Transcript Grammar Unit

INTERJECTIONS
Our last part of speech!
Once upon a time,
• …there was a cave man named Clyde.
One day,
• Clyde went out to have a picnic lunch of
grilled snake meat and pickled pterodactyl
eggs. He had just settled down to eat
when…from the depths of the nearby peat
bog- came and army of ants determined to
carry away as much of his lunch as
possible.
Clyde was enraged! He sprang to his
feet, raised his club, and proceeded to
bash as many ants as he could!
Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, he
got a wee bit careless and accidentally
whacked his big toe.
Clyde expressed his discomfort and
anger in purely “purple” prose!
Later that night,
• ..as Clyde sat around the campfire and
told his family about his experience, he
raised his club to demonstrate how he
smashed the ants—and his toe. As he
told and retold his story, people began
associating his raised club with times
of emotion and instead of calling the
words he used, “purple prose,” …
They called them interjections and used
a picture of Clyde’s club to mark them in
their cave paintings.
However…
• One member of the clan, mild mannered Ned
Neanderthal, was not impressed. He said he always
remained cool and calm and never used strong
emotions. Yet, he did like to throw expressions like,
“well,” and “Oh,” into his conversations. How could
he show those words?
The village elders met…
• They came up with a wonderful idea. A
club with a line through it would
represent those mild words which Ned
liked to throw into a sentence, and
instead of following them with an
exclamation mark, they’d put a little
calmer mark after them.
, instead of
!
The Long Island branch of the tribe had
trouble pronouncing “calmer” and turned
it into the word “comma.” That name
stuck ever since!
To this day, we honor Clyde and Ned.
When we throw in a word of strong
emotion, we call it an interjection and
punctuate it like this in a sentence:
YIPE! The saber tooth tiger is
coming this way!
When we throw in a word that is mild and
shows little or no emotion, we still call it
an interjection, but we punctuate it like
this is a sentence:
Well, I can see your
side of the story.
And that’s the story of Clyde,
Ned and interjections!
Let’s Review . . .
The interjection is the last of the eight parts of
speech. Just for the record, here are all eight:
• Noun
• Pronoun
• Adjective
• Verb
• Adverb
• Preposition
• Conjunction
• Interjection
– Article is in here too!
First, let's start with a basic
definition:
An interjection is a word which is just
THROWN into a sentence. It has no
relationship to the rest of the sentence.
INTERJECTIONS
MOST OFTEN SHOWS STRONG FEELING
OR EMOTION.
YIPES!
WOW!
UGH!
OUCH!
INTERJECTIONS
Interjections which show strong feeling
or emotion are followed by an
EXCLAMATION mark. Also, and
EXCLAMATION mark usually comes at
the end of the sentence that follows.
Yipe! The river is over the bank!
Ugh! That’s disgusting!
INTERJECTIONS
Use ! as a symbol for
an interjection which
shows strong feeling.
INTERJECTIONS
• Sometimes an interjection does not show
strong feeling or emotion. Oh, Ok, Well,…
• Mild interjections are followed
by a COMMA and the rest of the
sentence.
• Oh, I didn’t know that.
• Ok, I’ll meet you at noon.
• Well, we could try again later.
INTERJECTIONS
• The symbol for a mild
interjection is an
exclamation mark with a
line through it.
(!)
INTERJECTIONS
• Clues in the SENTENCE determine
whether the interjection is being
used to show strong emotion or
not.
– Well, I didn’t know the reason. (mild)
– Well! See if I care! (strong feeling)
Interjections:
• Interjections may be followed by either commas or
exclamation points.
Examples:
• Ouch!
• That hurt!
• Oh, what a wonderful movie!
• Great!
• What a terrific idea!
• Aha! I've found your secret!
• Alas, the poet was no more.
WOW!
It’s almost time for the quiz!
Take a moment to brush up on interjections.
Interjection Quiz
Identify the interjections in the following sentences.
1. Goodness! He listened to the man's story and reported it to the
police immediately!
2. Oh, I haven't seen my brother since he left for college!
3. Oops! I dropped the jelly.
4. No! Don't touch that!
5. Help! I'm about to fall!
6. The poor dear was, alas, destitute and hungry.
7. Wait! Don't leave me behind in this cave!
8. Ah, I've heard that trick before.