Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjective- Words used to modify nouns. They tend to answer the question which, what kind of and how many.
For example:
The tall man is leading the older generals. In this case tall gives a specification of which and older is a specification of what kind of.
The tall man had an army of three hundred. Saying he has an army of three hundred is a specification of how many.

Adverb- Words that modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. They usually answer the question how, but can also answer when, where and why.
For example:
He moved gracefully. Gracefully is the adverb modifying the verb moved while answering how.
That horse is terribly vicious. Vicious modifies horse while terribly tells us how vicious thereby modifying vicious.
For the most part they come after the nouns they are modifying however they come after if the verb is a form of be, feel, taste, smell, sound, look, appear, and seem.
For example:
The dog is smelling. Smelling comes after is as is is a form of be.

Spelling rules

Today we will be covering some rules of spelling. Let us begin with "i" before "e". If one is spelling a word with both an "i" and an "e" next to each other the "i" will come first except when after the letter "c". Or when it sounds like an "a" such as the word "neighbor". I before E words are relief, chief and believe while e before i words are receive, deceive and eight.

The exceptions to this rule are: seize, either, weird, height, foreign, leisure, conscience, counterfeit, forfeit, neither, science, species and sufficient.

If the root of a word is not a complete word, then add "ible". For example vis"ible". If the root is a complete word then add "able". For example swimm"able". In the case the root had an "e" then drop the "e" and add the "able". For example desire + able = desirable.


Exceptions to this would be words like responsible, flexible and inevitable.

Italics

Today, as promised, we will cover italics. As some of you may know, italics serve essentially the same purpose as underlining your words. Before word processors were around words would be underlined in the original paper and the publisher would italicize them. The current trend is to italicize instead of underlining but you should be consistent in which you choose.

With that said let us get to the rules of when one should italicize or underline. First it is used to show the name or title of a magazine, a singular ship, plane or train, a work of art, a long poem, a film, television shows, plays of three or more acts, news papers, operas and albums.
Examples are:
Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull is a great album.
New York Times is a reliable news source.
U.S.S Enterprise is the name of an air craft carrier that is known for its numerous battles against the Japanese navy in World War 2.


Foreign words are also italicized:
Momento mori is a Latin phrase which means "remember your mortality".

A word can be italicized for importance.
My life is at stake!

Finally we italicize when referring to a specific word.
Time is often abused in plots.

Punctuation

Yep it is this time of year where we reach to something else you commonly use. The rest of the rules of punctuation! Let us begin with a parenthesis.

A parenthesis is used to emphasize something very important (as well as making my computer have to spell check me) such as date of birth-date of death (or any time for that matter) and is used to set off material that is nonessential. The difference between a comma and the parenthesis is that a comma gives less emphasis to its contents.

Jim (1900-1975) was an important and influential politician.


But what if a parenthesis is not enough emphasis for what you have to say? In that case we have dashes. Dashes place more emphasis on their contents then parenthesis and they set off appositive phrases that already have a comma. From Purdue OWL the definition of an appositive is "a word that adds explanatory or clarification to the noun preceding it."

The ship sank in the North Atlantic-no one had predicted icebergs. This is an example of the first purpose.
The people present-Tim, Reilly and Tom- marched to the shores. Is an example of the latter purpose. Here the appositive is the clarification of who is present at the march to the shores.

The next rule to be covered is quotation marks. The most obvious use of the rule is to show a direct quote of what someone said. The next most used example is to show irony in a statement. They are also used to show that whatever you are speaking about is the title of a short poem, a song, a short story, an article from a newspaper or magazine, an essay or speech, a chapter from a book, a short film or an episode of either a television show or a radio show.

"That is not right" said John. This is an example of the first rule.
Don't worry, he is doing the "right" thing. Is an example of irony.
"Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan. An example of the title rule.

In the next post, Italics and underlining will be covered.