SPAG tests & questions, and language play

[briantrumpet]

And I've never heard of a "fronted adverbial".

Before today you hadn't.

And for those who don't know (and sensibly don't care), I'm my sentence, "Before today" is a fronted adverbial. See, it's nuts: why do you have to give such a stupid label to that?

 

[Dogtrousers]

Before today you hadn't.

And for those who don't know (and sensibly don't care), I'm my sentence, "Before today" is a fronted adverbial. See, it's nuts: why do you have to give such a stupid label to that?

The reason you give things names is so that you can do stuff with them. So I imagine that if "fronted adverbials" are good (or bad) style, or if they can lead to ambiguity or something, then it's useful to have a name for them. Just labelling for labellings sake is pretty pointless.

So what's so special about fronted adverbials? What conclusions can you draw, what things can you do once you've identified one? I don't know the answers to these questions by the way.

 

[briantrumpet]

The reason you give things names is so that you can do stuff with them. So I imagine that if "fronted adverbials" are good (or bad) style, or if they can lead to ambiguity or something, then it's useful to have a name for them. Just labelling for labellings sake is pretty pointless.

So what's so special about fronted adverbials? What conclusions can you draw, what things can you do once you've identified one? I don't know the answers to these questions by the way.

Sure, if you later want to talk to like-minded people about grammar, and whether in the first place 'fronted adverbial' is a good term (for instance. even "At 3 o'clock I'm going to go for a bike ride" is classed as a 'fronted adverbial, but I think most children would think of it as 'a time'), but if you really want to get children fascinated by how language works, arcane labels ain't the way to do it.

Obviously, as an academic musician, I use piles of technical jargon, as anyone does in technical roles, but I don't introduce the terminology before they've got a handle on the thing itself, and then using the terminology helps cement the idea/concept in a bigger picture.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

passed my 12+ back in the day

When was the 12+, was that for late developers taking the 11+?

 

[Dogtrousers]

I just did the semicolon test from the OP. It turns out I do know how to use semicolons because I only got one question wrong. And I realised my mistake immediately.

But I cheated in the "Which of these sentences needs a semicolon instead of a comma?" questions. In these I mentally rephrased it as "In which of these sentences could you potentially replace one of the commas with a full stop (or with a semicolon if you are a plonker)". It became easy.

Maybe I'll start using semicolons in future; people will think I'm really clever.

 

[briantrumpet]

When was the 12+, was that for late developers taking the 11+?

It probably accounts for inflation.

 

[briantrumpet]

I just did the semicolon test from the OP. It turns out I do know how to use semicolons because I only got one question wrong. And I realised my mistake immediately.

But I cheated in the "Which of these sentences needs a semicolon instead of a comma?" questions. In these I mentally rephrased it as "In which of these sentences could you potentially replace one of the commas with a full stop (or with a semicolon if you are a plonker)". It became easy.

Maybe I'll start using semicolons in future; people will think I'm really clever.

That's not cheating: substitution is one of my go-to tests for all sorts of grammatical questions.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Before today you hadn't.

And for those who don't know (and sensibly don't care), I'm my sentence, "Before today" is a fronted adverbial. See, it's nuts: why do you have to give such a stupid label to that?

@briantrumpet said he could explain fronted adverbials to me.

Like a fool, I believed him.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Maybe I'll start using semicolons in future; people will think I'm really clever.

Nah if you start using semi colons, they’ll think you can no use a colon due to your age.

 

[steverob]

When was the 12+, was that for late developers taking the 11+?

In two counties - Buckinghamshire (where I’m from) and one other I can’t recall, you did an extra year in middle school and took a 12+ instead of an 11+, then did one less year in secondary school.

I think they changed it sometime in the mid-90’s to bring everyone on to the same system.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Quite personally, my favourite 'SPAG' is Spag Bol anyway; My Mum used to make the best!

 

[Reynard]

9/10 here. The one I didn't get is one where either a coma or a semi-colon is fine.

Raised as trilingual here - English is only my third language after French (albeit the Belgian version thereof), and Polish. I also have a good working knowledge of German, Dutch (Flemish), and a smattering of Russian.

I've also written both academically (research papers, PhD thesis) and professionally (motorsport journalist and researcher / historian). As a cat show judge, I also have to produce a written report for every exhibit I handle. One of my previous editors said that he never had to proof read any of the articles or race reports I submitted for publication because they were spot on and ready to drop into his desktop publishing software.

 

[Dogtrousers]

9/10 here. The one I didn't get is one where either a coma or a semi-colon is fine.

Grumbling old git mode on: They were all bloody fine. None of those sentences actually needed a semicolon. They would just look fancier with one.

As a cat show judge, I also have to produce a written report for every exhibit I handle.

Is that a typo or are you into cats as well as cars?

 

[briantrumpet]

9/10 here. The one I didn't get is one where either a coma or a semi-colon is fine.

Raised as trilingual here - English is only my third language after French (albeit the Belgian version thereof), and Polish. I also have a good working knowledge of German, Dutch (Flemish), and a smattering of Russian.

I've also written both academically (research papers, PhD thesis) and professionally (motorsport journalist and researcher / historian). As a cat show judge, I also have to produce a written report for every exhibit I handle. One of my previous editors said that he never had to proof read any of the articles or race reports I submitted for publication because they were spot on and ready to drop into his desktop publishing software.

My proofreading friend, despite being a proficient linguist (having written GCSE text books for German, and speaks German and Italian fluently, and French as well but not as well as he'd like) will only proofread into English, as he says you can always tell when someone is blagging being a native speaker... often the random prepositions will trip them up, or the auxiliary/modal verbs. But he wasn't raised multi-lingual.

By the sound of it, being raised trilingual, you'd be happy to proofread in any of the three languages, as you probably just know what *sounds* right, even before you analyse the vocab or grammar, or use of idioms.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I have learned something today; I genuinely do not remember ever being taught what one was!

I scored 6/10.
@classic33, are you keeping scores here? 🤣

I am the same - we did "proper grammar" when I was at school - but I do not remember semi-colons coming into it anywhere