Slitting the infinitives...

I know it may come as something of a shock - but some people have started writing again after the Christmas lull. Our Tuesday night group joins up soon for the Festive Party and thoughts will turn to murder, revolt and possibly love. With various Main Characters showing up, it should be a very interesting night.

So if your brain is slowly coming to, then maybe you might like to take a look - or a very very quick glance at the following. It's about grammer. But everything you ever wanted to know, but were just too scared to ask (out loud in front of the class).

Right, there are 8 parts of speech. They are,verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. OK so far?

Here's a little song to keep in mind (make up the music yourselves).
 

Three little words you often see
Are ARTICLES: a, an, and the.

A NOUN's the name of anything,
As: school or garden, toy, or swing.

ADJECTIVES tell the kind of noun,
As: great, small, pretty, white, or brown.

VERBS tell of something being done:
To read, write, count, sing, jump, or run.

How things are done the ADVERBS tell,
As: slowly, quickly, badly, well.

CONJUNCTIONS join the words together,
As: men and women, wind or weather.

The PREPOSITION stands before
A noun as: in or through a door.

The INTERJECTION shows surprise
As: Oh, how pretty! Ah! how wise!

The whole are called the PARTS of SPEECH,
Which reading, writing, speaking teach.

Check this out!?

It is indeed acceptable practice to sometimes split an infinitive. If infinitive-splitting makes available just the shade of meaning you desire or if avoiding the separation creates a confusing ambiguity or patent artificiality, you are entitled to happily go ahead and split! RICHARD LEDERER

When you catch an adjective, kill it. MARK TWAIN

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. CLIFTON FADIMAN

The adjective is the enemy of the noun. VOLTAIRE

If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective. J. ANTHONY LUKAS

Don’t say it was “delightful”. Make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please will you do my job for me?” C.S. LEWIS

Forward motion in any piece of writing is carried by verbs. Verbs are the action words of the language and the most important. Turn to any passage on any page of a successful novel and notice the high percentage of verbs. Beginning writers always use too many adjectives and adverbs and generally use too many dependent clauses. Count your words and words of verbal force (like that word “force” I just used). WILLIAM SLOANE

Get it?! Good!

Seriously - if you can just do with the noun and the verb, then you are on to a winner. Have a go.