When Grammatical Terms Walk into a Bar
A few weeks ago I was inspired by a Facebook post I’d seen to post the following:
The Past, the Present and the Future walked into a bar. It was Tense!
Suddenly I was hooked and the grammatical terms walking into a bar just started flowing out on my Facebook page. I thought it would be fun to collect them all here in a blog. Enjoy!
Two Verbs walked into a bar. There was a lot of action.
A Plural Subject and a Singular Verb walked into a bar. There was a lack of agreement.
A Participle walked into a bar alone. It was dangling.
To, Clearly and See walked into a bar. They were a split Infinitive.
An Imperative Verb walked into a bar and started giving orders.
Two Imperative Verbs walked into a bar. They were in command.
An Imperative and an Indicative walked into a bar. They were in different Moods.
An Indicative Verb walked into a bar and started stating facts.
An Interrogative Verb walked into a bar but was unable to make an order. It wasn’t in the right Mood.
Two Passive Verbs walked into a bar. They had Subjects without any Objects.
The Verb Do and the Verb make actively walked into a bar.
The Verb Done and the Verb Made were walked into a bar by their Helping Verbs.
Done and Made walked into a bar. They didn’t do or make anything. They were Passive.
Is walked into a bar singularly but Are walked in as a Plural.
The Auxiliary Verbs walked into a bar to help with the action.
A Plural Subject and a Singular Verb walked into a bar but couldn’t reach an Agreement.
Verbs work especially well walking into a bar, but now, let’s move away from verbs to other parts of speech:
Oh ad Hey walked into a bar. There were great Exclamations.
Ten Proper Nouns walked into a bar. There was a lot of Name-calling.
A Person a Place and a Thing walked into a bar. They were all Nouns.
Three Adjectives walked into a bar and modified the place.
A Preposition walked into a bar followed by its Object.
A Prepositional Phrase walked into a bar with all due care.
Two Conjunctions walked into a bar and made a couple of connections.
I, You and They walked into a bar. They realized they were different persons.
I walked into the bar first. You walked into the bar second. She walked into the bar third.
A Noun walked into a bar and left quickly. A Pronoun took his place.
The Adverbs Happily and Quickly walked into a bar.
An Indefinite Article walked into a bar and couldn’t decide what to order.
The Definite Article walked into a bar and knew exactly what to order.
A Positive and a Superlative Adjective walked into a bar. They were not Comparative.
Good, Better and Best walked into a bar. Better and Best could not decide what to order. Good was Positive.
An Interjection walked into a bar. Wow!
More grammatical terms:
A First Person Singular and a First Person Plural walked into a bar. I proposed a beer. We agreed.
A First Person Singular and a First Person Plural walked into a bar. You didn’t.
Singular and Plural walked into a bar. Singular had just one beer while Plural had several.
Three Genders walked into a bar. It was too hot for Masculine, too cold for Feminine. Neuter said it was Neither.
A Subject walked into a bar looking for its Verb.
An Indirect Object walked into a bar. The bartender gave it a drink.
A Direct Object walked into a bar. The bartender sent it away.
And here are some about different kinds of phrases and sentences:
A Compound Sentence walked into a bar and the bartender asked them what they wanted to drink.
An Interrogative walked into a bar and started asking questions.
A Declarative Sentence walked into a bar and made a statement.
A Subordinate Clause walked into a bar and announced that it was just a hanger-on.
The Purpose Clause walked into a bar to order a beer.
The Result Clause walked into a bar and ordered so many beers that it got drunk.
The Wish Clause walked into a bar and got drunk. Would that it had resisted temptation.
The Contrary-to-Fact Clause walked into a bar. If it had not, it would not have gotten drunk.
An Incomplete Sentence walked into a bar to look for its missing Subject.
Now on to punctuation marks:
A Period and a Comma walked into a bar and got into a heated argument which the Period ended.
Three Periods walked into a bar together. The bartender asked them what they’d have. They replied . . .
A Quotation Mark walked into a bar and said “I’m looking for my missing buddy.
An End Quote walked into a bar and said Have you seen my buddy?”
An Exclamation Point walked into a bar and ordered a round for everyone!
An Apostrophe walked into a bar to take possession of the place.
An Apostrophe walked into a bar. The letter S followed because it was Singular.
An Apostrophe and the Letter S walked into a bar. The S entered first because they made a Plural.
And Apostrophe inspired me to move on to Figures of Speech:
An Apostrophe walked into a bar. The bartender asked what it’d have. It replied “O foamy beer, I order you!”
An Idiom walked into a bar like a bird on a wing.
An Idiom walked into a bar and drank a beer with a grain of salt.
An Hysteron Proteron walked into a bar and said “I paid my tab, I drank my beer, I placed my order.”
Alliteration walked into a bar and bought a biscuity, bread-like beer bound to be blissful.
Metonymy walked into a bar and ordered a pint.
Oxymoron walked into a bar. There was a deafening silence.
Hyberbole walked into a bar and said it was so thirsty it could drink a river dry.
Synecdoche walked into a bar, placed an order and asked if it could pay with plastic.
A Euphemism walked into a bar and had one too many.
Anastrophe and Yoda walked into a bar and said “Two beers we’d like.”
Anaphora walked into a bar, had a drink and said “I came, I ordered, I drank.”
Antanaclasis walked into a bar, got drunk and said “My time isn’t wasted when I’m getting wasted.”
Litotes walked into a bar. After tasting a local craft beer recommended by the bartender, Litotes said “Not bad.”
Onomatopoeia walked into a bar and ordered a beer. Then it slurped, gulped and burped.
And, finally, here are some based upon foreign languages:
A Singular Verb and a Plural Verb walked into a Greek bar and the bartender asked them where their Dual was.
An Active Verb and a Passive Verb walked into a Greek bar and the bartender asked them where their Middle was.
A Greek Neuter Plural Subject and a Singular Verb walked into a bar in actual Agreement.
An Acute Accent walked into a French bar, felt a sharp thirst, and ordered an aperitif.
A Grave Accent walked into a French bar and, voilà, made a serious friend.
A Circumflex Accent walked into a French bar and told the young (jeune) bartender to go on a diet (jeûne).
A Tilde walked into a Puerto Rican bar and ordered a piña colada.
An Umlaut walked into a German bar, ordered a beer and declared it süffig.
A Diaeresis Mark walked into a French bar and naïvely began separating Vowels.
A Diaeresis Mark walked into a German bar, saw the Umlaut and said it was its Doppelgänger.
The letter È walked into an Italian bar (not a café) and ordered a caffè.