The possessive adjective in English must be the most difficult grammar to master.

When is it a plain old adjective such as a car door? Or is that really a compound noun? When is it possessive as in a hair’s breadth? Is it a woman’s leg, or a woman leg? Or is it a chair’s leg, or a chair leg? There are many examples of this confusing English grammar point.

You would say the tree’s leaves, a butcher’s hook, a horse’s tail. Or you could say a bottle top, a door handle, a computer screen, day break, mountain top.

There is an obtuse grammatical explanation about ownership and being part of an object, but I won’t go there as the exception list is so long. I think in this case the exceptions really are the rule. The point about possessive adjectives is that they are impossible to learn by any process other than natural acquisition by repetitive collocation. By this, I mean that by hearing and using a phase correctly enough times, it becomes automatic, and thus the error is corrected. For learners of English, this can be very frustrating.

I have often heard it said that English is a relatively easy language to learn. In many ways, I agree with this. However, I would have to say that it is as difficult as any language to master. While having no grammatical gender or accordance of singular and plural adjectives, it does, however, have a grammatical and lexical complexity stemming from its multiple roots in German, French, Latin and Old English but to name a few. An example of this is the word blonde, or blond. I stand to be corrected, but I believe this to be the only English adjective that changes with the gender of the noun. A relic of French grammar.

The challenges of English grammar are a daily dilemma for experienced writers of English. Spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, collocation and tense all offer a wonderfully diverse set of rules, uses, exception, variants and accepted new forms. When did you last see the word whom, and who remembers how to use it correctly? When did it become accepted to finish a sentence with a preposition? I am pleased though that splitting the infinitive is still not acceptable.

English has the largest vocabulary of any living language and grows at a rate of approximately five thousand words every year. It is now well over one million words. It is one of the richest, most commonly used and evolving languages in the world. This, however, makes the task of using it correctly a challenge for all of us who work with our incredible language.

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How long can one sentence be?

For some odd reason, I started searching for the longest sentence ever written in English and was amazed to find that in fact, a sentence of 469,375.2 words was actually written by Nigel Tomm in a book titled The Blah Story that had twenty-three different covers, which must surely be a record for covers and words, although I’m absolutely perplexed as to what would constitute a word that would only count as point two of a word as a word is a word and any reduction would have to be classed as a suffix or abbreviation or perhaps an acronym but one could surmise that his over-use of the word blah may have been at fault as he may have included and unfinished blah, which could explain the mystery of the word that constituted being classified as an incomplete word measuring only twenty percent in length, but then when doing the mathematics required here, the word blah only has four letters so it would be impossible to write only twenty percent of a four-letter word as the only possible division is by four so the word blah, or its contraction or incomplete state cannot be the reason for this odd word anomaly, so I can only assume that somewhere, deeply hidden in 469,375 or is it 469, 376 words there was an incomplete word that escaped an editor’s notice though it would be very difficult to blame an editor for failing to notice such a small error or omission in a sentence of such immense length and obvious complexity although this is really what an editor is paid to do, so the mystery of the twenty percent word may rest for some time unless there is someone out there who has a better knowledge of this subject than me and may be able to shed some light upon Mr Tomm’s mysterious one fifth of a word, but until then I think I’ll just ignore the point two of a word and concentrate on sentence length that was my original aim of this post and started my search that led me here after discounting the mere 12,932 words that James Joyce managed to string together in Ulysses, which clearly pales into insignificance when compared to Nigel Tomm’s exploits in making a sentence into a complete book and with it, inspiring me to achieve the same feat; albeit in a simple blog post.

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Have fun with your words

Writing always seems to be such a serious business. Novels, articles, technical documents, journalism plus one hundred other serious applications of this worthiest of arts.

Being a pedantic member of the grammar police and spelling firing squad, I also take my métier very seriously. Paying strict attention to my use of each part of speech in its correct form and ensuring I keep my register under strict control.

Well, except for today because today I feel like having complete and utter nonsensical fun with words.

Ready? Well, ready or not, here we go!

Maxwell Miser mixed metaphors most Monday mornings – mainly mundane – mostly mashed.

Annie Appleseed alliterated all autumn and added anxious appendages – almost accurately  – always anonymously.

Vera Villawood viciously vexed via verbs vowed vehemently – various verses – very vulgar.

Granny Greystoke’s grunted grumblings got Graham’s grammar going – great gregarity –  gobbledygook gone.

Dotty Doubletake delved deep disturbing daunted Dick’s deplorable diphthongs – deft diction – discourse done.

Abbie Butler came down early Friday getting horribly irritated, joining Karen Lopez, mainly now openly placing quiet rumours saying Thomas used very weird XHTML, you zaftig! – Alphabet Soup!

Ok, are you ready? Your turn now!

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How do you use dialogue tags?

Dialogue tags must be the most written about and discussed structure in a writer’s grammatical toolbox. One that I haven’t mentioned before as I didn’t want to join the long and probably never ending debate.

However, after getting close to finishing reading the third Harry Potter book, (yes I know I’m a bit late in doing so) I just can’t keep my opinion quiet any longer. I am also readying myself for brutal Vandal reader disagreement here, but I just don’t like dialogue tags with the verb before the subject, which J.K. uses almost without fail. Except when she can’t.

‘Let’s go,’ said Harry. Now grammatically and stylistically correct. But as an old English teacher, it grates on me. ‘Let’s go,’ Harry said. Now that makes me feel much better.

In my mind, a verb before a subject is used to form a question.

‘Said who?’ Harry asked, or asked Harry.
‘She did,’ said she.

Oh dear, this one can’t be inverted. Said she is a no no. So why is said Harry correct, but it becomes incorrect with a pronoun. Well, because it’s just like that, that’s why. Maybe it’s just me, but I like reading books that use subject – verb tags. Easier on the eye or something. ‘All right, enough said. Said enough,’ I said.

Except for adverbs!

Now I know they are considered a definite no-no in dialogue tags, but from time to time I like them. (Sorry Stephen King. I know what you’d say.) I know that ‘she said smilingly’ would get any editor’s red pen in a microsecond and rightly so but just from time to time I like them. If only to break up the ‘he said, she said’ pattern.

‘I have you now my little princess,’ he said wickedly. Then drove the dagger through her heart.

‘I like that!’ I said proudly.

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People got all K-notted up and tongue tied when they tried to say what they K-new about K-nives and K-nitting. The K-now-it-alls of the time tried to keep the K, but even the K-nights were dropping their K’s so it was the death K-nell of the pronounced K.

Many of the K-naves had dropped it well before, as they K-nuckled down to K-neeling for the kings and queens as they just got their tongues in K-nots.

Even scholars who were thirsty for K-nowledge starting dropping their Ks as did the bakers when they K-neaded their bread. All the Ks were taken off door K-nobs at around the same time. However, nobody really K-nows why. Maybe they were tired of K-nocking on the door with their K-nuckles. Who K-nows?

Over time every little K-noll had its K removed. Even today, we have turned up our noses at K-napsacks because we couldn’t get the K-nack of using the word.

So now we K-now that the redundant K disappeared with the K-nights in shining armour. Never to be heard of again.

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What Is Register?

We can all recognise formal and informal texts, but you may not know that it has a name. It is called ‘Register’. The scales of register are generally classified as Formal, Neutral, Informal and Vulgar. In this sense, vulgar refers to childish or common utterances and not rude jokes. So, what is register and how can it be defined?

Here are two example letters. It’s very easy to tell formal from informal, but what are the language forms that make the difference? I will give you a few clues. Grammar, Vocabulary, and Punctuation are the three areas of difference. Use the table on the right to try and find the lexical areas of difference.

Letter (Formal)

Thank you for your letter received 14 September 2002. A copy has been sent to company headquarters in addition to a memorandum concerning your financial situation. A meeting has been scheduled for 3 October 2002 at 11 am to discuss your request for a further bank loan. Therefore please inform us of your availability for this meeting at the earliest opportunity.

However, a number of issues concerning your income and expenditure may be queried prior to a loan being granted. Furthermore the General Manager needs to be contacted in order to authorise bank loans of this nature. Moreover, your previous failure to meet payment arrangements will first have to be considered.

Nevertheless, in the interim you are required to complete the enclosed business plan, which should be brought to the meeting.

Letter (Informal)

Thanks for your letter. I got it 14 Sept. I’ve sent a copy to comp. H.Q. along with a memo re. your financial situation. I’ve set a meeting for 3 Oct at 11am to talk about another bank loan. So, please let us know if you can make it a.s.a.p.

But, we might ask you a few things to do with your inc. and exp. before giving you a loan. Also, I need to get in touch with the G.M. to okay it. Plus, we’ll first have to think about the last time you didn’t keep up with your payments.

Anyway, in the meantime, you need to fill in this business plan. Bring it to the meeting with you.

Good luck! If you get desperate, you can find the answer in the links below.

If you are a teacher and would like to download the complete lesson on Register in English, you can find it here on my ESL website.

If you want more information, I have added an updated and extended article on register in English on my publishing advice blog.

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