The Grammar Guru
“(1) Here’s the deal,” said the fairy godmother. “You have to cook and clean for your lazy sisters, who (2) don’t come close to looking as good as you do, until this prince comes along and—”
“Hold it,” said Cinderella. “(3) You’re kidding, right? A prince? (4) That’ll be the day, when I play footsies with a prince! I (5) can’t stand royal people! They behave as if (6) they’re entitled to everything, all because (7) they’ve got stupid titles.”
Angrily, the fairy godmother banged the floor with her magic wand. “(8) I’m this close to turning you over to your godfather! He (9) doesn’t have half the scruples I do. I (10) could’ve abandoned you months ago, but I believe in trying as hard as I can with difficult godchildren!”
“Is that so!?” said Cinderella. “Name one thing I ever asked you to do for me!”
And so it went, into the night, until the fairy godmother threw up her hands and told Cindy to find herself another fairy tale, thank you very much.
Remember: When you’re scrunching two words together to make one word, put an apostrophe in the place of the letter or letters you’re leaving out, as in (1)—(10).
Quiz Scrunch time.
1) “(I am) really tired of my vocabulary,” chirped one parakeet to the other.
2) “(Do not) complain to me about words,” said the other parakeet. “At least (you have) learned more than how to ask for a lousy cracker in English!”
3) “One of these days, (they are) going to make me lose my patience with their stupid lessons, and (they will) regret ever starting up with me,” said the first parakeet.
Answers
1) “I’m” (The other parakeet continued cleaning his feathers.)
2) “Don’t/you’ve” (The first parakeet said, “You think ‘pretty bird’ lights my fire?!”)
3) “They’re/they’ll” (“Oh, puh-leez,” said the other parakeet, chortling, and feathers began to fly.)
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