Aunt Ruth Grammar Drills for Excellence, a set of worksheets that is a companion document to I Laid an Egg on Aunt Ruth's Head, was released today and is available for purchase on www.AuntRuthGrammar.com. The worksheets, currently available on CD, comprise about 130 pages of questions and answers. It's perfect for the classroom or home school setting.
Preface
Communication is a funny thing, and it is important enough that we ought to take care to ensure that we get it right. Nearly every day, though, I find that I have made some blunder, and that reminds me of the fact that none of us is perfect. As one of my editors was reading the chapter on split infinitives in I Laid an Egg on Aunt Ruth's Head, he found an unintentional split infinitive. Even when I try to be careful, I am capable of getting it wrong.
Mastering grammar is a lifelong process. For those of us who enjoy playing with words and writing as succinctly as possible, it is an enjoyable journey. For others it is no doubt dreary (at best) and perhaps embarrassingly cumbersome – the albatross that refuses to fly away.
Just as some will shout with glee when presented a math puzzle, and others will shriek and faint if they spy a fraction from a hundred yards away, so it is with anything that smells of an English grammar lesson. There are those of us in life who perk up when we sense a pun in the air or when we observe the turn of a phrase in a favorite piece of literature. We laugh; we weep; we rejoice; we despair. There are also those of us in life who could not care less that the proper phrase is “could not care less” and not “could care less.”
It is important to learn multiplication tables. Having an argument with the cashier at a grocery store when you are purchasing eight items at twelve cents each, because he or she says the total is ninety-six cents and you think the total should only be ninety-four cents, is not good for anybody.
So it is with grammar. Speaking or writing clearly is not a luxury. It is a responsibility. Granted, most of us learn to speak in a way similar to the rest of the inhabitants of the household where we were raised, for better or for worse. All of us, though, can improve from that point going forward. Sure, it can be tough trying to resolve dangling participles or catching the split infinitives, but we all should be able to learn how to match verbs with subjects and pronouns with verbs. This is he, not this is him. Each of us is capable, not each of us are capable. Its color is green and its back is scaly, not it's color is green and it's back is scaly. By the way, it's sitting on your shoulder.
Lessons (in nearly anything) can be fun and interesting, and that is the goal of these worksheets. It is my hope that these worksheets are useful to the student and teacher alike, and that the valuable lessons in I Laid an Egg on Aunt Ruth's Head will become even more accessible through the effort to produce these drills.
There are many who deserve thanks for their efforts in helping me review and edit this book. My wife, Michelle, and my children – Alex, Nathan, Laura, and Aaron (the four charter members of the Grammar Police) – have offered correction, insight, and encouragement when I needed it most. My sister-in-law, Anita, and my sister, Jen, also found mistakes and saved me from embarrassment. And finally, a huge thanks goes to my friend and grammatical conscience, Mr. Scot Hahn, for his herculean effort in helping me hone this document into a work of art.
Well, whether it is a masterpiece or not, I promise that it will be a boatload of fun. Teachers will love me; students will curse me; and the earth may be a better place because of it. At any rate, it sure beats shoving bamboo chutes underneath your fingernails.
Joel Schnoor
December 9, 2009
