Mangled Grammar, Anyone?

[hobgoblinn]

Greetings, friends, and apologies for the long silence. I am in week 11 of my first 12 week term, and final exams are next week. I have got through this first venture into teaching fairly unscathed. As one might imagine, the administrative nonsense trumps anything my students can do. Most of the fainthearted have already been dropped for extreme lack of attendance, and are therefore no longer my problem. Except there's this silly little instructor retention percentage to contend with and meetings with said administration to find ways of boosting student retention. Sigh.

But enough of that. I have exams to write. I discovered a great book by Douglas Cazort called Under the Grammar Hammer, and I have presented it in my Developmental and Business English classes using this handout (apologies for the link to the blog-- the handout is a pdf and I wasn't sure how to attach it to my own journal.)

At any rate, if anyone still remembers me fondly and feels inclined to butcher some English in a good cause, I am finding it harder than it looks to deliberately commit particular grammatical sins. It's even harder to commit sins obvious enough for my students to pick up which rule is being broken. If you think you have what it takes, please reply to this post.

Also, If anyone has a good web resource for generating sentences that can be stolen for exams with impunity, I'd love to hear about that, as well. I had a most uncomfortable discussion with a student about plagiarism recently, but I still caught myself contemplating stealing practice sentences later the same day. Funnily enough, the Cincinnati Enquirer often has ready made mangled sentences there for the taking.

Hope everyone is well. I'll check in again in about a week and a half. Love to all.

(ps-- things with my Beloved are still going quite well.)

Update: I've decided to try to write sentences on how hard it is to write bad sentences, and what my high school English teacher, god rest her soul,'s reaction would have been. Kind of a narrative, using the different rules. I'll put it all out, behind a friends lock when I get done....

Comments

[nemaihne.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm your woman. I randomly create grammatical chaos through carelessness. :)
Let me know what you need written.

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so do I. Creating with malice aforethought is infinitely harder.

Check out the 25 rules I'm teaching to in that link I stuck on my post, and go wild, Woman. I have a number of comma splices and run ons and fragments, but not so much in other categories.

Thanks!

[nemaihne.livejournal.com]

Place the Stephicized sentences here or send them to you?

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Heh. Here's fine. Maybe you'll inspire someone to new depths....

[nemaihne.livejournal.com]

We have went to that movie already.

One of the students get to go to the concert for free.

Witch one of the shirts do you want?

I don't know wear he went last night.

It was after dark by the time we got to they're house.

Daytona Beach where we went last spring break was a wonderful vacation.

I was going to do the dishes but I need to do my homework more.

My sister grabbed all the Snickers the M&M's and the Mars bars out of the candy dish before I could get any of them.

The old white house next to the woods was even more spooky around Halloween.

It must be seniors day at mall because we are the youngest people here.

It was a big mistake, when she decided to start going out with that guy.

The cat doesn't like it's new food.

Its going to be one of those days, isn't it?

He gave the puppy over by the window the customer.

A strong person can get themselves over that wall in a matter of minutes.

Where she thought she could make up time was on their daily commute.

There is a long two months from my vacation.

She thought the girl was talking about her.

Sheila didn't want Mary to think she was going to forget about her and her mother.

When someone wants to learn rock climbing, you should really learn how to knot a rope.

Ok, I got as far as #17 on the list. (The sentences are in order of fault but not necessarily 1 for 1.) That's about all I can do in one sitting without having my brain melt. Hope this helps.

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

Hi there! Good to see you again! And sure, I'll take a crack at mangling some sentences for you. What particular sins are you looking for? Just saw your comment above. Coming up with grammar glitches now.

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

While they were doing the experiment, the students use the scientific method.

One of my coworkers walk every day at lunch.

I like strawberry ice cream and vanilla two.

My mother brought home three kitten's yesterday.

Scarfing down my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the train finally pulled out of the station.

She took a minute to think, and wrote down her answer.