I loved this class because of the fact that we got to learn about all the structures that this paragraph and the next discuss. It's interesting to realize how far we've come from the beginning of the semester. If I were to know these simple structures in the past like I do now, I think would've been a much better writer. Thanks to this class, I think won't get over identifying verbs, finding the main clauses and the nonrestrictive modifiers, differentiating between noun phrase subjects and noun phrase grammatical subjects, etc. Maybe reading this book all the way through would feel like a giant review of this class.

After playing in concert and symphonic bands for almost nice years of my life, this quote by Jean Cocteau intrigued me. Overtures can come in all different forms, but they usually have a standard melody that is memorable towards their piece. Like Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". Though many haven't played it, including myself, many have heard pieces and parts of it that they could recognize in films, tv shows, etc. IN this case, I believe that Jean Cocteau is pushing style as the memorable portion of writing that people remember, even if they don't know the exact author it comes from. A dance is the visual performance that explicitly shows the style of the dancer. An overture, on the other hand, doesn't portray its style through visual mediums, but rather portrays it through audial medium. It's difficult to notice, but the perceptive ear - for literature, it's the perceptive eye - should be able to point it out to themselves or others.

The one thing that stood out to me while reading both Virginia Woolf's and Ernest Hemingway's pieces were the differences in sentence length. Hemingway tends to write in shorter sentences with short noun phrase subjects either followed by the verb phrase predicate. Woolf seems to write shorter noun phrase subjects, but her sentences are filled with more prepositional phrases and other adverbial phrases that are separated away from the main clause of the sentence. These separate clauses make the sentences longer and a little more difficult to read, though they give more information. The sentence that I highlighted seems to be the most basic sentence that she writes. Having "It" as the Grammatical subject, "was fringed" as the main verb, and "with joy" as the prepositional phrase acting as an adverb, is a lot more simple than the sentences that surround it.

This song is a lot different than Metallica's "Enter Sandman". For one, Taylor Swift talks a lot more about herself. "I'm a mirrorball" is simply a sentence with a BE verb and a noun phrase predicate nominative that explains what Taylor Swift is. Metallica uses a BE verb to in the phrase, "We're off to never-never land". Compared to Taylor, they use the first-person plural, while Taylor uses the singular first-person and second-person. One giant difference that I found was that Taylor tends to use a lot of modals for the conditional. She mentions "I want you to know", "I'll get you out on the floor", "You'll find me on my tallest tp-toes", etc.

I don't think I've payed attention to this song as much as I have now. From the lyrics, we can see that there are a lot of imperative sentences beginning with transitive verbs for commands, as Clara wrote in her comment. I think this works incredibly well with the song because it complements the "dark rock" style of the song. It's supposed to be frightening, especially since they are "off to never-never land", which we assume is the opposite of never land and might not be the nicest place to go to.

I believe that all of these things that these lines and the lines that follow include are what should be "tasted" and "seen". For us, some of these things can be seen like "grief, mercy, language, weather . . .". None of these things can be tasted, but Levertov still witnesses this sense through "bite, savor, chew, swallow . . ." In comparison to Wordsworth, Levertov says that we are ordered to receive more of the world through our senses. She uses only a few subjects to begin her phrases, but she introduces many objects that those subjects act on.

Overall, I believe it just depends on the individual's or groups choice. If I wanted to write a book and include Black, then I would choose to capitalize it because that is just what I wanted to do. If others were to disagree with me about my decision, it wouldn't change my mind. I would just hope they respected my decision and my choice, because it is simply what I chose and have decided to keep. If I am forced to change it, then that would make me feel oppressed since my freedom is technically being violated.

As we have seen with the article on semicolons and the Oxford comma, not everyone is going to embrace the use of a technique that is still debated and hasn't been set in stone. In my opinion, I believe it depends on the context. I understand that, if you capitalize "Black", then "White" should also be capitalized if they are used in similar context. But, it's not as if capitalizing Black and not capitalizing white is a form of oppression. Like Ms. Cooper said, it's for homage to the history. The point of this is not to tear down another race or win back anything. The point is to express the freedom that African Americans have now as tribute to growth their culture and race that has been brought through horrific trials and tribulations to get to where they are today.

Pronouns, like other grammar tools, are very important. We've been using them for so long that they have become a serious part in our conversations about people other than ourselves. I wouldn't necessarily say that they've just suddenly become cool. I would say our interest has recently increased towards the subject when it comes to using the correct pronoun, as it shows our understanding of the identity of the person we are speaking about. Because someone's identity is important, their pronoun should be just as important. I think looking at pronouns as simply just a "part of speech" as Baron says is only looking at the basic layer of what a pronoun means. Messing up someone's pronoun can spark some conflicts, depending on the individual mentioned.

But when you look at "they" (singular) versus they (plural), their doesn't seem to be an event where conflict would arise. I may have used they in reference to a singular being before, but I don't think there has been a time where it's crossed my mind to contemplate if what i'm saying is weird. Then again, I can't really think of many clear examples where I've used they as singular. I typically use he or she, since I tend to know the correct pronoun for the identity of the person i'm referring too. I guess myself, like others, may not see the distinction between the two as such an important topic, so we overlook it. But, since we've discussed how important semicolons and oxford commas are, maybe I'll start paying attention a little more.

5 Million dollars is a lot of money, so it's good that this dispute was resolved and that the Maine Drivers received their compensation. I could see how confusing this phrase could be. Tiny mistakes like these are made all the time, but to see it in this context shows just how important those tiny mistakes and their interpretation within laws truly are. I find it interesting that we just read about how so many grammarians have ambivalent thoughts about the semicolon and that this punctuation was used to solve this case only a few years ago. So seeing this article act sort of as an advocate for the use of the semicolon, especially as opposed to using a well-known technique by the Oxford University Press, is kind of ironic to me.

However, this article does support why grammarians of the past and those of the present find some difficulty in understanding the forms of punctuation. Looking at the period, it's basically set in stone as the end of a sentence. Its use has become such a fundamental part of literature that the world understands it. The semicolon, on the other hand, is still not as fundamental as the period since it takes on a different role. The comma, unfortunately, is kind of in the middle. Of course one of it's uses is to separate items in a list, but in this article we see that interpreting how the final items in a list should be separated can mean the difference between not getting paid and 5 million dollars.

At the beginning of this article, we get to see this "war" go down about loving and hating semicolons. However, is the article goes on, we see that this war stems from the difficulty of fully understanding the use of semicolons and more complex forms of punctuation. At times, Watson shows us that an agreement has been made about the use of semicolons, but grammarians of all ages can not come to a full proof consensus that will remain without question. Punctuation is still difficult to understand today, but I guess those who wanted to establish these rules had an even more difficult time just to get to the rules that are set today.

I suspect this to be Lowth's quote from his grammar book. Having everyone follow the same punctuation rules allows for consistency and is helpful to any individual who takes an English class and has to write anything. However, when you are writing as yourself, it is a great thing to know that you are not restricted to follow exact punctuation rules all the time. Having that flexibility to be a little unconventional is what makes some of the authors we read today great!