Today We Learn English! Lesson 2: The Punctuation

This article is part of the Today We Learn English! series.

Ouch! 'Mangry! You are stupid! These illustrate the family of utterances best served by The Thriller, the bawdy, muscled uncle of the punctuations. A Thriller puts a final embellishing mote of ostentation upona sentence that is one (or all) of the following things four:

• Loud
• Important
• Angry
• Loud & Angry
  

All of us, once or anothertime, will feel the need to write such a remark. Maybe we are declaring a discovery in the sciences, transmitting a yell over paper, or scolding a misbehaving dog via formal letter. Whenever may be, The Thriller is here to serve this need. There is no right or wrong time to use a Thriller, but there is a wrong time; be sure not to use a thriller to express a timid statement said with high loudness, or an angry statement said in quiet. For these, use a Hen's Eye, a Half-Thriller, or no Thriller at all.

Exercise: You decide whether to use The Thriller or not.

a) Let go of me, you awful man
b) I am satisfied with your behavior, dog, and there is no need of further yelling
c) Just then, Arthur discovered something in science

Turn your head wrongwise below and see the answers:

Remember to turn your head over before proceedence!

Without The Puzzler, each thing we say is a simple declarative, meaning we may teach but never learn. With The Puzzler, the primary unit of inquiry within the English syntax, now we can know. By way of an example, ruminate upon a circumstance within which you want to know a thing, but you fear that the thing is not known to you and no amount of personal reflection or expensive hypnosis will draw it out.

In one situation such as this, you will conclude that an inquiry is needed. And why not make one by putting The Puzzler at the end of a quizzicism? As you can see, the sentence before this one itself containd a Puzzler, which flawlessly illustrated its use. Move you now to the exercise, because The Puzzler is so simple that even the most babyheaded of slackwits would know how to use it as of now!

Exercise: Insert The Puzzler where appropriate.

a) I need to know where Dorroile went
b) Please tell me, and I ask due to ever-increasing urgency, where I might exercise my bowls
c) He wondered where his clam went

Has my author confused you? Read below, although you may need to adjust your bearing, to find out the truth.

When constructing a sentence, you will oft face a clause too timid and delicate to be exposed to the crueler elements of the language that enfolds it. Here, the author of conscience will swaddle the meeker clause in A Mother's Arms to protect it from the bullying. Observe an example:

Let us imagine that we yearn to introduce the premise of Mary's soft lady-bosom into a sentence otherwise concerned with the terror of wild dogs. Without A Mother's Arms, our sentence would look thus:

Mary's soft bosoms were the first things devoured by the terrible wild dogs.

However, when we ensconce her bosoms within the warm comfort of A Mother's Arms, they are protected:

Many terrible things are done every year by wild dogs (but Mary's bosoms are not affected).

Look how better it is!

Exercise: Place A Mother's Arms in the correct locale here:

A lot of things were burnt up in the fire including a tiny baby.

Look below to find out the truth: