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The hyphen is used in all sorts of different situations, from making compound words to uniting adjectives to joining prefixes to words that have to...
ACT English 1.1 Punctuation 655 Views
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Description:
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 1, Problem 1. Choose the correct punctuation for this sentence.
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Grandmothers. They'll let you do all
- 00:08
the stuff your parents won't, because... what do they care?
- 00:12
My grandmother a true artist decided it was time for me to learn to paint.
- 00:19
And here are the possible answers...
- 00:25
Well, as is, this sentence just sounds weird.
Full Transcript
- 00:29
It's very unlikely that "Grandmother-a-true-artist" is your grandmother's name
- 00:34
Based on the context, the subject of the sentence is actually just... grandma.
- 00:38
That would make "a true artist" an appositive phrase.
- 00:43
An appositive phrase drops in another name, or something that defines the previous subject,
- 00:48
with two well-placed commas surrounding it.
- 00:50
These say, "My grandma doesn't just bake amazing apple pie, she's an artist too."
- 00:57
Well, we know A can't be true, because right
- 00:59
now the sentence doesn't make sense. D is out as well... unless you have a "grandmother
- 01:03
A" to distinguish her from grandmothers B and C...
- 01:07
In option C, there's only one comma, so the appositive phrase isn't appropriately
- 01:12
jailed like we want it to be. We need commas on both sides. We're sticking
- 01:16
to our guns on this one. Now all that's left is B. It works because
- 01:18
the appositive phrase is surrounded by two commas. Just the way we like it.
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