Before we get started, please do not take any of the examples in this blog as evidence of anything. They are purely to get you to rethink grammar, and grammar teaching, and obviously, to have a bit of light-hearted fun. For evidence, do read a little further.

Now, let’s get right to into it. Do you agree with the following statement. If you do, can you think of another example. If not, why not?

Walk cannot be used as a noun unless you add an ‘ing’ (Walking is good for you) or an article like ‘A walk in the park’ or ‘The walk of shame.’

Now, stop reading here and answer the question first. Even if the temptation is to just keep reading.

And the answer is:

It is used as a noun in the actual sentence above. So, within the sentence, walk is a noun and there is no article or ‘ing’ added to it. But it is important to note that walk in that sentence refers to the word walk, rather than the actual action.

Another example of this reference to the word rather than the meaning would be:

What has four letters, never has five letters, always has six letters, but sometimes has nine letters.

You have probably seen this before either as a meme, or an image, or written down somewhere. And it is not a question. It is just a statement.

Why do I often lead with questions like this in ‘grammar sessions?’ Because you can manipulate any grammatical rule to disprove it, but is it actually worth ‘teaching’ grammar rules? How do we know when to focus on grammar and when not to? Are we focusing on the right things?

 

 

 

Confusing sentences from students

Have a look through these sentences and decide which are inaccurate. Then decide why the student has made this mistake and what they meant.

1: The horse raced past the barn fell.

2: The old man the boat.

3: When we eat food gets thrown.

4: The girl told the story cried.

5: The complex houses married and a few single doctors.

6: Fat people eat accumulates.

7: The man sold the pizza won a million dollars.

Once I have covered the ‘basics’ of grammar in a session or three on a training course, I do this activity. Here are some of the answers I often hear in discussions. I will say that only ONE of the above sentences actually contain an ‘error.’

1: There is a missing conjunction. It should be ‘and fell.’

2: There is a missing verb. It should ‘rows, or sails, or owns the boat.’

3: We don’t know what gets thrown.

4: The same as number 1. Or there is a missing relative pronoun ‘who told.’

5: The student has used the wrong verb and the sentence makes no sense.

6: That is probably a spelling mistake of a word like asparagus.

7: The same as number 4.

So, which one is wrong. The answer is: Number 3. There is a missing comma because it is a dependent clause followed by an independent clause. When we eat, food gets thrown. The focus of this activity is twofold. You cannot correct grammar if your correction changes what the person meant. Which is what mostly happens in the discussions above. And, as a teacher, you should tell your students if their phrasing of a point could lead to confusion, even if it is grammatically correct, as these sentences are, they should consider the purpose of grammar. And that is to communicate a specific message. Your message is much more important than your grammar. So, let’s look at a few explanations and the questions I ask the teachers in these sessions.

1: Is there a person on the horse? The answer is yes. The horse was raced past the barn by a person and then it fell. It is a reduced relative clause. The horse (that was) raced past the barn fell.

2: There is already a verb in the sentence. What is it? Subject – the old (or elderly) – Verb – Man (to take care of) – Object – The boat. By adding a verb as suggested in most discussions, you are completely changing the meaning of the sentence.

3: Mentioned above, and if you want to use this in your own session, I do talk about the importance of punctuation.

4: Did the girl tell the story or listen to the story? She heard it. It was told to her by someone else. It is also a reduced relative clause.

5: Similar to number 2. There is already a verb in the sentence. That verb is ‘houses.’ So, there is a complex where married doctors, and a few single doctors live.

6: There is a noun phrase and a verb. What’s the verb? (Accumulates). What’s the noun phrase (The fat that people eat – reduced to ‘Fat people eat).

7: Did he buy or sell the pizza. And by this time, they all go, ‘AAAHHH, we see it now. He sold the pizza. It is a reduced relative clause again.’ The main verb is won, not sold.

And following this, we discuss error correction, communicative purpose, and noun phrases and how complex they could be for students.

 

 

The exception proves the rule

Every single time I hear this (hyperbole intended) my head literally explodes (intended again).

 

 

Imagine seeing this sign on the door of your favourite café. What does it actually mean?

The exception proves the rule does not mean if you can find an exception to a grammar rule that you have proven the rule. It means the rule you think is the rule is NOT the rule. The rule is wrong!

The exception proves the rule means the shop in the sign above is open every day except Mondays.

A very common example of this is the ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ rule. And then someone says neighbour. OK. If the sound is ‘ee’ as in bee. And then someone says Keith. OK. Excluding words that were not impacted by ‘The Great Vowel Shift.’  And now you have the whole rule. It doesn’t mean you should rattle of all of that in a classroom to impress your learners. No, you can stop before the Great Vowel Shift part.

 

So, we should or we shouldn’t teach ‘rules?’

Before I actually attempt to answer that, think of this question. For which percentage of English verbs is this rule true? We form the past tense of a verb in English by adding -ed to the verb.

Think about your answer, and if you are in a place where you can write down a number, do that. Just for fun.

Then, I will discuss the answer below.

More often than not, teachers choose a fairly high number, but almost never anything higher than 90%. This is quite logical. If you consider the most frequently used verbs like ‘be, see, eat, have, do, can, say, go, will, take, and get’ and also consider that four of these ‘have, do, go, and get’ are the most commonly used delexicalized verbs, you can be forgiven for thinking the actual percentage might be as low as 50.

Now, there are quite a number (around 200 - 300 in active use) irregular verbs in English, mostly impacted by our French history. However, if you only know the 50 most frequently used irregular verbs, you will recognise almost 90% of all irregular verb usage. Simply because they appear so frequently.

If you then think of any verb that came into use after the year 1925 (a randomly selected year exactly 100 years ago), you might get a list like this:

Friend, unfriend, laser, tazer, twerk, tweet, google, browse, email, text, blog, download, upload, stream, etc. You might even be like my son who has now started using IG as a verb. As in ‘I will IG you when I get home.’ Probably because he doesn’t want to Line or WhatsApp me. Important though, all of those verbs are turned into past tense with an ed. And if you then take all the verbs in English, and remove the irregular verbs, you will notice this.

The rule for adding -ed to form past tense is more than 98% true (obviously only excludes irregular verbs) and growing as we add more verbs to English through usage. So, should we teach rules like this, absolutely yes. The problem is not if we should, but how we do it. And that, I will talk about later in the year.

 

Looking forward

For now, enjoy your 2025 grammar lessons, and keep in mind meaning and communicative purpose should always be placed above grammar. That was kind of the whole point of this blog. Grammar is only a vehicle to meaning. I will leave you with one final little puzzle for which the answer will not be provided.

Can you find the the mistake in this sentence. Green balloons fly through the sky in celebration of the year of the snake and to wish all our readers a Happy Lunar New Year.