It pains me to say, that although I strive to make it toward the writer’s life, I’m terrible at grammar. I can just see my imaginary editor cringing and marking up my rough draft (my rough rough draft is almost complete!) with that horrible red pen. Grammar was never pounded into our brains. Instead, we learned about thematic issues and analyzation. I know what makes a powerful book and what doesn’t. I learned how to look beyond the lines because apparently, there is more meaning behind the sentence: Spot ran to the barn.

The last year of Latin was extremely difficult for me because of grammar. I could easily give a rough translation of what was given in the Aenid, but when told to make it pretty, it took ages to do because I had to remember what was in genitive case and what in the world was superlative. Because of my weak foundation in the English grammar, Latin grammar was…nearly hopeless.

However, I have just finished a sentence that includes the word ’sang’ in it. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to use ’sung’ instead (or even if ’sung’ was considered proper English), but after checking it in my handy dandy Barron’s Pocket Guide to Correct Grammar (which I’ve forgotten that I even bought over a year ago) I can now tell you that ’sung’ is in fact proper English and should only be used as a verbal adjective because it’s a past participle. What exactly is a past participle, you ask? Besides being really evil in Latin, they’re defined in Correct Grammar as:

A participle is a verbal used as an adjective….Past participle end in d, ed, t, n, en, as in eaten, finished: The smiling carpenter admired the finished product.

So, that’s the end to my wonderful and certainly interesting (to me) grammar lesson of the day! If I find anything else that I deem exciting or insightful, I shall post away!