Grammar class

Today, we learned a few stuff in Grammar class. Now people, Grammar, as I have said countless times back in Sem 1, can be unbearably boring and torturing, but it can be made fun by the people in class, and today is just the perfect example.

So, today's lesson.

• Repeated sounds

Amy: "I want to marry Mary."

Now... other than the obvious fact that Amy is a girl, and she has a boyfriend, and of course, not in the closet lesbian just coming out, the sentence sounds wrong. Why? Because of what we learned. Repeated sounds. Apparently repeating the same sound in a sentence is confusing, thus making the sentence not so clear and nice. So, quoting Amy, "It's grammatically not right to marry Mary."

• Tense consistency

Mostly about SVA (subject verb agreement). Remember what your English teacher in primary and secondary school told you? For third person pronoun the verb that follows has to have additional "s", plural subject's verb has no "s". Now, read the sentence and find the inconsistency:
The spheres rotate and sends out streams of light in every direction.
Answer: The word "sends" should be without "s" because the word "spheres" is plural. So, SVA.

Anyways, since we EL manusias are so very creative, Sal came up with this explanation instead.

Sphere: "Eh, Rotate, you want the "s"? I don't want it."
Rotate: *nods head enthusiatically* "Hai! (as in Japanese "yes", not the greeting)
The next day....
Sphere(s): "Eh, today I take the "s", okay?"
Rotate: *nods head enthusiatically* Hai!

As in, how to decide whether to use the "s" on verb. Look at the noun, and see if the noun has "s". So basically it's some passing game. The noun passes the "s" to the verb when it feels like being single and vice versa.

Last but not least,

• Latest definition of some nouns

Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you with his bills
Divorce: Future tense of marriage
Cigarette: A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool on the other end
Optimist: A person who while falling from KL tower (I made it into Malaysia context) says in midway "See, I'm not dead yet."

See? Sometimes Grammar can be fun too, if one is being creative.