ABE Writing: Parts of Speech

Today in afternoon class, we tackled parts of speech!

Yes, I know, it's not the most exciting topic in the history of the Earth, but knowing the building blocks of language is essential to understanding grammar.

Review!

Here's a video you can use to review the parts of speech:

Order is Important

So why is it important that we know the parts of speech? Well, writing consists of lots of rules. As native English speakers, many of us know these rules without actually knowing that we know them...

It's true! For example, if you were going to ask your friend about his day, which of the following options would you likely choose:

A) Your day was how?

B) How your day was?

C) Your was how day?

D) Day your was how?

E) How was your day?

The best choice is obviously E, although A or B could be used in certain circumstances...

"Your day was HOW?"

"How YOUR day was?" lol

However, we would never choose to use answer choices C or D. 

This shows us that we know there are rules for how words can and cannot be combined to express ourselves, and we already use these rules when we speak English fluently. But most of us couldn't describe these rules. If I asked you, "Why can't we use answer choices C or D?", you'd probably respond with, "Well, they don't make sense." But why don't they? After all, they include the same four words as the other three choices, right?

Play by the Rules!

The reason we cannot use answer choices C or D is that they break a fundamental rule of our language: 

Adjectives, words that describe nouns, must come directly before the noun(s) they modify. 

Which word is acting as an adjective? Your. (It's a possessive adjective if you want to get really fancy...) Which noun is 'your' describing? Day. So any choices which separate the words 'your day' or reverse their order are not correct. These rules for how our language must be ordered and punctuated are known as grammar.

If you want to be a good communicator, especially through writing, you must know these grammar rules. Using correct grammar is important because it ensures that what you say/write will be understood clearly by other speakers of the same language. The example I gave was a simple one, but even a simple example could not be explained without discussing the parts of speech (i.e. adjective, noun). Therefore, it is vital to fully understand the parts of speech so that you will not get lost in the grammar rules as you learn more complex ones.

If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends. Also, give us some constructive feedback in the comments or feel free to ask questions. :)

Write on.

-Jc