Lisa's tips for not mis-using apostrophes: don't use contractions. Ever.
Well I thought it was good.
She also talked about 'active' and 'passive' voice, which (maybe I was asleep when we did it in high school) has never been explained to me. I liked the whole grammer talk, suprisingly, but I think it was because she had some reasoning behind the stupid rules. Active is more assertive and gives authority to what you're saying.
Also, we're allowed to use 'I' (at least in this class) but not 'I believe'. wtf? If you were going to say, 'I believe the sky is yellow,' then you would just say, 'The sky is yellow.' We're being assertive here people.
Active and passive voice is interesting. It is still much favoured by bureaucracy, mainly I assume because it takes away any suggestion of personal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a letter about your student allowance is likely to read: 'It has been decided that as from six months ago your entitlement to student allowance has ceased'.
It will certainly not say: 'I decided....'
Very useful to bureacracy, but rubbish writing for any other purpose.