Thursday, October 2, 2008

Fun with punctuation (yes, that's possible)

I was reading the National Education Association web site yesterday (partially for ideas, partially just for fun), and I came across these great sentence-punctuating activities for students (or all of us). I'm still laughing.

Punctuate the following:
1. a clever dog knows its master
2. i saw a man eating lobster
3. the butler stood in the doorway and called the guests names
4. [a want ad] WANTED: piano to replace daughters lost in fire
5. [a newspaper headline] father to be stabbed to death in street
6. [a book dedication] to my parents the pope and mother teresa

Answers:
1. A clever dog knows its master. NOT: A clever dog knows it's master. (Read: Barley)
2. I saw a man eating lobster. NOT: I saw a man-eating lobster.
3. The butler stood in the doorway and called the guests' names. NOT: The butler stood in the doorway and called the guests names.
4. WANTED: piano to replace daughter's lost in fire. NOT: WANTED: piano to replace daughters lost in fire.
5. Father-to-be stabbed to death in street. NOT: Father to be stabbed to death in street.
6. To my parents, the Pope, and Mother Teresa. NOT: To my parents, the Pope and Mother Teresa.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention my personal favorite, which the NEA seems to have overlooked:

Punctuate:
a woman without her man is nothing

Answer:
A woman: without her, man is nothing. NOT: A woman, without her man, is nothing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, Rach, don't be so quick to assume context! There's no reason why the butler couldn't have actually been mocking the guests or why the father couldn't have incurred the wrath of some knife-wielding person with enough time in advance for the knife-wielder to put out a press release. ;-)

Anonymous said...

OH! My favorite playthings.
Would you do some misplaced modifiers sometime? (Big smile here) And, yes, the first punctuation of the "woman" sentence is correct!

Rebecca said...

Freaking awesome. I love those.