Friday, February 15, 2013

PREVIOUS GRAMMAR QUESTION

Much stores and shopping centres prepare for chinese new year and Valentines day, there is a special display, traditionally Chinese food, and decoration, although chocolate and flowers for Valentines day,  greetings cards, and cloths with hearts and roses are common.
1.   Capitalization—proper nouns need a capital letter: Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day.
2.   Count noun—“stores” is a count noun; it needs to be qualifies by “many” not “much”.
3.   Verb tense—use the present progressive for something that is in progress: are preparing.
4.   Noun form—with the use of the plural “stores and shopping centres”, related items should also be plural: displays, foods, decorations, chocolates.
5.  Verb agreement—in the second clause, a number of different things are the subject of the expletive “there is”; for that reason, it should be “there are”.
6.  Punctuation—use a semicolon between independent clauses (…day; there…). Separate the ideas  relating to  Chinese New Year from those relating to Valentine’s Day. These could be separate sentences, or separate them with a semicolon.
7.  Word form—use an adjective before a noun, so change “traditionally” an adverb, to the adjective ‘traditional”; “greetings” is also used as an adjective; therefore, it cannot take the plural “s”. This idea of “traditional” should be repeated for Valentine’s Day.
8.  Word confusion—many of you confused the words “cloths” and “clothes”; they are related, but they mean something quite different.
Possible Answer: Many stores and shopping centres prepare for Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day; there are special displays, traditional Chinese foods, and decorations. Although chocolate and flowers for Valentine’s Day are traditional, greeting cards and clothes with hearts and roses are common.

GRAMMAR QUESTION, Feb. 15th, 2013

Please correct the errors in the following sentence.

As the matter of fact, she was a person who hard being convinced for instant, she certainly would likes to thinks that his opinion are the corrected then any one else view.
There are lots of possible answers--lots of opportunities to earn bonus points!

PUZZLE, Feb. 15th, 2013

Previous Puzzle:  Congratulations to Sarah, Brittany and Glenn for good, but different, answers.
Use real names to find the common word that is the name of their son or daughter—there were more than one correct answer to some of these:
Example: Mr and Mrs Voyant - Clare (as in Clairvoyant)
1. Mr and Mrs Tress--Mattress
2. Mr and Mrs Nasium—Gymnasium (Jim)
3. Mr and Mrs Tate—Dictate (Dick)
4. Mr and Mrs Anthemum—Chrysanthemum (Chris)
5. Mr and Mrs Mander—Salamander (Sally)
6. Mr and Mrs Mite—Dynamite (Dinah)
7. Mr and Mrs Time—Just in time (Justin)
New Puzzle: Add one letter at a time to make a new word: example a to adios (a/as/sad/dais/adios)
  1. a … treat
  2. a … flames
  3. u … undress
There may be more than one correct answer, so more than one bonus point to be awarded. All words used must be in the dictionary not a proper noun.

ALL CHANGE! Feb. 15th, 2013

Change the words in the sentence below as indicated. You can only change the exact word in the sequence given; after someone else has posted the next change, then you can post another change. For instance, student 1 writes #1 Subject Noun, and changes the subject noun; Student 2 writes #2 Direct Object Noun, and changes that noun. Each student only makes one change at a time and keeps to the order indicated.If you complete all 7 changes, then start making more changes again from 1 to 7. Each student should build on the changes that the previous students make.

The weather channel unhappily forecast heavy snow in Europe last month.

Changes: #1 Subject noun      #2  Direct object noun         #3 Indirect object noun          
#4 Adjective               #5 Adverb          #6 Verb name                  #7 Verb tense

Please number the change you make and make only one change at a time.

COMPLETE THE SENTENCE, Feb. 15th, 2013

Use the type of clause, phrase, or grammar indicated to complete the following sentence; you can add the phrase or clause before or after the clause below:

... I wish you a happy birthday... 

Sentence 1. Add a phrase
Sentence 2. Add a dependent clause
Sentence 3. Add an independent clause

VOCABULARY, Feb. 15th, 2013

Vocabulary building is important for both reading comprehension and writing. Use the following two words (note the part of speech) in one sentence.


exacerbate         (verb)     +           miscreant      (noun)

ACTIVE & PASSIVE, Feb. 15th, 2013



Use the verb with the base ring in two different sentences. Sentence 1 should be in the active voice; sentence 2 should reword the sentence to the passive voice.

SENTENCE COMBINATION, Feb. 15th, 2013



Learning to combine ideas into more complex sentences is an important skill in writing. There are many ways to do this--many possible bonus points! Try to combine the following three sentences.


1. Many people celebrated Pancake Day by cooking pancakes at home .
2. Other people went to restaurants some of which offered “all you can eat” pancakes that day.
3. Pancake Day is more properly known as Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent, which is when Christians start the Lenten fast.