Over the last few months I have attempted to help everyone (re)learn some of the rules of American grammar, and I hope I’ve succeeded.
It seems like a good idea – at least to me – to give you a short quiz on the some of the material I’ve covered to date . . . are you game? The answers and the relevant blog post will be at the end of this post.
1. John has
a. an MBA.
b. a MBA.
2. John has
a. an Master’s degree.
b. a Master’s degree
3. In August, stores will start their
a. back to school sales.
b. back-to-school sales.
c. back-to school sales.
d. back to-school sales.
4. Do you remember any music from
a. the 90’s?
b. the 90s?
c. the ’90s?
5. Susan called Frank a
a. “jerk.”
b. “jerk”.
c. ‘jerk’.
d. jerk.
6. Do you think Allen has too many
a. cat’s?
b. cats?
c. cats’?
I am really hoping these were easy! They’re all about basic punctuation rules in American grammar (some of which is the same in other English-based grammar), and are still confusing many writers. I hope to change that, one post at a time.
Here are the answers and links back to the blogs:
1a (Using A and An Correctly)
2b (Using A and An Correctly)
3b (Using Hyphens #1) (Using Hyphens #2)
4c (Forming Contractions)
5a & d (Quotation Marks #1)
6b (No Apostrophes in Plurals!)