The Crux of the Biscuit: the Apostrophe

For those of you who like music, have a listen to Frank Zappa's song "Apostrophe" from the album Apostrophe.



Sweet, huh? So...you've probably already figured out where this is heading.... That's right, this is the long-promised "Apostrophe Post." So fasten your seatbelts. Here we go.

Apostrophes are really simple: they take the place of missing things. In fact, just like there's a type of poem called a "sonnet," and a kind called an "ode," there's also a kind of poem called an "apostrophe," which is a poem addressed to an absent person or thing or an abstract idea. For example, "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" is an apostrophe from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. You get the idea, right?

Okay, so what does this have to do with punctuation? Well, we use apostrophes for two basic functions in English: to signal that some other letter is missing or to signal possession. And really, because of the way possession evolved in English grammar, these two functions are more similar than you think; check out the wikipedia page on apostrophes if you want more details.

Anyway, we all know the rules for signaling missing letters: "do not" becomes "don't" when the longer phrase is contracted into a shorter one (that's why it's called a contraction: it's been contracted). Some other contractions are "can't" ("cannot"), "isn't" ("is not"), "should've" ("should have"), "it's" ("it is" or "it has") and "couldn't've" ("could not have"). Any questions? No? I thought not.

So the thing about apostrophes that gives people absolute fits isn't the contractions part; it's the possession part.

Here's 95% of what you'll ever need to know about possession:

1. If a word is singular, you make it possessive by adding an 's. And here's the surprise: it doesn't matter if the word ends in the letter S or not! That's right, you make "boy" and "Chris" possessive the same way: you add an 's to the end of them. So, boy becomes boy's and Chris becomes Chris's. "The diamond mines of Arkansas" become "Arkansas's diamond mine.

Repeat after me: if the word is singular, it gets an 's. Period. (People get confused because of journalists...read the wikipedia page or ask me in class and I'll explain.)

2. If a word is plural and doesn't end in S, you add an 's. So, this is simple: "the baseballs of the children" becomes "the children's baseballs." Not crazy, right? "The women's meeting." Makes sense.

3. If a word is plural and does end in S, you just add an '. Okay, this isn't really all that hard: "the baseballs of the three boys" would become "the boys' baseballs." Not difficult, not new. You've added the S separately for a totally different reason (to make the word plural); you've just added the apostrophe to signal possession.

Sometimes these rules can seem tricky. Take my last name for example. If you want to say "the dog of Raina Lyons" you will most likely want to use an apostrophe to signal possession. Since my name ends in S, and I'm not plural, you'll want to say this: "Raina Lyons's dog." Rule #1, right?

Okay so if you are talking about the house of my in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Lyons and all their kid and grandkids, you will first have to make Lyons plural, because we are talking about multiple members of the family. So, now we have this: "the house of the Lyonses" And then, if you want to use an apostrophe to make that phrase possessive, thereby avoiding that awkward and old-fashioned "of," you'll simply need to add an apostrophe to the end of "Lyonses" (Rule #3). Make sense? You'll end up with this: "the Lyonses' house." Brilliant, huh?

And that's basically it. Really. So why do people get so tripped up? One simple thing: somewhere along the way, they've been mislead into thinking you need to use apostrophes to make words plural. In fact, you almost NEVER need to use an apostrophe to make a word plural.

Wait...let me be very clear about this: I want you to repeat after me: "NEVER USE AN APOSTROPHE TO MAKE A WORD PLURAL." Now, I know a sentence ago I said "almost never" and now I'm saying never, but that's because even though some people argue for exceptions, most of grammar authorities do not back these exceptions. So really, most of the time, you are not going to run into any exception to this rule. If you are just ACHING to know these controversial exceptions (including usage with numbers), you can check out your grammar handbook or just go back to the old Wikipedia apostrophe page from earlier. But I'm telling you, it's perfectly safe and legitimate to ignore them....

So that's about all I have to say about apostrophes for now. But wait...you may be asking yourself, "What the heck is up with that title? 'The Crux of the Biscuit,' for crying out loud? What's that all about?" Well, for that answer, you'll need to listen to another Frank Zappa song...pay attention to the lyrics; they won't make sense, but they DO mention apostrophes....

Clauses: A Hunka Hunka Burning Love

Ah, Valentine's Day. A holiday about relationships. About independence. And that makes me think of clauses....

My last post set out the difference between clauses and phrases. Now we are going to narrow our focus somewhat and only look at clauses. In fact, we are going to try to separate all the clauses there are into just two categories. You may ask, "So why is there a picture of Elvis?" Don't worry, I'll explain.

There are a bunch of different ways to categorize anything, and clauses are no different. However, for our purposes all you really need to know is that there are two kinds of clauses in this class: independent and dependent (aka subordinate).

Both independent and dependent clauses are clauses (duh), so they must, by definition, contain both a subject and a verb. "Independent clause" is actually just a fancy name for a simple sentence, in fact, and as you remember from the school house ballad of Mr. Morton, simple sentences contain both a subject and a verb.

However, Mr. Morton's song doesn't point out the following fact: not everything that has a subject and a verb is a sentence. In order for a group of words to be a sentence, it must also be able to stand alone.

If this were an equation, it might look like this:

Subject + verb= clause

and then

Subject + verb + a complete thought = simple sentence = independent clause

Here's an example: "Elvis was processed into the Army at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas." Here's another: "Fort Chaffee is just outside Fort Smith." Simple, huh?

So, now that you know that independent clauses CAN stand alone, you've probably already figured out the following: A group of words with a subject and a verb that CANNOT stand alone (in other words, a groups of words that doesn't express a complete thought) is a dependent (or subordinate) clause.

Here are a couple of examples: "Because Elvis had to get a buzz cut." And: "Even though Elvis's buzz cut made his female fans cry." See how they can't stand alone. It's like waiting for the other shoe to...well, you know...drop.

The nuts and bolts of it are not complicated: something has been added to our basic simple sentence, and the addition of this one thing is what makes the dependent clause incapable of standing on its own. That addition?
A subordinating conjunction. It's like having a cast added to your leg: suddenly, you can't stand on your own. You need crutches. Same sort of thing.

Think of it this way: dependent clauses can't function on their own... just like a subordinate in the army relies upon the commands of his or her superiors. And this gets us back around to why this post contains a photo of one of the most famous US Army privates in history, Elvis Presley. He might have been the King, but he was still a subordinate in the army, and just like any private, when he was told to do something, like shave his hair, he followed orders. Privates depend upon commanders, and dependent clauses depend upon independent clauses.

And so this really has all been about relationships: dependent clauses need to be connected to independent clauses. Ahhhhh....

Superbowl Weekend! Clauses vs. Phrases! And the crowd...goes...wild!

Okay, so you might not go "wild" at the thought of comparing CLAUSES and PHRASES, but hopefully you will be sort of interested in them. One good reason to be interested in clauses and phrases is that they are two very basic types of groups of words, and understanding the differences between these two groups of words will give us a good foundation for going on to discuss all kinds of grammar errors writers make every day.

So, here we go:

Phrases are groups of words that lack a subject and a verb. There are all kinds of them; one of the most common is the "prepositional phrase," which functions as either an adjective "the dog in the laundry room" or as an adverb "knocked over the can of paint before turning over the trash can."

You can see from these phrases that even though phrases sometimes contain words that look like verbs (verbals), upon closer inspection the phrase itself has no verb. Likewise, the phrase has no subject. Here's a link to a great website that explains what phrases are and how they work.

As you can see if you keep reading that website, clauses are groups of words that do contain a subject and a verb. In fact, in order for a group of words to be a clause, it must contain both a subject and a verb. Here's a link to a little song that should explain everything you'll ever need to know about subjects and verbs. (I love school house rock. It makes me feel like everything is right with the world.)

Here's a clause: "Mr. and Mrs. Morton moved in together." And another: "Because they got married." See? Each of those clauses has both a subject and a verb. Simple.

Here's a clause: "After the wedding." And another: "To share a love of gardening." And another: "Traveling by public transit." No subjects, no verbs. So, not clauses.

Well, that's enough for today. If you have trouble differentiating between phrases and clauses, you can look in your St. Martin's Handbook. Good luck!

The Quality Writing Center

The first thing I should reveal to you about improving your grammar at the University of Arkansas is this: there's no better place to get help than at the Quality Writing Center (the QWC, in short).

Go ahead: go to their website and look around. You'll find a lot of useful resources that you probably didn't even know existed. For example, did you know that the tutors at the QWC offers online tutoring? Free grammar handouts that you can download as .pdfs? They even have a blog. So, even if you can't make it in for a face-to-face tutorial, the Quality Writing Center still has lots of ways to assist you.

QWC Director Bob Haslam and his team are committed to helping U of A students grow as writers; I encourage you to let them!

Introductions and Confessions

Now that I'm asking you all to create your own blogs on Blogger, I guess it's time for a confession: this is the first time I've ever blogged ever. So, in case you are feeling intimidated, don't.

We are going to explore blogging together, and we almost certainly are going to learn a lot in the process. I don't expect your blogs (or mine) to be perfect, but I do expect them to improve over the course of the semester. We will read the blogs of the people in the class; then we will wade out into the internet, locate blogs we like and figure out what we like about them; and we'll read some tips and pointers from experts about how to compose a really awesome blog and write really incredible blogposts.

My goal with this assignment is to help you learn a new kind of writing (blogging) that you can take with you and use in your life beyond college. You'll learn more about this in your assignment description, but for now just know that I'm hoping this assignment will be fun and a welcome change from writing papers.

I'd like for all of you to start thinking about what topic or theme you want to focus on in your blog. This topic will be the backbone of your message. Maybe you could start by thinking about your hobbies. Are you into fishing? Knitting? Cooking? Hiking? These are all great topics. Alternatively, you could consider issues you are concerned about, like the environment, the economy, or social activism. Another way to approach choosing a topic might be to look at your life and identify anything really important to you that you want to write about: perhaps you are a new parent or you are taking care of an elderly relative, or maybe you just started a new job---or lost an old job---and your life has changed dramatically as a result. Blogs can be written about anything.

I've chosen to write about grammar for my blog, not because I'm TOTALLY into grammar or anything, but because this is an English class, after all, and I figured weekly blog posts might be an (almost) painless way to review a few basic concepts.

The tone you choose for your blog is equally important. Blogs can be funny or serious, casual or professional. You'll want to think about the tone and style you are going to try to achieve before you start blogging. (We'll see if I can succeed in making grammar hilarious: I aim to try.)

You'll also want to consider your audience; to a great extent, your other decisions will depend upon your choice of audience. Who is your target audience? How can you best reach them? For example, you are my target audience...although I expect to pick up lots of interested followers from around the world. Hey, I can dream....

As I said at the beginning, don't worry! We'll work our way through this stuff as we work our way through the semester, and I'm sure you'll all have a lot of fun.