Are You Smarter Than Me?

 

 

Have you heard of the music artist LORDE? She has a great sound, and I love her placement of commas. Which might seem to be a weird thing to say about a singer/songwriter, but if you take the time to listen to some great ones, they place their pauses in interesting places. So I purchased this album by Lorde, and I actually wondered for days why she would title it after a drug. But as I listened and listened to her smart and intentional lyrics, I looked again at the album title and realized it says, "HEROINE" as in a brave woman - not a drug. The addictive narcotic is spelled heroin.

So are you smarter than me?
Did you look at that black album cover and know she was making a play on words?

Do you listen to the lyrics of music and find yourself mesmerized by them?

Here's a short interview with the sixteen-year-old musician known as Lorde. (Her real name is Ella Yelich-O'Connor, born and raised on Auckland’s North Shore.)

I like her even more after watching this video about her influences and writing short fiction! Songwriters amaze me.

Questions About Quotations?

Do you have questions about quotation marks? Or do you think they're a piece of cake?

Here are the simple rules:
1. Commas and periods go inside the quotation marks. (U.S. rules; U.K. rules differ)
2. Colons and semicolons go outside the quotation marks.
3. Question marks and exclamation marks can go on the inside or the outside, depending upon the meaning of the sentence.


Examples:

1.      "Grammar rules are extensive," she said, "but they seem to be necessary."

2.      "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening": A beautiful poem of wintertime.
         I love "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"; it is my favorite poem by Robert Frost.

3.      I love "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"!
         She said, "I love stopping in the woods on a snowy evening!"
         Have you read "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"?
         "Have you ever stopped in the woods on a snowy evening?" she asked.


Did that answer all of your questions about quotation marks? :)

Oxford Comma

 

Yes, yes. I know I posted this picture just last month, and yes, I know I already covered the topic of commas, but after yesterday's hard grammar tip I thought we could use a funny one today.

Enjoy:

 

 

 

Mmm. Hmm.

That's right.