To usher in this eloquent grammatical tirade, twelve-year old character, Paloma Jesse, writes Profound Thought No. 10 in her journal. In this entry, the youngster tells of a schoolmate who puts voice to the question on every student’s mind, “What’s the point of grammar?”

As the teacher huffs, “The point is to make us speak and write well,” Paloma’s blood boils. “I thought I would have a heart attack then and there. I have never heard anything so grossly inept.”

She, or rather Barbery, proceeds to defend the wondrous essence of grammar as if it were a smell or taste to be savored. “Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty. When you speak, or read, or write, you can tell if you’ve said or read or written a fine sentence. You can recognize a well-turned phrase or an elegant style. But when you are applying the rules of grammar skillfully, you ascend to another level of the beauty of language. When you use grammar you peel back the layers, to see how it is all put together, see it quite naked, in a way. And that’s where it becomes wonderful, because you say to yourself ‘Look how well-made this is, how well-constructed it is! How solid and ingenuous, rich and subtle.”

As Barbery illuminates the nuance of grammar, her reader is enticed to delight in the way beautifully crafted language, like a dazzling sunset or moving sonata, can enrich the senses and soul. When composed as “end in itself,” grammar is magically transformed from basic tool to work of art, “…it becomes obvious that grammar is an end in itself and not simply a means: it provides access to the structure and beauty of language, it’s not some trick to help people get by in society.”

The free tool’s friendly interface is easy to use and allows children to listen to a word, or hear it in a sentence, before typing their answer. For more challenging lists students can choose the “teach” button to have each word spelled and defined prior to taking the practice test. For extra practice, the site can also use spelling lists to generate word searches and scramblers, matching games, alphabetized lists, and crossword puzzles.

The College Board, which administers the test, said its surveys and checks of university websites show that 56 percent of the roughly 1,000 four-year colleges do not use the writing section for admissions, although the overwhelming majority of the nation’s 61 most selective colleges use it in some fashion.

Criticism about the essay has been building for more than a year since an MIT professor’s experiment indicated that students could get high scores simply by writing longer and throwing in big words.

A claimed advantage of the writing test is that students who prepare for it see a general improvement in their writing. Not so, says Les Perelman, director of MIT’s writing program.

“They’ve learned to write paragraph essays where they don’t care whether the facts are correct,” Perelman said. “We have to spend a year in freshman composition deprogramming them.”

1. Apostrophes are used to denote missing letters in a contraction.

For instance can’t for cannot, isn’t for is not, it’s for it is.

2. Apostrophes are used to denote possession. However, they are not used for possessive pronouns!

The teacher’s book. (A book that belongs to a teacher.)
The teachers’ book. (A book that belongs to more than one teacher.)
The teachers’ books. (More than one book belonging to more than one teacher.)
The book is yours. Its cover is blue. His is new. Hers is new too.

3. Apostrophes are not used for plurals.

I have hundreds of CDs from the 90s.

For a great review, check out Lynch’s Guide to Grammar on the apostrophe and it’s versus its.

Ain’t. There’s a venerable bit of schoolyard wisdom: “Ain’t ain’t in the dictionary, so ain’t ain’t a word.” There’s only one problem with this pithy apothegm: it ain’t true. …

Clearly, Obviously, Undoubtedly. My English professor instincts kick in — my Spidey-Sense starts tingling — whenever I see these words. Too often they’re used when something is unclear and doubtful, but the author simply doesn’t know how to make the point convincingly. …

Wasted Words. Many words and phrases rarely add anything to a sentence. Avoid these whenever you can. A very short list of some of these offenders: Quite, very, extremely, as it were, moreover, it can be seen that, it has been indicated that, basically, essentially, totally, completely, therefore, it should be remembered that, it should be noted that, thus, it is imperative that, at the present moment in time. These are fine in their place, but they often slither into your writing with the sinister purpose of tempting you into the sin of padding your sentences.

There are many sites online (like the Write Place Catalogue) where you can find some similar information free, but it won’t sway anyone – and it might be wrong.

If you’re looking for a great student’s writing guide, then get Strunk & White’s Elements of Style (at Amazon). Recently updated, this guide (first published as Strunk & White’s in 1959) is still required reading in many English classes. And, at 100 pages, it’s an easy and (I recall) an enjoyable read.