they WILL want to know you can differentiate they're/there/their and effect/affect. Also that you know where to put commas. And that you can spot sentence fragments.

Ha. Fragments. 2 of them, right?

Yes, I'll need to brush up the misspelled words.

Make sure you can identify a comma splice.

OH, dear. A comma splice is supposed to be bad, right?

Scrappy, that spelling list is brilliant.

Now I want to know what kind of spelling teacher I had, because I grew up spelling judgment, judgement. It hurts to spell it the other way. Greene County, Pennsylvania, may be the borders of Appalachia, but it's still part of the American school system.

Yes, a comma splice is bad. It's using a comma to separate two complete sentences, rather than a period.

This is a comma splice, it is bad.

This is not a comma splice. Note the period. (Or the semi-colon.)

I marked that. I suspect I'll be referring to it as a reminder.

It's pretty simple, Connie. An independent clause is something which can stand alone as a complete sentence. If you have two independent clauses, then you use a semi-colon, or break them into two sentences. That's really all you need to remember.

Good lord, I actually felt a shudder at the words "independent clause." My English grades were always fun in school. "Why on earth do you have a D--oh, is that the week they did grammar?"

If I ever went on "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader," I'd definitely save a cheat for the grammar question.

What is the difference between transitive and intransitive anyway?

Jilli, I just read your latest column and I'm just infuriated with the school authorities for targeting goth kids in this manner. (Particularly the boy who's been forced to stop dressing like a Victorian. I mean, what possible leg do these people have to stand on? (Beyond "you should be sheep! We want you to be identical sheep! It makes us nervous when you aren't!")

As an educator, one of the things we're actively encouraging (at least at primary level!) is that people become independent thinkers, and that they have the courage to take risks and to be creative. Forcing people to merge into the crowd seems like the very antithesis of good teaching!

Heh. I spent an entire lesson teaching independent and dependent clauses, comma splice errors, and semicolon usage last week. Hec is correct; it's really pretty simple once you understand the premise.

Here are some examples (please ignore if they aren't helpful).

Hec really enjoys baseball, he coaches Little League. (This is an example of a comma splice error; two independent clauses joined with a comma only--the comma alone isn't strong enough. You either need a coordinating conjunction to go with the comma [see below] or a semicolon. Think of the comma as a splice that won't hold the ragged ends of a bone together. Nothing like a little visual gore to help us remember!)

Btw, a good way to remember all the coordinating conjunctions is "FANBOYS": For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So.

Hec really enjoys baseball;he coaches Little League. (This is an example of two independent clauses joined by a semicolon)

Hec really enjoys baseball; therefore, he coaches Little League. (This is another example of two independent clauses joined by a semicolon.)

Hec really enjoys baseball, so he coaches Little League. (This is an example of two independent clauses joined by a comma and a coordinating conjunction.)

Hec coaches Little League because he really enjoys baseball. (This is an example of an independent clause [Hec coaches Little League] and a dependent clause [because he really enjoys baseball].

Basically, set aside any coordinating conjunctions and figure out if the clause can stand on its own (independent) or not (dependent).

A clause is a chunk of words that sits on its own, fenced in by a bit of punctuation.

It can be a short sentence.

Or, sometimes, it can be a single word, or something a bit longer.

Sometimes it's fenced in by a punctuation mark and it's got a noun verbing something; since all you need to make a sentence is a noun and a verb, any chunk of words that's got both is independent, a whole sentence all on its own, full of spark and spunk and go-to pioneer spirit, and anything on the other side of that punctuation mark can go to hell, or go hide behind a semicolon or something.

See? Crystal clear!

Or not. Thank God I'm not a teacher.