows the action, in this case it is past tense - it already happened.
“whom”= object (directs the answer to what “you” “saw”).

As to constructing the sentence like EvilPez just did:

"I am a wizard," Neville said tentatively, "but not a very good one."

If you take that sentence apart and put it together the most simple way possible, it would read:
"I am a wizard, but not a very good one," Neville said tentatively.

So, yes, that is the correct way; commas indicating the sentence itself continues rather than makes its entire statement. Your style makes it more interesting, breaking it in the middle and inserting the speaker and descriptive portion.

It could also work as:
"I am a wizard," Neville said tentatively. "But not a very good one."
The second half would have one of those pesky "implied" subjects "But, (I am) not a very good one."

[agrippa]

"I am a wizard," Neville said tentatively, "but not a very good one."

That's correct. The problem with the other:

"I am a wizard," Neville said tentatively.  "But not a very good one."

is that "But not a very good one" is a sentence fragment (big no-no!) because it doesn't have a subject. MsCat is right is saying that it's "implied" - which is a fancy way of saying "we all know what he means" - but it's still technically incorrect.

Almost all punctuation goes inside the quotation marks.

"What did you say?" asked Harry.
Seamus said, "I love playing the lowland pipes."

One exception is the semicolon.

This charm is called the "protean charm"; the name comes from the Greek shape-shifting sea-god, Proteus.

That help anyone?

[evlpez]

It sure does! Thank-you, oh grammar guru!

[zymurgy]

As to who/whom: It works thus:
Who = Nominative = The Subject of the sentance. He who does something.
Of whom = Genitive =The person of whom something comes.
To whom = Dative= The person to whom something is given, said, done.
Whom= Acusative= The direct object of the sentance. He to whom something is done. Ex: Who bopped whom on the head?
With whom= Ablative = The person with which, or along with which something is done.

So: Who bopped the head of whom?
Who gave the thinggummy to whom?
Who killed whom?
Whith whom did he leave?

Is that clear?

[agrippa]

Although Latin has five (OK, really seven, but five main) cases, Zym, English really only has three: subject, possessive, and object. (The object case in English encompasses the Latin dative, accusative, and ablative, because English uses word order or prepositions to differentiate the uses.)

Here's a repeat of an earlier post:

II. Pronouns have case. The subject case is used when the pronoun is the subject. The possessive case is used to show ownership. The object case is used for direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of prepositions. (The equivalent functions of the Latin dative, accusative, and ablative.)

Subject - Possessive - Object
I - my, mine - me
you - yours - you
he - his - him
she - hers - her
it - its - it
they - theirs - them
who - whose - whom

Thus:
Whom do you seek?
Harry is the boy who lived.
Harry is the boy to whom Voldemort gave a scar.
Harry is a boy whose hair is messy.

who's mean "who is", just as it's means "it is"
Who's there? = Who is there?

[zymurgy]

Agrippa: I realize that, but in my grammar lessons, I often had to "parse" a sentance. (ie: take it apart into itty bitty peices and explain what each word is and why it's there) I assure you, I had to name all the cases there, too. For all intents and purposes, yes, we don't have all those cases, since we (thankfully) don't have to decline our nouns. However, they most certainly do exist. Especially for the exasperating word who/whom. A shorter way to remember it would be: If it uses a preposition, then it's whom.

[agrippa]

That's interesting. I've never seen an English grammar text describe English grammar that way. I, too, had to diagram and analyze sentences (to death!), but we never used those terms.

We would have said:

Harry gave Draco a black eye.

Harry: subject
gave: verb, past tense, transitive
Draco: indirect object
a: article, modifies "eye"
black: adjective, modifies "eye"
eye: direct object

In the long run, my stand is: I don't care what you call it, as long as you use it correctly :-)

[evlpez]

This is great. I LOVE having you two around!

[zymurgy]

I know, but then again, my books are antideluvian. Most of the terms used aren't used any more, like "Imperfect" instead of whatever it is they use now. Is it "continuing past" or something like that?" So I'd say:
Draco hit Harry.
Draco= Subject, Nominative.
Hit= verb. Present indicitive active third person singular.
Harry= Accusative, direct object.

[agrippa]

I think they call it "past incomplete" or "past progressive" - that's how I explain the imperfect tense in Latin class, anyway - as opposed to the perfect, which is "past complete." Too bad both English and Latin lack the Aorist tense like Greek has.

Lordy, Zym, we must be boring everyone else to death.

[evlpez]

Nah... keep it coming as long as you like! That's what the topic's for, right?

[zymurgy]

Agrippa! Thanks for bringing up the Aorist... *nightmares of the last Ancient Greek exam dance in my head* NO! I don't WANT to remember all those nasty irregular words! Not to mention the dreaded Dual! *runs around in little circles*

It may seem odd to you, but it took me ages to get used to the * as action convention on the net, because I'm used to it meaning boldface in manuscript and proofs. (My Grandfather was a printer, don't ask!)

[ronsmyman]

My biggest pet peeve is when people use the word further when they should say farther. Farther describes physical distance, whereas further is more of a mental or organizational or transitional distance, like furthermore.

Instead of saying "He walked further down the tracks as fear began to envelope him."

You should say "He walked farther down the tracks as fear began to envelope him."

I might not have explained this well enough, but it's like trying to explain the difference between good and well, I know what it is but I have the hardest time explaining it to others.