The Daily News
Maren (above) and Isla (below). Cuties.
2 Well.
3 We spent most of yesterday afternoon and early eve bonding with the Twinsesses, Maren and Isla (pronounced MARE-in and EYE-luh, think of exotic islands!).
4 Maren I have held, loved, and watched as she clearly takes after me. Not in looks, mind you, but in a love of sleep. If you have hovered around her, as both Helene and I have, you will know this. She also has a crooked little smile that simply charms. Isla has spent lots of time in NICU where they monitored her for respiratory concerns and some other staff concerns. I saw her yesterday and she is pink and pretty, wonderfully lively and catching her sister in weight!
5 My feeling is they want them each to be five pounds or more. They should be getting home sometime today hopefully. We'll keep you posted. We want Josh and Caitlin to acclimate at home for a bit. The two girls almost know to eat within a half hour of each other, which makes it easier on Caitlin. But I think their fourteen-day tour is over, and soon, the real fun begins! These two little marvels remind me of characters in a comic book who will someday use each other's powers to save the universe from all evil. I'm already thinking of costumes and story lines. Stay tuned!
6 So I'm sitting home; they're coming home in the morning, watching The Middle, and cooking veggies and chicken.
7 How fun is THAT? It was still last night when I wrote item 6!
8 For those concerned with healthy eating, we never got to those stuffed baked potatoes I talked about the other day...or was it night? I filled us on snap-pea salad and other healthy goodies. We wound up having a slice of pizza (or two).
9 This stuff often moves from the past to the present in a flicker because I tend to write it at night and then return to edit in the morning.
10 I prefer writing in the morning, always have. My head feels like a bowling ball that wants to fall off my neck and roll out the front door at night.
11 It also feels like that the morning after listening to eleven Republicans. Pretty sure I found myself doing primal screams by midnight.
12 As Vonnegut once said, "I am better now. Word of honor. I am better now."
13 Only in Philly Dept. Just heard on the teevee that the Phillies gave away free Pope Francis cards last night.
14 They proceeded to get creamed by the Nationals, 12-2.
15 You might check into the background of this Pope. He isn't all peaches and cream, trust me. I'll leave it at that; having too good a day even to go there.
16 Moving On, Part One: Well!
17 It was fun bringing bits and pieces of Stephen King's On Writing to you the past few days. I particularly enjoyed his references to Strunk and White AND the Warriners' courses in grammar. It backs all my boushit.
18 Correctness rules.
19 Or should I not make that a sentence and instead title today's piece Correctness Rules? Because it DOES rule.
20 Listen: I watch people butcher the language every single day in stores, at malls, in restaurants, on teevee, and on Facebook, not a place you want to be seen using incorrectness. I'll help my brothas and sistahs out. Hold on to your baseball caps. Take a look at this sentence:
21 I seen two guys speaking incorrectly just yesterday.
22
23 I seen. Want to make me cringe? Let's fix that one right now. "I SAW two guys speaking incorrectly just yesterday."
24 When there are no helping verbs like had or have, you go with saw.
25 You might have cut school each time a teacher would teach that, but time to catch up, dude.
26 Here is how we break that down into a brief lesson: verbs come in four principal forms, or parts: the infinitive, which is the present form, or the way the verb looks with the word to in front of it: to run, to jump, to see, etc. The word to when coupled with a verb creates what we call an infinitive.
The infinitive form of a verb, then, means the verb in its present form, the way it appears in an infinitive:
The infinitive form of run is run; the infinitive form of jump is jump; the infinitive form of see is see. See?
27 The challenge is that they use REALLY boring words to name things in grammar. Boring words shut the mind down fast. All I need to do is to say the word gerund, for example, and I could put down half of New York.
28 Or participle. Snore. Teachers always seem to choose the word gerund as an example of a boring word.
29 Listen: A gerund is a simply a verb form ending in -ing used as a noun:
Skiing is fun. Moving sucks. Singing makes life merrier. I like singing. All nouns. All gerunds.
30 Listen: a participle is simply a verb form ending in -ing used as an adjective. It describes or makes a noun more specific, an adjective's only function:
A running stream. A punning teacher. A singing bird.
31 So. When the word ends in -ing it is considered to be in the present participle form, or part, whether it is used as a gerund or a participle.
32 There are two other principal parts of verbs: the past form, and the past participle form. I'll begin with the past form.
33 The past form of a verb is the verb as it would look in the past with no helping verbs, such as had or have. I refer you back to item 24, above.
Let's begin breaking down the verb see:
Infinitive form (to) Present Participle Past (no helpers)
see seeing saw
Let's being breaking down a few others:
Infinitive form (to) Present Participle Past (no helpers)
begin beginning began
break breaking broke
go going went
34 And on and on. I'll break down a bunch directly from Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, Fourth Course in just a second.
35 The fourth form a verb takes is called the Past Participle Form. This is the way the verb looks when it is in its past form, but with helping verbs such as had or have. The past participle of the word see is (had or have) seen:
EXAMPLE "I had seen two guys speaking incorrectly yesterday, but I chose not to correct them. I like my teeth."
36 So here is your cure. Study these and use them from now on! Here is the magic list of verbs and their forms:
37 You should find a few surprises on the list. The word burst, for example had both past and past participle the same: burst. There us no such word as bursted.
38 Here are a few more past participles that people screw up all the time:
I had began my homework yesterday, but I never finished.
<basketball buzzer> WRONG.
I had begun my homework yesterday, but I never finished. RIGHT!
When I saw I had broke the window, I got scared. <basketball buzzer> WRONG.
When I saw I had broken the window, I got scared.
RIGHT!
You shoulda came to the party. WRONG!
You should have come to the party.
RIGHT!
We shoulda went to the game. WRONG!
We should have gone to the game.
RIGHT!
39 The bottom line: when there are no helping verbs (had, have, was, were, could, would, etc.) use the past form of the verb.
40 When there are helping verbs (had, have, was, were, could, would, etc.) use the past participle form of the verb.
41 And please: no more "I seen this dude..."
42 I gottago.
43 Hope you enjoyed learning and will continue to use the September 2015 DN's as a resource.
44 Stay cool.
45 See you again.
46 Peace.
7 How fun is THAT? It was still last night when I wrote item 6!
8 For those concerned with healthy eating, we never got to those stuffed baked potatoes I talked about the other day...or was it night? I filled us on snap-pea salad and other healthy goodies. We wound up having a slice of pizza (or two).
9 This stuff often moves from the past to the present in a flicker because I tend to write it at night and then return to edit in the morning.
10 I prefer writing in the morning, always have. My head feels like a bowling ball that wants to fall off my neck and roll out the front door at night.
11 It also feels like that the morning after listening to eleven Republicans. Pretty sure I found myself doing primal screams by midnight.
12 As Vonnegut once said, "I am better now. Word of honor. I am better now."
13 Only in Philly Dept. Just heard on the teevee that the Phillies gave away free Pope Francis cards last night.
14 They proceeded to get creamed by the Nationals, 12-2.
15 You might check into the background of this Pope. He isn't all peaches and cream, trust me. I'll leave it at that; having too good a day even to go there.
16 Moving On, Part One: Well!
17 It was fun bringing bits and pieces of Stephen King's On Writing to you the past few days. I particularly enjoyed his references to Strunk and White AND the Warriners' courses in grammar. It backs all my boushit.
18 Correctness rules.
19 Or should I not make that a sentence and instead title today's piece Correctness Rules? Because it DOES rule.
20 Listen: I watch people butcher the language every single day in stores, at malls, in restaurants, on teevee, and on Facebook, not a place you want to be seen using incorrectness. I'll help my brothas and sistahs out. Hold on to your baseball caps. Take a look at this sentence:
21 I seen two guys speaking incorrectly just yesterday.
22
23 I seen. Want to make me cringe? Let's fix that one right now. "I SAW two guys speaking incorrectly just yesterday."
24 When there are no helping verbs like had or have, you go with saw.
25 You might have cut school each time a teacher would teach that, but time to catch up, dude.
26 Here is how we break that down into a brief lesson: verbs come in four principal forms, or parts: the infinitive, which is the present form, or the way the verb looks with the word to in front of it: to run, to jump, to see, etc. The word to when coupled with a verb creates what we call an infinitive.
The infinitive form of a verb, then, means the verb in its present form, the way it appears in an infinitive:
The infinitive form of run is run; the infinitive form of jump is jump; the infinitive form of see is see. See?
27 The challenge is that they use REALLY boring words to name things in grammar. Boring words shut the mind down fast. All I need to do is to say the word gerund, for example, and I could put down half of New York.
28 Or participle. Snore. Teachers always seem to choose the word gerund as an example of a boring word.
29 Listen: A gerund is a simply a verb form ending in -ing used as a noun:
Skiing is fun. Moving sucks. Singing makes life merrier. I like singing. All nouns. All gerunds.
30 Listen: a participle is simply a verb form ending in -ing used as an adjective. It describes or makes a noun more specific, an adjective's only function:
A running stream. A punning teacher. A singing bird.
31 So. When the word ends in -ing it is considered to be in the present participle form, or part, whether it is used as a gerund or a participle.
32 There are two other principal parts of verbs: the past form, and the past participle form. I'll begin with the past form.
33 The past form of a verb is the verb as it would look in the past with no helping verbs, such as had or have. I refer you back to item 24, above.
Let's begin breaking down the verb see:
Infinitive form (to) Present Participle Past (no helpers)
see seeing saw
Let's being breaking down a few others:
Infinitive form (to) Present Participle Past (no helpers)
begin beginning began
break breaking broke
go going went
34 And on and on. I'll break down a bunch directly from Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, Fourth Course in just a second.
35 The fourth form a verb takes is called the Past Participle Form. This is the way the verb looks when it is in its past form, but with helping verbs such as had or have. The past participle of the word see is (had or have) seen:
EXAMPLE "I had seen two guys speaking incorrectly yesterday, but I chose not to correct them. I like my teeth."
36 So here is your cure. Study these and use them from now on! Here is the magic list of verbs and their forms:
37 You should find a few surprises on the list. The word burst, for example had both past and past participle the same: burst. There us no such word as bursted.
38 Here are a few more past participles that people screw up all the time:
I had began my homework yesterday, but I never finished.
<basketball buzzer> WRONG.
I had begun my homework yesterday, but I never finished. RIGHT!
When I saw I had broke the window, I got scared. <basketball buzzer> WRONG.
When I saw I had broken the window, I got scared.
RIGHT!
You shoulda came to the party. WRONG!
You should have come to the party.
RIGHT!
We shoulda went to the game. WRONG!
We should have gone to the game.
RIGHT!
39 The bottom line: when there are no helping verbs (had, have, was, were, could, would, etc.) use the past form of the verb.
40 When there are helping verbs (had, have, was, were, could, would, etc.) use the past participle form of the verb.
41 And please: no more "I seen this dude..."
42 I gottago.
43 Hope you enjoyed learning and will continue to use the September 2015 DN's as a resource.
44 Stay cool.
45 See you again.
46 Peace.
~H~
fin.
No comments:
Post a Comment