The Grammar Guru
“Harriet is getting worse, doctor,” said Mrs. Hinkle.
“How so?”
“Well.” Mrs. Hinkle paused and adjusted the phone to her ear.
The doctor rolled his eyes. “Yes?!” he barked at his speaker phone.
“I, well, she— Struggling to control himself, the doctor said, “I cannot help you, if I don’t know what the problem is!”
Mrs. Hinkle sighed. “The other day, Harriet said she was going to the country store, and I reminded her that there is no country store here. This is a city. Harriet said, ‘Not that kind of store, Mom. I’m going to the country store to buy Belgium.’ Of course, doctor, I was incredulous. Wouldn’t you be?”
The doctor, who was not sure what “incredulous” meant, knocked loudly on his desk several times, and said, “My next appointment is here. Goodbye.”
Mrs. Hinkle stared at the phone. “What incredibly bad behavior,” she said.
Harriet, who’d been eavesdropping, said, “That man needs his head examined. By the way, I’m going shopping, Mom. Want a piece of Peru?”
Remember: incredible— unbelievable
incredulous—stunned, disbelieving
Quiz
1) Simon, who was reading a science magazine, said, “Get this, Simone. Millions of years ago, scorpions were as big as cars. Isn’t that (incredulous/incredible)?”
2) “We’re going to have a race,” said the tortoise to the hare, “and I’m going to win.” Naturally, the hare was (incredible/ incredulous).
3) “The side effects of this appetite killer are (incredulously/ incredibly) disturbing,” Wilma told the Do Diet Do counselor.
Answers
1) incredible (Simone said, “Imagine the cans of bug spray!”)
2) incredulous (The hare grinned. Flashing a fifty-dollar bill, he said, “Care to make it interesting?”)
3) incredibly (“Really, Wilma,” said the counselor. “You’ve gone from a size 20 to a size 6. Isn’t that worth a bigger nose and smaller nostrils?”)
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