Storytellersunplugged

George Guthridge

One of the comments the last time I wrote regarded my having used “abstract” as a verb. Since one of the two workbook/DVD series I am writing involves grammar, I thought the comment might be an interesting springboard.

First, yes, Toto, “abstract” is a verb – it’s not even a rare usage. I would say “Look it up,” but that is a poor teaching practice where parts of speech are concerned. Although “abstract” is listed as a verb in both of my dictionaries, entries in most dictionaries often do not include all of a word’s uses. For example, neither of my dictionaries lists “spider” as a verb, but we all know it can be used that way: “Each summer, climbers spider along the West Ridge on their way to the summit.”

Stephen King once remarked that defining “verb” in its typical ways is cumbersome and, frankly, not very useful. (I often ask students new to college what a verb is. Most say it is “an action word,” although most of the times we use verbs we do not use action words.) If I remember correctly – I just moved to the Caribbean for a year and do not access to most of my books – Steve said that “verb” should be defined by a simple test: “They _______.” Fill in the blank, and it’s a verb.

He is almost correct. First, with only that test you end up with the base form: “They go.” We have to add a second test: “It _________.”

Even then the tests only account for about 85 percent of all verbs. For example, we are not supposed to say, “They done” or “It done,” although many people do.

My basic working method in creating this writing/grammar series is that I would not accept as gospel anything I had learned as a child. Most grammar books can trace their genealogy back to A Short Introduction to English Grammar, written by Bishop Robert Lowth in 1762. The book is not just riddled with errors; its foundation was in error. He believed that Adam and Eve spoke Hebrew, that Latin is based on Hebrew, and that English is based on Latin. It’s a good thing that baseball had not yet been invented, because Lowth just struck out.

A second problem that I faced is that the parts of speech are definitional. I often ask the English teachers I train what a noun is. They smile knowingly and tell me it is “a person, place, thing, or idea” just like their textbooks say. I then ask them what an idea is. When they tell me it is a concept (or similar definition), I ask them what a concept is. “A thought,” they tell me, so I ask them what a thought is and what its part of speech is. Sooner or later we arrive back at “idea” and “a noun.” The smiles begin to disappear.

Because of the circular reasoning that all definitions involve, for this grammar series I have created a no-definition approach. A verb is “They _________” (initially you need to include a period, so students will not say “They therefore”) or “It _________.”

The system forms a flowchart from several such tests of the parts of speech – some of which I created, some of which I stole, and some of which I modified from something similar.

I immediately encountered a third problem: how could students remember the flowchart? Then one day my son kicked my ass in chess. He was ten at the time, so being the good dad that I am, I made up an excuse: “I was thinking of grammar.” (That brought an even greater grin out of him.) It was not a complete lie, for my mind was indeed on grammar and not on the game.

My approach to teaching the parts of speech – an approach I adopted following that game – is to liken the flowchart to a Medieval society. The analogy fits fairly well.

The verb is the queen. Like her counterpart in chess, she is the system’s most powerful piece. Next are the bishops, which for reasons of political correctness I term her “oddball advisors” rather than “oddball bishops.”

These “oddball verbs” together make up the last 15 percent of verbs that do not pass the two verb tests. They fall into five categories. After some thrashing around, I came up with I AM TENTING (with a picture of someone camping) for a mnemonic device:

The “I” is there merely to making the device a sentence.

“AM” stands for “am” but also for “be.” The only real difference between them is that “am” can stand alone – “I am tired” – but (except in Black English) “be” cannot.

The first “T” stands for “to,” which becomes a verb when it is followed by a verb. You and I know that is an infinitive, but there really is no need to foist yet another part of speech onto students unless they intend to become English majors. (Incidentally, one problem with grammar is that most grammar books insist there are eight parts of speech – and then add infinitives, gerunds, participles, and articles, among other types, in an attempt to make everything fit.)

The second “T” stands for two-word verbs – technically, a form of particle called phrasal verbs. The test for such verbs is simple: start with the word to be tested and, if you can turn around the sentence, then it is not a verb. If, however, the main verb’s magnetism is strong, then the particle cannot move. Thus, “up” in “Santa wrinkled up his nose” is a verb; in “Santa went up the chimney” it is not.

The “EN” stands for oddball verbs ending in the “n” sound: known, shown, proven, done, gone, etc. This simple system enables me to reduce the frustration that students often feel when having to wade through irregular verbs. Too, it has almost no exceptions. For example, the only “n” sound exception is “swum.”

The ING stands for words ending in –ing. Those usually are verbs. After students master the queen and her oddball advisors, they discover that –ing words can also be a noun (the king) or, far less commonly, an adjective, the first of the three commoner parts of speech.

How effective is the method? Several years ago I gave 50 students age 18 to 55 a simple test: I asked them to identify the nouns and verbs in ten sentences – one of the easiest undertakings there are regarding the parts of speech. Though these were business English students – and thus, one would think, well motivated – 80 percent missed at least 80 percent of the sentences.

I then taught the students the flowchart and ran a second test with similar sentences. This time, 80 percent got 80 percent correct. However, they did not just identify the nouns and verbs. This time I had asked them to identify all the parts of speech.

—-GG