Did you know that the 4th of March is the National Grammar Day? Bet you didn't! The part of the world that I live in has little concern over National Grammar Day. Having said that, the schools I've attended when I was younger; as in about a decade ago (OMG! that's young?!!) still has English Observation Day for one whole day every week. I never had too much problems with it, but I do remember my classmates and friends struggling a little - having fined 10 cents per non-English word spoken. I digress. >.<
Sometime not so long ago, I remember posting a blog entry of The Chaos, a poem by Gerard Nolst Trenite. The poem itself highlights about 800 irregularities in the English language. You can have a go at it here.
This time round, I'm going to be talking about grammar and how some sentences can sound crazy, but are grammatically and sensibly correct.
Let's start off with a line from Grucho Marx :
Take advantage of the fact that the same sentence can have more than one structure. Consider the first sentence :
[One morning] [I shot an elephant] [in my pyjamas].
[One morning] [I shot] [an elephant in my pyjamas].
Got you thinking yet?
Let's move on, shall we?
hamaigaad.. what the fish?! (as my good friend would put it). Hold on to your horses, readers - I promise you will be amazed! If you do study grammar to the letter, then you would know all about reduced relative clause. In a nutshell, this particular clause allows us to restructure our sentence from, for example, "The mobile phone that his uncle gave got broken" to "The mobile phone given by his uncle got broken".
Has the realization setlled in yet? No? Well, consider the following :
The horse [that was] raced past the barn, fell.
I added the comma before fell to help you out. Get it now?
Let's move on. I promise I have a lot more baffling sentences that are still grammatically and sensibly correct!
Let's try this one out.
This one is simple. >.< . I'll give you a hint : Try to identify the nouns, verbs and adjectives.
"Complex" is so commonly used as an adjective - a complex problem, a complex arrangement etc. However, consider it as a noun - a housing complex, an apartment complex etc.
"Houses" is also commonly used as a noun, but in this sentence, it played the role of a verb.
As for "married', it usually is a past tense of the verb "marry", but let's change it's role here to an adjective and voila!
[The complex] [houses] [married and single soldiers and their families].
Feel free for laughing your butt off for reading that as
[The complex houses] [married] [and .... well you didn't even finish the whole sentence, did you?
March 4th!!
Hehe! Let it be known that by now, I am smirking at your misery and pain! (yeah I'm sadist that way).
This is a good example of multiple center embedding in English language - meaning putting a clause in another clause. In this case, look at the 'malt'. What happened to it? The 'malt' was 'eaten'. By what? Can you continue from there?
If you can figure out the sentence above, take a piece of paper (or copy and paste this next sentence into a word processor and try to make a sense out of it.
If you've made it this far (with maybe one or two extra wrinkles), CONGRATULATIONS!!! Here's a riddle to just relax yourself. Just remember, sometimes, it's ok to take things literally.
Sometime not so long ago, I remember posting a blog entry of The Chaos, a poem by Gerard Nolst Trenite. The poem itself highlights about 800 irregularities in the English language. You can have a go at it here.
This time round, I'm going to be talking about grammar and how some sentences can sound crazy, but are grammatically and sensibly correct.
Let's start off with a line from Grucho Marx :
One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I'll never know.Those with a perverted mind (like me) gets it the first time. For those of you who are innocent, let's corrupt you! Muahahaa!!!
Take advantage of the fact that the same sentence can have more than one structure. Consider the first sentence :
[One morning] [I shot an elephant] [in my pyjamas].
[One morning] [I shot] [an elephant in my pyjamas].
Got you thinking yet?
Let's move on, shall we?
The horse raced past the barn fell.
hamaigaad.. what the fish?! (as my good friend would put it). Hold on to your horses, readers - I promise you will be amazed! If you do study grammar to the letter, then you would know all about reduced relative clause. In a nutshell, this particular clause allows us to restructure our sentence from, for example, "The mobile phone that his uncle gave got broken" to "The mobile phone given by his uncle got broken".
Has the realization setlled in yet? No? Well, consider the following :
The horse [that was] raced past the barn, fell.
I added the comma before fell to help you out. Get it now?
Let's move on. I promise I have a lot more baffling sentences that are still grammatically and sensibly correct!
Let's try this one out.
The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
This one is simple. >.< . I'll give you a hint : Try to identify the nouns, verbs and adjectives.
---------Hey, no peeking! Give it a go first!----------
---------Can you make sense of the sentence on your own?----------
"Complex" is so commonly used as an adjective - a complex problem, a complex arrangement etc. However, consider it as a noun - a housing complex, an apartment complex etc.
"Houses" is also commonly used as a noun, but in this sentence, it played the role of a verb.
As for "married', it usually is a past tense of the verb "marry", but let's change it's role here to an adjective and voila!
[The complex] [houses] [married and single soldiers and their families].
Feel free for laughing your butt off for reading that as
[The complex houses] [married] [and .... well you didn't even finish the whole sentence, did you?
March 4th!!
The rat the cat the dog chased ate the malt.
Hehe! Let it be known that by now, I am smirking at your misery and pain! (yeah I'm sadist that way).
This is a good example of multiple center embedding in English language - meaning putting a clause in another clause. In this case, look at the 'malt'. What happened to it? The 'malt' was 'eaten'. By what? Can you continue from there?
If you can figure out the sentence above, take a piece of paper (or copy and paste this next sentence into a word processor and try to make a sense out of it.
Anyone who feels that if so many more students whom we haven’t actually admitted are sitting in on the course than ones we have that the room had to be changed, then probably auditors will have to be excluded, is likely to agree that the curriculum needs revision.
If you've made it this far (with maybe one or two extra wrinkles), CONGRATULATIONS!!! Here's a riddle to just relax yourself. Just remember, sometimes, it's ok to take things literally.
What is a word made up of 4 letters yet is also one made out of 3. Although is written with 8 letters, and then with 4. Rarely consists of 6, and never written with 5.
<<< Good luck! >>>
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