Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Grammar Drama!

OK so this was wasn't the post I intended to write, but as I sat down this morning my daughter approached me about a few things. One of which is the use of hyphens and parentheses.

Funny how I forgot we have to learn all this stuff is not instinctive until you learn it. Try explaining that to someone who wants to know the answers right away.

I had her read the passage in question and then tell her what she thought the writer wanted to say. (because they wanted to explain the words philosophers in one word thinkers) An obvious use of parentheses to me, but, I forgot she's an eleven year old and needs a dictionary and has no idea what parentheses are used for. therefore she wants to use a hyphen.

Explaining all this is a lesson in patience. Which reminds me:
-One we never stop learning.
-Two everyone has to learn something at sometime
-Three we don't always know as much as we think we do, and often have to revisit what we thought we knew in order to help someone.

So without further adieu , a big thank you to The Grammar Divas who's blog on Punctuation and Capitalization Rules for the Fiction Writer came in handy this morning. Thanks Annie and Darlene!

4 comments:

David Cranmer said...

"One we never stop learning." Amen.

Wynter said...

I occasionally have to look up a grammar rule, but it was always helping my kids with math that made me scratch my head. They weren't very old before their math homework was too challenging for me;-)

Annie said...

Thanks for the mention, Chudney. For more info on hyphenation, try this... http://www.grammardivas.com/one-minute-grammar%E2%80%A6-hyphenation-between-words/

Leah said...

Yes, we never stop learning. Funny that our kids are the ones responsible for making us realize that. Have a good day! xoxo