CAMLIN WRITESA Blog About Creative Writing |
Hello. My name is Camlin, and I am a grammar geek. I don't expect most of the internet to sympathize, but I love grammar. The ways in which we choose to structure our sentences is fascinating, and super important. I mean, it usually isn't life or death, but it serves a valid purpose: clarity. Good grammar is the difference between immediately understanding a sentence you've only read once, and having to read the same sentence several times before deciphering its meaning. Unfortunately, even I often find myself at a loss to determine the most grammatically correct form of a sentence. The rules are too inconsistent, or the sentence is so unusual that I haven't memorized the correct way to structure it. At that point, I either have to rewrite my sentence to avoid the issue, or I have to look up the rules. Take today, for instance. I had...something of an existential crisis regarding my overuse of hyphens. I was hyphenating almost every compound adjective I came across (i.e. pretty-confusing). When my friends (delightedly) informed me that I was wrong, I pulled out my handy punctuation book and took a look. Here's the first paragraph from the chapter on hyphens: Hyphenation is hardly an exact science. The rules are complex, they vary by writing style, and the often leave much room for personal preferences and judgement calls. In some cases, it's entirely up to the writer or editor to hyphenate a term. In other cases, the rules are clear and inflexible. (On a side note, I highly recommend this book as a reference to writers of all kinds. It's much easier to read than most books of its kind, and it's very thorough.)
Anyway, this introduction was hardly encouraging. Still, I took a look and parsed it down to some basics, which I will relate here. Keep in mind, I'm focusing mainly on adjectives and adverbs, a.k.a. modifiers.
I hope (but sadly doubt) this brief guide will help some of you out there. Feel free to leave me questions in the comments, and I'll be happy to answer to the best of my ability! With some exasperation, Camlin
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