English Doesn’t Have Many Inflections

—so word order is important. And unlike many languages, in English adjectives generally come before the word they modify. Read the sign:

So it’s a free zone, not free of judgement. Pig was assuming it was a judgement-free zone, compound adjective modifying “free.”

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First, here’s the comic. First panel:

It’s supposed to be “to whom,” (whomever) right? No! Not this time!

Remember the rule: go from the inside out.

“Whomever” is the subject of the clause whose verb is “wants.” It’s “Whoever wants one.”

The “to” is just a preposition with the noun clause “whoever wants one” as its object.

Tricky!

You can look up more examples in the search box.

Any more I’d say would be literally unnecessary.

This lesson is about how to introduce a speaker, but first the comic:

The speaker intro in the comic is basically okay, except it needs to include information that is germane to the event and nothing else, so he should leave out the info about the speaker’s hobbies and family.

The big thing the intro got correct is that the last thing in the intro is the speaker’s name! Whenever you introduce a speaker, save the speaker’s name for last, then after you say the name, turn your head toward the speaker.

A caesura is when you have insert a pause in a poem to make the meter work. Every panel except the last two has a caesura between the first and second lines. You can get the feel by inserting “and” or another one-syllable word where the caesura goes.

Okay, reader challenge: Write a four-line verse (called a quatrain, by the way) with a caesura in it. Put it in the comments.