P. S. Mini Lesson

We are all glad that you can play, Ms. Viv. [You] Please use a larger font so that the colors will stand out more. Also, [you] please use black for everything that is not a subject or the subject's verb.

As a reminder to all, please use a larger font so that the colors stand out more. Use black for all the writng except for the subject and verb.
SUBJECT = BROWN
THE SUBJECT'S VERB = GRAPE
EVERYTHING ELSE = BLACK

*Star* *Star* *Star* *Star* *Star* *Star* *Star* *Star* *Star* *Star*


Below is a Mini-grammar lesson. You are not required to learn any of it. It is a bonus to you, free of charge. Learn from it what you will. Save it for later if it's too much for you right now. This will not affect your grade, nor will it affect your standing in the Merit Badge Game. (Well, I guess it could help you get more right answers.) Wink


Mini-grammar Lesson

1. The subject of a sentence tells us who the sentence is about, who performs an action, and so forth.
Ms. Pat forgot to open Lesson Three last night. *Blush*

2. There may be more than one subject performing the same action.
Bob and Joy have both played the Merit Badge Game.

3. There may be more than one subject because it is a compound sentence with two subjects and two verbs.
Princess Punctuation changed the rules for Ms. Viv, and Ms. Viv thanked everyone for helping her play.

4. Don't let gerunds, participles, and the infinitive form of verbs trick you. We won't study these at great length, but they are tripping students up, so I need to point some examples out to help you.

I am not an expert myself and intend to study grammar rules so I can be a better punctuation teacher. However, I have learned that "to" is the infiintive from of "point." This takes it out of the running for the subject's verb. It acutally becomes a noun.
To point at others is rude. It's the subject of this sentence!
She did not want to point out his errors. It is the object of the verb. What is it that she did not want? to point out his errors

I am not treading further because I would be out of my depth at this point.

A gerund is a verb that acts like a noun. It ALWAYS ends with ing. It follows the real subject's verb.
She hated carrying water from the creek up the hill to her house. What did she hate? carrying water

A participle is a verb that ends with ed or ing, or is the past tense of a verb. A participial phrase modifies a noun that is somewhere in the preceding part of the sentence. If it is not next to the participle, a comma must precede the participial phrase. If it directly follows the noun, no comma is needed.

Bob rushed to the link for Lesson Three, finding that it was still closed. Since Lesson Three is not the noun that does the finding, a comma is necessary. Bob is the noun, and he is not right beside the participle.

Joy looked in on her children playing quietly together.
This time the noun, children, is right next to the participle, so no comma is needed. Can you see that the children are doing the playing, not Joy?

DISCLAIMER: THE GRAMMAR IN THIS POST IS NOT A REQUIRED PART OF PUNCTUATION STATION.

SOME STUDENTS WERE ASKING QUESTIONS THAT DESERVED ANSWERS.

MANY STUDENTS ARE MISTAKING INFINITIVE VERB FORMS, GERUNDS, AND PARTICIPIAL PHRASES FOR THE SUBJECT'S VERB.

PLEASE LEARN WHAT YOU WANT TO FROM THIS POST, AND DON'T WORRY IF YOU AREN'T READY FOR THIS.

AT LEAST, YOU KNOW THE NAMES SO YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE ON SOME GOOD GRAMMAR SITES. (CHECK OUR RESOURCE PAGE BY CLICKING ON THE TRACKS LINE AT THE TOP OF EVERY PAGE.)

I will continue to show you many good examples of subjects and verbs in my posts. Hopefully, this will also help you learn to recognize them yourself.