Wednesday, November 30, 2011

My First Mistake - Grammar

My first mistake was opening up the grammar book.  Now I know how bad I am.  Here are the differences between using parentheses, commas and dashes to isolate words in a sentence.
You use parentheses to relay information but tone it down.  It's the grammatical equivalent of mumbling.  I won the (35th place) ribbon for my turnip pie recipe!
The comma is neutral.  You don't care one way or another what the reader thinks.  I was dancing, in my purple pumps, to the polka stylings of Jimmy Sturr.
And the dash is your attempt to make words stand up and yell Read Me!  That brown dog - you know the one - jumped over a fox again.
Isn't this fun?  Learning is hilarious.  Check out:
Painless grammar / Rebecca Elliott

1 comment:

cboy said...

Excellent commentary of correct grammatical usage of parentheses, commas and the dash!