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The Greatly Appreciated Grammar Guide

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Post by Guest Wed May 27, 2009 6:57 am

((additions will be reposted to this text and put in red or yellow, thank you))

Alright kids, listen up. We're all adults here(Some of us), so I do not think it's too much to ask us all to obey the basic rules of English grammar. So in the spirit of helping those who may not remember those grammar lessons I'm sure everyone suffered through back in grade school or even high school, I've decided to provide you with a quicky list to refer to! If I catch people abusing the English language repeatedly.

Please use proper capitalization. This means the first letter at the beginning of all sentences, proper nouns such as someone's name or the name of a town/city/etc. Also included is capitalizing "I" when refering to one's self.

Punctuation: USE IT. This means commas, semicolons, colons, exclamation marks, etc. If you're really confused, this website has a nice quicky guide: http://esl.about.com/od/englishgrammar/a/a_punctuation.htm

Tense consistency. If a thread begins in a particular tense, please do your best to keep in that tense. This includes, but is not limited to past tense, present tense and future tense. There are thirteen acceptible tenses within the English language, it shouldn't be that hard to pick one and stick with it.

Contractions. When contracting phrases such as "I will," please be sure you are punctuating it correctly as "I'll" and not as "ill" or "Ill." You'll just end up looking like an idiot and everyone will publicly mock you.

Words that sound alike - please try to use the correct word, as it makes me cringe. This includes, but is not limited to:
There/They're/Their. Proper usage of these would be: "The book is over there." "They're going to the movies together." and "This is their home." This website here: http://www.business-words.com/dictionary/ has an extensive directory of sound-a-like words as well as this website, which is very good: http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/difficulties.html. Make use of either if you're really confused.

Lie vs. Lay
Lie (to recline): She lies quietly. Last night, she lay quietly. For years, she has lain quietly.
Lay (to place): She lays it there. Yesterday, she laid it there. Many times she has laid it there.
Lay (to place) must always be followed by an object.

Lose vs. Loose
Loose is an adjective, the opposite of tight or contained. Such as: "Those ropes are too loose."
Lose is a verb that means to suffer the loss of, to miss. Such as: "I never meant to lose my heart."

Paragraphs. Yes I realize that everyone is trying to stick to the five sentences per paragraph, two paragraphs per reply minimum, but please please please, if you are changing ideas, start a new paragraph. In the end, you'll have a better reply, it will look better, be less confusing to follow and in the long run will maybe allow you to grow as a writer. It would be better to have three or more paragraphs that are coherently written than to have two garbled and smushed together paragraphs. Very few professional writers have exactly 3-5 sentences in every single paragraph. The main goal is to give a good, solid reply that others can work from. This is especially true of dialogue!

Spelling. Dear lord folks, try and check your spelling if you're unsure of how a word is spelt, especially if it's a rather common word. I'm sure everyone is capable of either checking their replies in Spell Check, although don't place all your faith in that, since it doesn't catch everything. There's also this amazing website, dictionary.com that is fantastically helpful and also has a thesarus so you can also look up other options to any word. It's a wonderful site and I whole-heartedly recommend it.

Spell out numbers. This means one, two, three and so on, rather than 1, 2, 3 when describing the number of any given numbers. Exceptions include monetary amounts and time (such as 1p, although it's also acceptable to use one o'clock). Rule of thumb for this is spell out one-ten, anything above that, you can use numerals for.

This isn't a rule, so much as a recommendation - People should just keep in mind that unclear referents are the devil. Pronouns always refer to the last noun, in proper grammer. With so many male characters it may become difficult to keep it straight just who that "he" in the paragraph is. Descriptive words are your friends when you don't want to repeat a proper name over and over again.

Dialogue suggestions:
Space out your dialogue! It gets very difficult to read and/or follow what your character is saying when it's all in one great big chunk of text. Be descriptive! Some people are very animated when they speak - Some character including Gods and maybe some demigods will move there hands when speaking.

NPCing - NPC stands for Non Playable Character or Not Personified Character. Meaning any character that has not been accepted yet. I have noticed that some people call this puppet-mastering, and other things. It is greatly appreciated that you mention you do this and when doing this it be better if you would make the text a different color, make sure that if your character and the NPC are talking that you separate the two dialogues and use that other color instead of having one big gilantanous blob of text.

A lot - This is always two words. Not alot, a lot. Proper use: A lot of people make simple mistakes. Same thing with at least, it is not atleast.

Anything that you would like to PM me about, please do so, I will add it.

This has been edited so that it fits the forum.

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Post by Guest Wed May 27, 2009 7:15 am

Yawns* you expect us to read all of that?

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Post by Thalia Grace Wed May 27, 2009 8:19 am

Its not even that much, Castor. I've made RP posts that are longer than that. Rolling Eyes
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Post by Guest Wed May 27, 2009 4:38 pm

[quote="Poseidon
Spelling. Dear lord folks, try and check your spelling if you're unsure of how a word is spelt, especially if it's a rather common word. I'm sure everyone is capable of either checking their replies in Spell Check, although don't place all your faith in that, since it doesn't catch everything. There's also this amazing website, dictionary.com that is fantastically helpful and also has a thesarus so you can also look up other options to any word. It's a wonderful site and I whole-heartedly recommend it.[/quote]

Don't you think it should be 'Dear Lord folks'? Lord being reference to the God himself and therefore should be recognized as a Proper noun?

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Post by Guest Wed May 27, 2009 7:26 pm

Ok..... I'll be going now.

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Post by Guest Wed May 27, 2009 8:46 pm

no because lord folks is meant to mean "Dear fellow folks," and something of that nature.

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Post by Guest Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:08 pm

Thank you Poseidon this summer my brain has died and i forgot how to use most of the Punctuation marks this has been a great reminder!

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Post by Guest Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:09 pm

Well, if only Poseidon was here....he'd be so touched. It has helped.

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Post by Guest Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:53 pm

Oh joyous day! I can use grammer. My brain has stopped working! AIN'T THAT WONDERFULLY WONDERFUL?

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Post by Molione Timoleon Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:09 pm

((Just as a side comment, make your signature smaller, Belle! It's very distracting, and quite frankly, huge! Please and thanks! Smile))
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Post by Guest Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:29 pm

((Oh,ok,gonna go do that now))

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Post by Guest Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:00 pm

Ooh, I like this thread. I've looked at it several times but I haven't had the time to read it...
Thanks, Poseidon!

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