Single inverted commas

Although it is usual to enclose a word under discussion in single inverted commas, I have chosen instead to emphasise it in red to prevent confusion with apostrophes.
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Friday 31 August 2012

USE OF ITALICS IN LITERATURE ESSAY

It is a convention, when writing about literature, to use italics for the titles of whole works. The titles of chapters, sections or individual poems are enclosed in double inverted commas.
In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, one of the most popular is "The Wife of Bath's Tale."

If you are handwriting an essay, use underlining to represent italics.

Monday 20 August 2012

ANACOLUTHON

This term is used when the speaker ends a sentence with a different grammatical construction from the one at the start. It is obviously common in everyday chat but is also a rhetorical device to indicate, usually, high emotion as when King Lear says:
     I will have such revenges on you both
     That all the world shall - I will do such things,
     What they are, yet I know not ... (Act II scene iv lines 277-279)
The dash in this Arden edition indicates the break in syntax.



Wednesday 8 August 2012

C and G

The consonants c and g make a soft sound (s and j) when they are followed by e, i or y.
Remember these phrases: city centre cyclist; gentle giant in the gym.
This rule becomes important when suffixing because you need to make sure that you keep the c or g soft by keeping the e: manageable, noticeable. You can drop the e when an i does the work: managing, noticing.

Some words have a u to stop the e making the g soft: guest, league.
Some words with a sh sound change the e to i: vicious.

Thursday 2 August 2012

SYMPATHETIC: two uses of the word

We normally use this word to mean that someone is kindly and understanding towards another person: Mrs Jennings is sympathetic towards Marianne in Sense and Sensibility.
We could also write: Mrs Jennings is a sympathetic character. This would mean that we, as readers, sympathise with her, warm to her and like her.

For more on this character and novel, see my website: Classics of English Literature: essays by Barbara Daniels