One Day in the Life of the English Language

Preface xi Navigation Tips xix Introduction The Starting Idea: You and Your Audience 1 Preview of the Following Pages 7 December 29, 2008, as History 10 Two Disclaimers 20 On Using Sentences from the Real World 23 Formal Usage-Its Rules and Value 31 "If you don't have grammar, you don't have sense" 40 1 Actants, Actions, Ongoing States: Nouns, Verbs, and the Sentences They Form Why Learn the Parts of Speech? 45 Fundamentals 49 Fine Tuning 56 Deep Focus 71 2 Words That Modify and Orient: Adjectives, Adverbs, Conjunctions, Prepositions, Articles, Interjections The Power of Small Words Well Deployed 88 Adjectives 89 Adverbs 99 Conjunctions 114 Prepositions 123 Articles 128 Interjections 133 3 Who Is He/She? Pronouns A Whole Chapter on Pronouns? 134 Fundamentals 135 Fine Tuning 150 Deep Focus 160 4 Punctuation, Part I-The Comma: Promiscuous Uses Introduction: Punctuation Substitutes for Oral Emphases, Facial Expressions, and Body Language 167 Fundamentals 169 Fine Tuning 193 Deep Focus 200 5 Punctuation, Part II-The Colon, Semicolon, and More Mysteries of Punctuation The Colon and Semicolon 207 The Apostrophe 217 The Dash 228 The Quotation Mark 232 End Punctuation and Combining Sentences 241 6 Diction: Sentences as Clockwork On the Interconnectedness of Words 254 Fundamentals 258 A Microconclusion 286 Appendix I: Fifteen Myths of Digital-Age English 293 Appendix II: Using This Book to Teach College Writing: A Microguide 301 Fifty Key Terms: A Microglossary 317 Works Cited General Sources 329 December 29, 2008, Examples 335 Index 351