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Grammar Day Quiz Answer Key

Sorry this is late. I promised tomorrow; I lied.

Correct the Celebrity Answer Key

1. Which album title has the spelling error?
a. “Dutchess,” by Fergie
b. “Growing Pains” by Mary J. Blige
c. “Graduation” by Kanye West
d. None of the above

2. What’s wrong with this lyric by Justin Timberlake?
“When you cheated girl, My heart bleeded girl.”

a. It’s perfect as it is. Leave Justin alone!
b. “Bleeded” is not a word. “Bled” is.
c. There should be commas before and after “girl.”
d. Both b and c are correct.

3. Circle the errors Paris Hilton made blogging about her new shoe collection. (Hint: there are at least three!)
“Don’t worry, [unnecessary comma] if you arent [aren't] in Orange County, [should be a semicolon] you can also get the shoes at Kitson, Zappos.com, Endless.com, Bakers, Lord & Taylor and select specialty boutiques across the counrty” [country, also needs a period]

 [Alternative interpretation] “Don’t worry, [should be a semicolon] if you arent [aren't] in Orange County, you can also get the shoes at Kitson, Zappos.com, Endless.com, Bakers, Lord & Taylor and select specialty boutiques across the counrty” [country, also needs a period]

4. Correct the following movie titles:
a. How She Move (How She Moves)
b. The Pursuit of Happyness (The Pursuit of Happiness)
c. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (Honey, I Shrank the Kids/ Honey, I've Shrunk the Kids)
d. The 40 Year Old Virgin (The 40-Year-Old Virgin)

5.Circle the error in this statement by Christina Aguilera:
Today is a very joyful and special day for Jordan and I [“I” should be “me”] as we welcome our first son into this world.

6. What’s wrong with this David Hasselhoff quote?
“I am also doing a heart-rendering set on my life and the mistakes I have made.”

a. There should be a comma after life.
b. “heart-rendering” doesn’t need a hyphen.
c. “heart-rendering” should be “heart-rending”
d. The sentence is fine as is.

7. One of Jessica Simpson’s boyfriends dumped her via text message. The related headline
contains an error. What is it?

Jessica Dumped in 118 Characters or Less.

Jessica Dumped in 118 Characters or Fewer. “Less” is for amounts you can't count individually, and “fewer” is for quantities you can count—such as characters.
©
2008
SPOGG

How obnoxious, I know.

This quiz and its answers are courtesy of http://www.nationalgrammarday.com/

Comments

  1. It's really Jordan and "me" not "I" - why is that? I prefer to say me, but I would've thought I was wrong.

    I have an award for you at my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooh, I got two wrong! *ducks head* I need to brush up!

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  3. Mary: the easiest way to check if something should be "so-and-so and I" or "so-and-so and me" is to replace it with us or we. Remember that us goes with me and I goes with we. You would never say "for we"; you'd always use "for us," right? Another way to check is just dump the Jordan part, which leaves you with "for me." "For I" would sound weird. The technical reason: use "I" when it's a subject, "me" when it's an object: "Jordan and I are happy," for example (Jordan and I are the subject of the sentence).

    Laura: Shame on you! And shame on me, too. I missed two also. That's why we have Grammar Girl to help us out, right?

    ReplyDelete
  4. And Mary, I got so excited about the grammar question I forgot to thank you for the award. Thank you! But I have to tell you, I'm really bad about passing those on. I'll try to repent and do better this time. I think. :)

    Also, I just realized that I spelled "Answer" wrong (I wrote "Anwer") in my post title. It's fixed now, but I thought it was ironic in a post that mocks spelling and grammar mistakes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Okay - I think I've got it. Thanks for the explanation. It's fine with me if you don't want to pass the award on. It's a fun one though where you get to write five lies and one truth and see if people can guess which one is true.

    ReplyDelete

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