Grammar Punk Blog

Flocculate: floc·cu·late

to cause particles suspended in water to aggregate into clumps or masses that then sink or can be removed by filtering, or aggregate in this way; to form fluffy masses, or cause clouds to form fluffy masses

Okay, yes, I’ll agree that this is one of those words that sound more humorous, even on the unsavory side when spoken aloud, but it is actually a benignly useful little word.

It also happens to have a rather humorous conception—as it were. Apparently, back in the late 16th century a scientist noticed that the loose masses separated from a solution —or suspended—resembled tufts of wool, thus they began to refer to these bits of flotsam as “flocks”—yes, as in sheet. Now we have not just flocculate but flocculent and floccules. Who know?

Grammar Punk Sentence: F E 2

She watched, fascinated and not a little repulsed as the yeast clumped together in the warm water in flocculent little clumps; was that what it was supposed to do?

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, give this one a try. Challenge your students to look around and identify flocculent items in their view. Then write a sentence. And share.

Get a Clue!

Continuing our chronicle of characterization—gotta love alliteration, I have been thinking about Clue, the truly iconic board game. I happen to collect Clue games, my favorites are versions featuring the Simpsons and an Alfred Hitchcock version. But the tried and true classic is still amazing.

Clue is all about characterization. I know that sounds weird, a board game with characters? Think about it.

Miss Scarlet, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White, Colonel Mustard, and Professor Plum.

6 game pieces, six characters, six character types and six motives

Back to the “people” in our little story.

Miss Scarlet: straight out of Hawthorne. Miss Scarlet is the vamp of the piece, obviously up to no good. The Scarlet woman.

Miss Peacock: I always pictured her as stuffy, British, stodgy and suspicious.

Mr. Green: Bland, innocuous yet mysterious.

Miss White: Phlegmatic, possibly German or Austrian, stiff upper lip and a good grip.

Professor Plum: Studious, serious, and well, professorial with secrets of his own

Colonel Mustard: Tough, gruff, slightly doughy and possibly dangerous?

Of course it is very possible you have your own visual variances of the Clue Characters and that is the point of this little exercise. Characterization is a personal thing, even created characters will look and feel different to different people. And as you assign these particular characters motives, means and opportunities to knock of Mr. Body, those characters become fleshed out and much more interesting.

Teachers of English, writing and grammar, try our little experience of Clue with your students. Maybe even play a game of Clue!

It was my generation who took computers from room-sized behemoths to well on their way to itty-bitty hand-held gadgets which can not only place and receive phone calls but launch the space shuttle and will soon no doubt be able to pick up one’s socks as well.

I happened to work in the computer field as the transition moved with the speed of sound from huge to desktop computers. I literally watched the contents of PC (printed circuit) boards move from large and unwieldy to practically microscopic. We marveled at floppy disks which were half the size of a sheet of paper to diskettes the size of a deck of cards to CD’s to zip drives. We moved just as suddenly it seemed from DOS, command-based to GUI and now audio command. The speed of change has been dizzying.

It’s not just music and the computer age that has blurred boundaries, it is the less definable something that has made the transition between these generations and likely the ones to come. The changes continue, progress is sweeping, we really are seeing and experiencing technology heretofore dreamed of only by Asimov, Bradbury and Dick and it will no doubt continue but I highly doubt we’ll ever see such huge change in such a short period—literally from one generation to the next. Thus the gap is narrowing. Fast.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, give this one some thought. And ask your students. Then challenge them to write about what they think of the gap—and all the ways they think you’re passé. And they’re not. Then share.

Characterization—or So Not

I recently watched a movie that I had been looking forward to seeing. It had a great premise, wonderful scenery, a few twists to the same old romantic comedy format, decent actors, even a couple wonderful ones, it had it all. And it was bad. Really bad. Misfiring on all circuits bad. For one reason: characterization. Or the lack thereof. I quite simply didn’t care what happened  to the characters, thus I didn’t care what happened with the story.

Characterization is the absolute key to whether a story, a film, a television show works. Or doesn’t work. It may sound like the easiest part of the story, and it can be, it is so tricky as to be messed up often as not. Characters are the reason we read or watch or engage in a story. Bad characterization is also the reason we often stop reading or watching—even if we’re hardly aware of it.     

Without strong, recognizable, varied and complex characterization stories fall flat. Even the most exciting plot loses steam without characters to people it. It is characters in peril that make us keep reading or watching, it is characters showing bravery—or cowardice —that makes us want to know what happens next, it is characters who do the unexpected that keeps us wanting more.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, explore this concept with your students. Ask for examples of good and not so good characterization and what it did—or didn’t do—for the story or film. Challenge them to notate what was wrong and how it could be fixed. Then write about it!

Tendentious: ten·den·tious: Marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view; biased; written or spoken with personal bias in order to promote a cause or support a viewpoint

This is another good word to add to your vocabulary. When confronted by unfair practices you can bypass close-minded or biased and just let fly with, “Stop being so tendentious!”

Grammar Punk Sentence: T E 5

We hated to think that our Biology teacher was of a tendentious bent but his favoritism towards earthworms was hard to deny.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, challenge your students to try their hand at a Grammar Punk sentence that includes 5 words with the letters T and E and the word tendentious.

The Generation Non-Gap

My 18 year old niece got into my car recently and as I switched on the engine my rather blaring radio pounded out a hard-rock tune before I hastily turned it down. She raised an eyebrow at me her look loudly proclaiming the fact she was sure someone else must have been driving my car—which I countered with a pointed, “We created this music.”

This got me to thinking about the generation gap…that isn’t.

I think my generation and the next are to be the end to the official gapping between generations, at least a gap that has well-defined lines and parameters. Oh, there will still be generations; I just don’t think they will be as disparate as they have been.

Think about it. My grandparents grew up without electricity until they were well into adulthood. My parents—given the fact that they both grew up in very rural areas—also could remember the before and after of electricity. Indoor plumbing was also a before and after for my parents, my grandparents did without longer than they did with. Plumbing and electricity, two things we don’t even give a single thought to in our everyday lives.

My generation grew up in the completely 180 degree-ness of the ‘60’s pushing as hard and moving as fast as they could away from our parents generation. And succeeding. We took rock and roll to punk, heavy metal, grunge, and new wave—I apologize personally for disco which I protested from the beginning. The gap was wide and while not at all insurmountable, it was definite. I’ll be exploring the other aspects of separation in subsequent blogs.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, this is a great writing challenge for your students. Ask them to explore what they think separates them from their previous generation. And yours too. Write about it. Then share!

I received this in an email from the husband of a teacher. I think it says it all.

Vespertine: of, relating to, or occurring in the evening; active, flowering or flourishing in the evening; crepuscular

Before I launch into the coolness and origin of this particular word, I want to call attention to one of the words definitive synonyms—namely crepuscular. I happen to have used that word before as a Word With You entry and here you probably thought most of these oddball words would never come in handy, am I right? Nyah.

Verpertine comes from the Hesperous, or the evening star. The most coon offshoot of vespertine is of course vespers, which means, you guessed it, an evening worship service.

Don’t you just love a word that wraps itself up so tidily?

Grammar Punk Sentence: R U 3

Ursula loved to spend evenings in her garden, surrounded by her vespertine lilies, nightshade, and mandrake roots, routing unwanted butterflies.

Teachers of English, writing, and grammar, challenge your students to explore their own favorite vespertine activities. Then write about it. And share!