The 8 Parts of Speech and Me by Heather Haven

I am married to a retired English teacher. Which is a good thing on a lot of levels. Not only is he a sweetheart but he takes out the trash and loads the dishwasher. Okay, not the way I would load it, but I need to let that go. Moving on, hubby is my go-to guy for all the parts of speech, which sometimes I don’t know. It’s not for want of trying. I do try. It’s just that it gets away from me. Maybe I’m so busy writing the words I don’t always know why I compile them the way I do. When I write a sentence it either feels right or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, I move everything around until it does.

Now, I do know a noun when I fall over it. A person, place, or thing. Tom is a noun. Good old Tom. I also know a verb. Whatever Tom is doing is a verb. Tom runs. Because I’m doing so well, we will move on to an adverb. Tom runs swiftly. Noun, verb, adverb. It helps that most adverbs end in “ly.” I like that. Also, I have just described Tom’s running ability. Adjective to follow. Tubby Tom runs swiftly. We have just described Tom. Although, how he can run swiftly being tubby is questionable. I’m tubby and can’t. Of course, I sit on my derriere all day writing parts of speech. It’s a wonder I can move at all.

But back to the parts of speech. While I am fairly clear on the four above, the remaining sometimes throw me. For instance, a preposition. Those are the teeny, little words, often no more than one to three letters long like “in,” “at,” “on,” “of,” and “to.” Remember good old Tom? Well, he’s stopped running and now he’s arrived at his destination, the friendly neighborhood bar. But is Tom in the bar or at the bar? Got me. I don’t always know and usually fudge it. Then when I reread it, I either keep it the way it is or change it to what feels better. And good grief, here’s another side of prepositions, the time frame stuff, such as “since,” “for,” “by,” “during,” “from…to,” “from…until,” “with,” and “within.” Well, Tom is going to stay at the bar until his wife comes to pick him up because he’s had it with running.

Conjunctions. These are  “and,” “since,” “for,” “by,” “during,” “from…to,” “from…until,” “with,” and “within.” Conjunctions allow me to make my run-on sentences. You know, the ones that never end. But I am a piker. The longest sentence award goes to: Jonathan Coe’s The Rotter’s Club, 13,955-word sentence. You can bet Mr. Coe used a lot of the above to accomplish that. I am not including Tom in any of this because he is tired from his run, imbibing, and listening to his wife tell him off about his imbibing, and wants to take a well-deserved nap. Conjunctions. You gotta love ’em.

Pronouns. I used to get these until the current move to make every “she” and “he” “her” and “him” into “they” and “them.” I understand and appreciate it all in theory, but I still don’t know how to speak it. When you’re talking about one person doing something or going somewhere but have to use the plural form is hard for me to do. Where is Tom going? They are going to the bar. Okay, I’m working on it.

Interjections. Wow! I do that a lot. Golly, gee, do I. For instance: Fer cryin’ out loud! Tom, put down that bottle. You’ve had enough.

Then we have past participles, predicates, and stuff like that. That’s when I need retired English professor hubby standing over my shoulder. Preferably with a martini in his hand. Tom and I have a few things in common.