A while back I was looking at Aristotle’s poetics and thinking about how they applied to audio drama writing. I worked my way through the first 19 chapters and then came to a grinding halt. The 20th chapter was about grammar – specifically ancient Greek grammar. Besides being irrelevant (since its discussion concerned a language I have no interest in), the chapter basically stole my enthusiasm for continuing with the exploration. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more a short exploration of grammar has come to recommend itself to me.
You see, I never learned grammar at school. I just happen, like every Australian my age, to have been at school during the years when grammar was dropped from the curriculum in Australia.
This essay is for those, who like me were either taught English during the years that grammar was dropped from the curriculum or who may never have been taught it.
You can still write (and well) without a formal understanding of grammar, of course. Particularly if you have a good ear for the way people speak in real life (and you understand the rules of punctuation). But grammar is useful, among other things, for understanding how to repair sentences that have broken down and need to be “fixed”.
I came to grammar late. I wasn’t taught it at school, and I always felt at a disadvantage because of it. It wasn’t until I began studying other languages at university (German, Japanese, Hebrew, and Greek – none of which I am any good at) that I actually had a chance to learn grammar and discover its usefulness.
I promise that I will unpack the relevance of this for improving audio scriptwriting before we’re through, but to start with, I want to examine the basics.
THE PARTS OF SPEECH
For many of my vintage, grammar is an unknown country. A scary place full of esoteric labels and rules and cultural practices that we easily fall afoul of. And like visiting another country, grammar takes years of immersion to really understand (multiple volumes have been filled with the detail of English grammar). However, the basics aren’t that difficult.
To change the metaphor, understanding grammar is a little like learning to drive a car. You don’t need to be an expert in the combustion engine, and torque, and the way the parts must be tuned, in order to drive a car. There exists a bare minimum that you must know (and a great deal more that you could know) but the minimum will suffice to make driving possible.
To drive, you need to know three things.
- The car’s controls (brake, accelerator, gear-shift, steering wheel, lights, indicators, mirrors, wipers, ignition, etc.)
- The purpose and operation of those controls (speed up, turn, slow-down and stop, etc.)
- The rules and techniques of driving (right of way, traffic signals, speed limits, how to drive in a straight line, turn, parallel park, etc.).
The minimum understanding of grammar needed by the writer isn’t that different.
- The basic parts of speech
- What the parts of speech accomplish
- That rules govern their use.
So, this is my primer on English grammar, for those, who like me, might find such a thing useful.
Let’s begin with the parts of speech, namely: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
Verbs
Verbs are action words. They reveal what someone or something did (active verbs). What was done to someone or something (passive verbs). They also reveal its tense; when something happened (in the past, present, future, or if it is occurring right now).
- John hit (active, in the past) vs John was hit (passive, in the past)
- John hits (active, in the present) vs John is hit (passive, in the present)
- John will hit (active, in the future) vs John will be hit (passive, in the future)
- John is hitting (right now) vs John is being hit (passive, right now)
Good verbs (vivid and striking) bring writing to life (particularly if they are active – verbs are always stronger and more arresting when they are active).
- Billy slugged Bobby.
- The tires squealed to a stop.
- The wind warbled through the trees.
- The surf tore at the breakwater.
Nouns
Nouns are the names of people, places, or things (including ideas, qualities, or actions).
There are two types:
Proper nouns (names, always capitalized, that denote particular instances rather than groups) such as Daniel, Melbourne, Apollo Bay, Jane Eyre.
Common nouns (all other nouns, without capital letters, that denote groups or categories) such as man, woman, donkey, city, water, book.
Adjectives
Adjectives describe nouns. They are the primary way we add meaning to (or modify the meaning of) nouns. By adding an adjective we expand our understanding of the noun in some way.
- An outrageous man.
- An antique motor car.
- A cruel child.
Sometimes nouns are used as adjectives.
- A woman driver.
- Christmas decorations.
- Bedroom furniture.
Adverbs
Like adjectives expand our understanding of nouns, adverbs tell us something about verbs (indicating why, how, where or when the action takes place). Without adjectives, actions are very general and vague.
- He stood.
- She sang.
- The car ran.
Add an adverb and the phrase becomes far more specific, and easier to visualize.
- He stood impatiently.
- She sang badly.
- The car ran poorly.
Most adverbs are formed by adding -ly to an adjective. But some are formed differently; how, where, when and very, today, here, often, then, somewhere, nowhere and never.
Simple adverbs can be used to begin a sentence (referring back to what came previously)
- He watched television. Then we just talked.
- The movie was awful. Never have I see worse.
Pronouns
A pronoun takes the place of a name, usually the name of something or someone recently mentioned (for example, he, she, and it). The pronoun eliminates awkward repetition of the noun.
- When Martha came to work at the old brownstone, she changed many things.
- When Martha came to work at the old brownstone, it was badly in need of renovation.
- When Martha first came to work for Jim as his housekeeper, he seemed afraid of her. He would lock himself in his study until she had completed her duties.
Martha is referred to by the pronoun she; Jim, by the pronoun he; and the old brownstone by the pronoun, it.
There are many kinds of pronouns, but the most common are personal, relative, and indefinite pronouns.
Personal pronouns are specific and include I, me, we, us, he, him, she, her, you, it, they, them.
Relative pronouns tie sentence parts together and include who, which, whom, that, whose, of which, etc.
Indefinite pronouns are more general and include anybody, everybody, one, any, everyone, other, all everything, several, few, etc.
Prepositions
Prepositions connect the thing that is acting in the sentence (the thing to which the verb belongs – also known as the subject of the sentence) to other words in the sentence (including the object – the thing that is acted upon).
Ten propositions account for 95 percent of all those used in writing. These key prepositions are with, from, to, for, on, by, of, at, in, and like.
A prepositional phrase includes the preposition, the noun, and any added obejcts.
- “on the table”.
- “at the side of the road”
- “by the stream”
Conjunctions
Words that connect other words, phrases, and sentences are called conjunctions. These include and, but, for, although, as, since, because, when, and while.
An example of conjunctions connecting words can be found in H.M.S. Pinafore…
- There stood his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.
An example of phrases being connected would include…
- He hated her with a passion, but he was drawn to her despite, or perhaps because, of that hatred.
While taught as bad grammar by many (if not most teachers), it is not unheard of, in dialog, for sentences to sometimes begin with a conjunction (joining them to a previous, but interrupted, idea or connecting an afterthought to what has gone before).
- But I didn’t do it. I never left the house. And I’d know, wouldn’t I?
Interjections
These are words or syllables that stand-alone, unconnected (grammatically) to those around them. Examples include: Ah! Oh! Well! Eh? Huh? Phooey! Etc.
Using the parts of speech to diagnose problems with dialog
People do not use perfect grammar in their day-to-day speech. For this reason, alone we could be forgiven for wondering what relevance grammar has to the writing of dialog. Hopefully, this will whet your appetite to stay with me in these essays. Before I go, I want to leave you with two tips regarding issues that an understanding of the parts of speech can help the script-writer with.
Have you ever felt that your dialog has come off a little weak, but you can’t quite put your finger on the problem? While I want to wrap this particular essay up shortly, I did want to quickly identify two ways that understanding the parts of speech helps us diagnose problems in our dialog.
Firstly, there is a kind of “order of importance” to the parts of speech. The best word to express a given idea is usually a verb, the next best is a noun, the next after that is an adjective or an adverb. (The remaining four parts are grammatical machinery and not really important for this discussion).
To illustrate, read the following sentences.
- GEORGE – I ache to be a writer [emphasizing the verb]
- GEORGE – I constantly ache to be a writer [employing an adverb]
- GEORGE – My ambition is to be a writer [emphasizing the noun]
- GEORGE – I am an aspiring writer [employing an adjective]
It is clear that the strongest, most arresting sentence is the first. If your dialog feels a little weak, check whether an adverb or adjective is draining some of its strength. Then check whether you have expressed the idea with a strong verb in place of an emphasis on nouns.
I am constantly caught out by how often I sabotage my writing by constructing sentences of dialog around nouns instead of strong verbs.
Secondly, specific nouns and verbs tend to make meaning clear, while generic nouns and verbs modified by adjectives and adverbs tend to obscure or muddy meaning. If your writing feels vague and muddy, chances are it is due to the choices you have made regarding nouns and verbs.
Consider the following sentence…
- TEACHER: Forcefully utilize a large nail.
By using an adverb attached to a weak or generic verb (“forcefully utilize”), the language already feels forced and artificial. The adjective attached to the more generic noun (“large nail”) makes the line weaker still.
Now, compare it to…
- TEACHER: Hammer the spike.
The more specific verb, “hammer”, without being weakened by the addition of an adverb, and the more specific noun, “spike”, create a much stronger and clearer sentence. The sentence is more vivid (easier to picture), less ambiguous, more natural, and more forceful (impactful).
Next Time
Next time we’ll take a look at another way of classifying words that is helpful to our writing, explore what phrases, clauses, and common sentence types are, and take a deeper look at verbs.
Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2021 .
