World Juris - English

Imperatives! What are they? Plain and simply, they are commands. Let's review, a simple sentence in English has a Subject and a Verb. The structure looks like so: S+V The sentence may also have an Object [but it is not always the case]. The structure of this type of sentence will look like: S+V+O. In theory, the imperative will have the S+V+O structure. In practice, the imperative will only have a verb and an object - V+O. Why? It is understood that the subject of the sentence is "YOU". Examples: "Close the door!", "Tie your shoes!", or "Get over here!". When giving these commands, the speaker will understand that they are being given instructions/commands. The person giving instructions/commands usually makes a non-verbal gesture  (such as pointing) to mean a specific person or it is understood if there are only two people in a room/an area. In practice, it sounds strange to say "You, tie your shoes!" when the

There are only three article in the entire English language - A, AN, and THE.   A and An are used for singular items, when there are many.  The article An is used for words that start with a vowel [a,e,i,o,u] – an apple, an egg, an attorney, an apartment, etc… OR the pronunciation of said word sounds like the word starts with a vowel – an hour.  The article A is used for words that usually start with a consonant – a car, a flat, a teacher, etc… . It should be noted that A and An can be used with adjectives. In English, the adjective comes before the noun and so the article used will be dictated by the letter that the adjective starts with, not the noun.     Examples:   1.         A teacher   2.         An impressive teacher; a impressive teacher   3.         An hour   4.         A long hour, an long hour The articles A / AN are called indefinite articles. They are usually used to introduce an idea into the conversation. Example:  1.       

Lecture 18: Word Stress (cont.); Stress in Compounds Lecture 19: Stress in Compounds (cont.); Sentence Stress and Rhythm Lecture 20: Rhythm (cont.); Prominence Lecture 21: Prominence (cont.); Student Debate Yoo, Isaiah.  21F.223 Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation, Fall 2004 . (MIT OpenCourseWare:MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology), http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/21f-223-listening-speaking-and-pronunciation-fall- 2004  (Accessed 19 Jul, 2014). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

This is a continuation on the use of conjunctions. In law, conjunctions are VERY important. Conjunctions are used to establish certain elements of a crime, or they can also establish requirements by a law abiding citizen in order to come into compliance with the law. To recap let's briefly cover the use of conjunctions, particularly AND and OR. AND is used to combine ideas. Or is used for choices. The following is an excerpt from the 2013 Florida Statutes, Chapter 815, Computer-Related crimes --  2013 Florida Statutes, Chapter 815, Computer Related Crimes, Offenses Against Computer Users   815.06 - Offenses against computer users. (1)  Whoever willfully, knowingly, and without authorization: (a)  Accesses or causes to be accessed any computer, computer system, or computer network; (b)  Disrupts or denies or causes the denial of computer system services to an authorized user of such computer system services, which, in whole or part, is owned by, under contr

Awhile back a student asked me about conjunctions, coordinating conjunctions specifically. She knew the basics, but she wanted to expand her use of conjunctions. This post will briefly cover the use of coordinating conjunctions. To begin with, let's recap that a simple sentence in English has a Subject, a Verb and an Object (S+V+O ) [e.g. I ate pizza.] An object is not necessary, but usually there is one. Without an object the sentence structure looks like (S+V) [e.g. I ate.] There are three (3) more variations to the simple sentence besides the (S+V) structure. (S+V+V) - I ate and danced. (S+S+V) - Stacy and I danced. (S+S+V+V) Stacy and I ate and danced. Now, a compound sentence in English has a Subject and a Verb, followed by a conjunction, followed by another Subject and another Verb. The structure looks like this: [S+V, (Conjunction) S+V] [e.g. Stacy danced, and I ate.] Altogether there are seven coordinating conjunctions. They are: AND, BUT, OR, NOR, FOR, SO, a

One of the most important documents in American history hinges its meaning based on punctuation. This is why punctuation is important. The document in question is the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was authored by Thomas Jefferson (3rd President of the U.S.), which (was the work of many hands [paraphrase]). The difference discussed in the article is the difference between a period/full-stop and a comma in the following quote, particularly after the word Happiness: " “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.   That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institu