Sudden Adjectives: The words that action movies can't do without

MC Grammar loves action movies. All those explosions, high speed car chases, bombs, and even though walking away slowly from an explosion that is right behind you in real life would just be a sign that had been traumatised by violence, there's nothing quite like it when you're watching it in an action movie.

And one of the things I love the most about action movies is their names, like Dragon Eyes, Sudden Death, Street Fighter, Hard Target, Double Target, and Knockaround Guys. All these titles have something in common – they all have adjectives in them.

There's nothing I love more than an adjective-noun action move. When you see one of the these, you know that you're going to get first-class action on your wide-screen TV, and almost definitely the martial art stylings of Jean-Claude Van Damme will be in it.

 The role of adjectives is to give more information about the thing you are talking about. The most common form of an adjective is the attributive adjective. There are difference kinds of adjectives. There are attributive adjectives, meaning that it tells us more about the the main noun or object in a sentence:

It was an interesting animal

An adjective can be predicative, meaning it can be the predicate in a sentence:

This wig is glossy

And adjective can be post-positive, which means that it appears after the noun, like:

There was food aplenty, but it was of the worst kind imaginable

Or an adjective can be substantive, which is when an adjective is used like a noun:

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

A good rule to follow is to avoid using too many adjectives in a sentence. For example, look at this passage from 'New Moon', by Stephanie Meyer:

I woke with a start  – my eyelids popping open wide  – and gasped. Dull, grey light, the familiar light of an overcast morning, took the place of the blinding sun in my dream.

Woah, Stephanie Meyer, slow down there! There's a shitload of adjectives in your story and it's making your story look weird!  

Also, you run the risk of tautology when you use too many adjectives. For example:

The wide open canyon.

Obviously a wide canyon is going to be open.

I was in close proximity to the lion.

All proximity is close.

Good God – where would we be without adjectives! Imagine if some of the greatest movies didn't have adjectives to emphasise their awesomeness? We would have action movies with names like 'Death that is going to happen now', 'More Than One Target' and 'Target that I keep missing'. As this would not do justice to the man that inspires all these movies, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Let's pay homage to him now.

'Commadore Norrington, my effects please': The difference between affect and effect

The difference between affect and effect has confused more than a few people.  And make no mistake, sometimes even MC Grammar can end up throwing himself on his four-poster bed, howling in frustration at this very tricky area of grammar.

But lucky for us, the difference between affect and effect is a lot simpler than you might think. The thing is, effect and affect are homonyms, which means that even though they sound the same, they have different meanings. Read on, grammar children.

Affect means:

1. To have an influence or cause a change in something

Too much sunlight affected the quality of the photograph

2. To act on the emotions of, to touch, to move.

The arguments and fighting affected me badly

3. To attack or infect

Rabies affects the brain


Effect, on the other hand, means:

1. A result

The drugs took effect immediately


There was more positive information available about immigration, effecting a change attitudes towards immigrants.

2. The power to produce an outcome or achieve a result

The president's threats to kill everyone had no effect on the protesters

3. Something that produces a specific impression, or supports a general design or intention:

The fireworks were the best effects of the concert

If you ever get lost, there's a handy way of remembering the difference. In  the movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean', Captain Jack Sparrow has managed to get off from being arrested.  Demanding his stuff back, he says: 'Commodore Norrington, my effects please, and my hat'. When Sparrow asks for his effects he means his sword, his compass, and his belt. These are his effects, meaning the things that make him Captain Jack Sparrow. Your effects are the things that add a little something to the occasion, which is why fireworks are effects, or special animation techniques in a movie are effects.

Attack of the Similar Words! Practise vs Practice

An incredible thing happened to me the other day, as I was walking down the street. It was early in the morning, and I was the only one about. With the dew on the leaves, and the clouds still all fresh and pink, it could well have been the first day in creation, and I could have been the first cat who ever wore balloon pants affixed with a leather cummerbund, as I sauntered down that street.

As I turned a corner, I happened to pass by a young dude. He looked like he was in his teens, he had a shock of fluffy blond hair on the top of his head, a red shirt, and a pair of light-coloured jeans on.

I passed him and went along my merry way. I kept walking down the street and after about 20 metres, I made a short-cut through a narrow laneway. Then something very messed up happened: the same boy walked passed me again in the lane way.

For a few second there, my mind was a mess of panicking contortions. There was no way this boy could have made it around the block in the few seconds since I had passed him before. And not only were these people identical in every way, but they were also wearing exactly the same thing.

Of course, after just a few seconds, using the powers of logic that I am so well known for, I worked out that these people were probably twins, and not clones. And since they were funky teen twins (or 'tweenins' as you might consider calling them), they probably (a) had a lot of sibling rivalry, which explained why they didn’t want to walk together, and (b) on their way to school, which was why they were both walking in the same direction.

Another problem solved. But it got me thinking. Just like life, grammar is full of confusing look-alikes that not only look just the same, but almost do exactly the same thing too. So when you come across them in a sentence, you can often find yourself asking ‘WTF? What’s the actual difference between these two words?’

Take for example, the difference between ‘practise’ and ‘practice.’

You might look at these two words and at first you’d be all like ‘Oh, the reason that one of these has an s, and one of these has a c, is because one is an American spelling, and one is a British spelling’ You’d be wrong. In the UK, ‘practice’ and ‘practise’ are both used, while in the US, only ‘practice’ is used. Which kind of doesn’t help at all.

So, just say you don’t live in the wide, glorious land of the United States. Let's just say that although you’ve applied through several channels, you can’t get a work visa. What do you do next?

In the UK and its sexy colony, Australia, ‘practice’ is a noun, while ‘practise’ is a verb. For example:


Dr Wright’s a pretty good doctor. His medical practice is just down the road.


 I need to practise my capoeira, so I can become a dancing warrior.


Are you a practising Catholic?


Meanwhile, at some stage in history, the US decided this was a pretty small detail, and that they were pretty busy and couldn’t really be fucked, and started using ‘practice’ for everything.

It's most likely that there are some cases where North Americans might try to stick to what’s technically correct, but when you are on your tourist's visa in the US, pursuing research into the many practices that Americans engage in, and noting it all down in your field notes, MC Grammar recommends that it’s probably best to stick to that spelling in your field report.

Indecent Preposition

Alright. Again, MC Grammar hasn't exactly hit the mark with this week's post title. I am all too aware that it doesn't really work, since the movie I am cleverly pop-culture referencing is actually 'Indecent Proposal', not 'Indecent Proposition.' It would never have been called 'Indecent Proposition', because that doesn't have the same zing to it. Being MC Grammar and only achieving lukewarm wordplay is like throwing stones when you live in a glass house and wear a glass house-robe. Because of this failure, I hurl myself on my four-poster bed in frustration. But we have to try to keep a perspective, and focus on the reason we're all here: to learn about prepositions.

So what is a preposition? Well, a preposition links words to other words in a sentence, like 'with', 'under' 'without' 'on', and 'from'.

A preposition 'locates' an object For example,

The book is on the table

I am beneath the tree.

She held the book during class

I want to be on you

In each sentence, the preposition locates the object in time or space.

A prepositional verb 'introduces' nouns, and explains just what the hell they are doing. For example;

The boy climbed a tree.

There was rejoicing throughout the land

Each time, the preposition has 'introduced' the noun and linked the two nouns in the sentence together.

Put simply, a preposition explains what shit is doing in a sentence together. If a preposition was a person, it would be that person at a party who knows everyone, so when you walk in and exclaim 'Hey - I didn't know they knew each other!', preposition is all like 'oh yeah, didn't you know? They live in same apartment block', or 'oh yeah, they used to go to the same yoga class' or 'oh yeah, they've only just met, but they're really going for it, huh?'

Now, here is the tricky part. Some people think that prepositions should never go at the end of a sentence. They think that, for example, instead of saying 'who do you live with', you should say 'with whom do you live?'

The problem with trying to stick to this rule is that you end up talking like Yoda. When Winston Churchill was knocked for ending a sentence with a preposition, he answered 'This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put!' Snap, Winston.

MC Grammar reckons that the only time you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition is when it's unnecessary. For example,

I've got the money that I'll be paying you with.

Here 'with' is extra – you didn't need it. You could have just said 'I've got the money that I'll be paying you'. This is the only time that the prepositional rule should be used.

The main reason that some people still stick to this rule is because of that jerk that I hate, Latin. That's right, Latin's back, telling English what to do, calling it fat and short-sheeting its bed in the middle of winter. In Latin, prepositions tend to get attached to the object that they are 'introducing.' For example, The Latin word for 'wine' is 'Vinium' But in the saying 'In Vino Veritas' (In wine there is truth) 'Vino' shows that it's the wine that is the subject of the saying. This means that prepositions can never be found at the end of sentences in Latin, and as a result, in English we are never meant to do it either.

Not only is this stupid, but really impractical. Some more demure grammar peeps will try to not to rock the boat by suggesting that instead of saying

Who do you want to speak to?

You should say

To whom do you want to speak?

Why? If the whole point of grammar is to communicate with each other, and a person is already doing that just fine, like in the first sentence above, why complicate things? The good news is that grammar brothers and sisters have been calling bullshit on this rule for over a hundred years - in 1902, Harvard Professor Adam Sherman Hill pointed out that it was a bit crap, and then in 1918, James C. Fernald really went for the jugular in 'A Senseless Tradition', claiming that 'there was never any sense in the rule, and people go on using the prohibited idiom every day.'

Snap, James C. Fernald. You're right. It might have been OK, back in the day when 'whom' was not an out-dated form of language, but these days it's just silly, and trying to defend it is like trying to say that fat-dripping is a good thing to put on your toast instead of butter - just because they used to do it doesn't make it right or good. In fact, it explains a lot of health problems that old people have now.

When all is said and done, the rule around prepositions is one that we don't need to worry about, but it's still good to know what exactly a preposition is. You can throw it into conversation at any time, impressing people with your highly-tuned grammar skills. And in the rare cases where it's helpful to know when you've overdosed on prepositions, it could make all the difference.

Let's finish up on this humorous 'Grammar Wizard' cartoon from the Perry Bible Fellowship, that pretty much sums up the whole situation. And ask yourself; do you really want a world where this might happen?  

Feeling Sarcastic? Try some capital letters!

So, MC Grammar has become an exam invigilator. This means that I let kids into exams, then I give them their exam papers and I tell them all the important rules about the exam. Then if anything goes wrong, like a paper with a messed-up question, or a freak-out by one of the kids, MC Grammar is right on top of it, sorting it out, talking them off the roof, returning them to their table, and making a note of all incidents in the special invigilator file.

But just the other day, I noticed something alarming. I was reading my special invigilator handbook, accurately titled General, Vocational and Diploma Qualifications – Instructions for conducting examinations. It struck me as a bit strange that since this was the title of the handbook, they hadn’t followed the general rule of capitalising all the key words, and left ‘conducting’ and ‘examinations’ alone to fend for themselves against a whole crowd of fearsome capitalisations.

But it got worse. Down the bottom of the page read ‘At least one copy of these Instructions must be available in each examination room.’

Why did ‘Instructions’ get a capital letter? Yes, it’s a noun, i.e it is the name of something, and technically the names of things get capitalised, but ‘copy’, ‘examination’ and ‘room’ are all nouns too, aren't they? Where was their glory? Where was their time to shine?

There are some basic rules for capitalising words. Let’s power through the basic ones first, then jump into the big daddies afterwards.

A word needs to start with a capital letter when it is:

1. A day of the week. Take note that the seasons are not capitalised.

It was Wednesday by the time I realised that it was autumn.

2. The name of a language.

Apparently Hungarian is really hard to learn.

Complication alert! The names of subjects in school are not capitalised, unless they happen to be languages.

Today I have geography, maths and Spanish.


3. The first word of a sentence, or comes after an exclamation or question mark.

Have we seen the last of Janet Jackson’s left nipple? Probably not.

The names of festivals, holidays and holy days

Such as Christmas, Ramadan, the feast of Purim and Halloween.

4. Distinctive historical periods

London was a prosperous city during the Middle Ages.

Britain was the first country to experience the Industrial Revolution.The Greeks were in Greece during the Bronze Age

4. The first word of a direct quotation

In my frustration I cried out ‘It has come to this and I blame myself!’ A passer-by wearing a Trent from Punchy shirt comforted me.

BUT there is no capital if the quotation is not a complete sentence.

The mayor described the stealing of his trousers as 'disappointing'

OK, so that’s all fairly straight forward. The next set of rules flirt a little more with the grey area between ‘nouns that get all the glory’ and ‘nouns that nobody loves’.

Words need to start with a capital for:

5. Proper names. A proper name means a name or title that refers to a person, a place, and institution or an individual event.


My name is Tom Baker

There was a fight between Professor Lacey and Doctor Davis

The Golden Gate Bridge is in San Francisco Bay

The Queen is addressing the House of Commons

I’m trying out for the Winter Olympics

This can get mighty confusing. For example:

I have met the President.

Dave is the president of a massive company.

In the first sentence, ‘President’ is capitalised because it refers to a specific person. In the second, ‘president’ is just the description of Dave’s job. Here’s another example.

Saint Servatius is the patron saint of rats.

‘Saint Servatius’ is the title and name of Saint Servatius, but ‘patron saint’ is not, and so gets no capital.

The title of a book, play, poem, film magazine, etc. Basically if it’s the title of a piece of art, media or entertainment, it gets capitalised. Note that words like 'the', ‘of’, ‘and’ or ‘in’ are not capitalised unless it’s the first word.

That movie 'Bully' is messed up.

Just because I haven’t read 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' doesn’t mean I can’t guess what happens in the end.

I enjoy the classical piece, 'Air on the G String'.

Aunt May keeps telling me how losing my virginity will be like giving away a Special Flower.

According to Ben, Fallout Boy are the Next Big Thing.

Can’t you just hear the sarcasm dripping off the page! If you ever want to own someone using the power of grammar, this is all you need to know.

So suddenly, I think I have the answer to why ‘Instructions’ is such a special word, while all the sad little words around it get ignored. ‘Instructions’, unlike ‘copy’, ‘examination’ and ‘room’, not only refers to a specific thing, unlike, say ‘room’, which could refer to any which room the instructions find themselves in, but it’s also the official, or ‘proper’ title of the thing which MC Grammar finds himself holding in his hand.

And so another grammar mystery has been solved!MC Grammar’s personal favourite use of capitalisations is to indicate sarcasm. You might have noticed that sarcasm is generally limited to spoken word, because it mostly gets expressed through tone of voice. For example, if I was to write that I really enjoy the films of Kevin Costner, you can’t be sure if I’m being sarcastic or if I’m an idiot without hearing the tone of my voice.