Monday, February 22, 2016

Convoluted Writing

A parody of “Messy Room” by Shel Silverstein featuring the rules of grammar from the “swag and usage” website
Convoluted Writing
Whosever writing this is should be ashamed!
Knowledge of basic rules of grammar he doesn’t show.
The pronoun matches its antecedent for pronoun agreement,
And this is a rule he should know.

He should know how to use the active voice.
The subject always performs the action.
Not using the active voice is not a good choice,
The passive voice? That’s just a distraction!

He doesn’t pay attention in English class,
He forgets the rules of capitalization.
If mentioning a country is the aim, uppercase for its name:
All you need is this slight alteration.

He rambles on and on through his writing.
He could learn a thing or two about concision.
If he could write more clearly, we could enjoy his writing more dearly,
Then he could avoid this derision!

I can’t tell what words he’s describing,
Misplaced modifiers are found all around.
It’s impossible to understand, was this mistake planned?
Which adjective is describing this noun?

Parallelism is an important topic he ignores,
Components of sentences should be similar in construction.
If you choose the infinitive, it must be definitive,
Someone needs to give this writer some instruction!

The writer can’t distinguish commonly confused words.
The difference between less and fewer he can’t tell.
And his pronoun cases are used in the wrong places,
Who instead of whom, can he spell?

The writer needs to separate these sentences.
There are run on sentences and comma splices throughout.
The verb used with this subject doesn’t match, it’s incorrect.
He needs subject and verb agreement, without a doubt.

Whosever writing this is should be ashamed!
He broke every rule of “swag and usage.”
Huh? You say it’s mine? Oh dear,

I knew it looked familiar!

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