All the single clauses!

If Beyonce Knowles was a piece of grammar, what would she be? I'll tell you.

But first, let's get retrospective for a moment. With MC Grammar, you have explored a lot of wonderful parts of grammar. Our minds have become so entwined that sometimes, when you're writing a letter, or trying to do a written test, or just throwing down some thoughts onto paper, you suddenly hear a voice that you imagine to be what MC Grammar would sound like; a deep, soothing voice, a bit like steel-capped boots dragging over gravel, that strokes the inside of your mind and gently whispers the correct grammatical form to you. 'Thank you, MC Grammar', you gently whisper. 'No thanks needed' you hear my voice whisper back.

But there has been a certain issue that we've been skirting around lately, and this is it: 'What are independent and dependant clauses, and why do they affect everything I do?'

Here's why.

A clause is a phrase. Sometimes it's a single sentence, but the rule is that it must contain two things: a subject and a predicate, or, the thing done or being done to the subject. Because this can be a bit confusing, here's very simple sentence to explain this.

The cat sat on the mat.

The thing being done (predicate) is 'sitting'. The thing (the subject) doing the sitting is the cat. Because the cat is the one 'doing' the verb, the cat is the subject. If it just so happened that it was the mat 'doing' the sitting on itself, then the mat would be the subject. But that would be pretty crazy.

Another example is:


Jo is writing a sentence.


What is being done? Writing. So it is the predicate. Who is 'doing' the predicate? Jo. So he/she is the subject.


'Whatever, MC Grammar!' you might scream out: 'In the same way I just know how to ride a bike, I just know how to write a sentence!' Sure, maybe, but when you don't know how a subject and a predicate go together, your whole meaning can get lost. Take for example this bomb site:

Clarise is the girl who is standing next to Lance, with the blond hair.

The problem here is that there are two subjects and one thing being done, AND there is an incomplete clause hanging onto them. The result is that you end up having no idea who has blond hair. A better way to say it would have been:

Clarise is the girl with blond hair, standing next to Lance.

Here, the subject and the predicate live together, cheerfully, in a relationship based on trust and mutual respect. Loitering by their side is the mousy but helpful, 'standing next to Lance', which can't stand on it's own, unlike 'Clarise is the girl with the blond hair', which doesn't need anybody when it's up in the club.

As you might have guessed by now, if Beyonce Knowles was a kind of grammar, she would be an independent clause. But which person best defines a dependant clause? There are many to pick from, but MC Grammar thinks Perez Hilton would be a good candidate. Relying on celebrities to be famous? Take a cue from Bouncy Knowles, Perez!