Memes Can Teach You English Grammar

 

If you spend time on social media or the internet, chances are that you have come across memes. Memes are humorous words, pictures or videos shared widely around the internet.

Memes can make us laugh. But they can also teach us a lot about English grammar. They can demonstrate such things as sentence structure. And they can show how meaning is affected¹ by punctuation² or spelling mistakes.

On today's program, we look at three popular memes and discuss the grammar behind each one.

The mystery of ‘had had'

The first meme is the most complex of the three. It is an example of just how strange the English language can be.

The word "had" is unusual in English. It is probably the only word that can appear consecutively³ many times and still be grammatically⁴ correct.

Listen to this meme, which is so popular that it has been used on coffee mugs and clothing:

All the coffee she had had had had no effect.

The simplest meaning of this sentence is: A woman drank some coffee but it had no effect on her.

Notice that it uses the word "had" four times consecutively. How is that possible? Let's try to make sense of it. To do that, we need to first discuss the past perfect verb tense.

The past perfect is formed by adding "had" to the past participle of the main verb. An easy way to think of this is had + past participle. Some examples include "had eaten," "had seen," "had helped" and, as in the meme, "had had."

We use the past perfect to express that something happened before another action in the past. It can also express that something happened before a specific time in the past.

So the sentence about the woman's coffee suggests that something happened after she drank it. But for the purpose of this lesson, that thing is not important.

To make sense of the coffee meme, it also helps to understand adjective clauses⁵.

The meme contains an adjective clause⁶ – a part of a sentence that acts as an adjective and has its own subject and verb.

Adjective clauses begin with relative pronouns, such as "that." But the word "that" was not used in the meme because its use is not required. Listen to the line again, this time with the word "that":

All the coffee (that) she had had had had no effect.

The adjective clause here is "(that) she had had." Again, adjective clauses act like adjectives, which describe or give more information about nouns. In this case, the adjective clause "(that) she had had" describes the noun "coffee."

Now, let's take the adjective clause out of the sentence for a minute to see what is remains⁷. Here is the sentence without the adjective clause:

All the coffee had had no effect.

Here, we have a fairly simple sentence with the verb "have" in past perfect form, which is "had had." We can call this sentence the main clause.

So, to sum up what is happening in the meme: The verb "have" is used in past perfect form two times consecutively.

Commas save lives

Now let's move to our second meme.

Listen carefully to it and see if you can catch the difference in meaning between two sentences:

It goes like this:

Let's eat, Grandma.

Let's eat Grandma.

Commas save lives.

In the first sentence, "Let's eat, Grandma," notice the pause after the word "eat." The pause is meaningful here.

When we are making a suggestion, such as "Let's eat," and we pause to say a person's name afterward⁸, it shows that we are speaking directly to that person. In writing, we use a comma to signal that we are speaking to or addressing someone.

However, the second sentence, "Let's eat Grandma" has no comma. This suggests we are speaking to someone else about Grandma. So the sentence means that we are suggesting to another person that we eat our grandmother. The ridiculousness of this suggestion expresses how important commas are to meaning. So, commas really do save lives!

They're and you're

And finally, we move to a meme about homophones. A homophone is a word that sounds like another word but has a different meaning and spelling. English contains many homophones.

Listen to this popular meme that can be found all over the English-speaking internet. Reading along as you listen is useful here since some words sound the same as others.

Here is the meme:

If I ever use "there" instead of "they're" and "your" instead of "you're," I've been kidnapped and am signaling for help.

The writer of this meme is clearly someone who finds spelling mistakes problematic.

One of the most common mistakes Americans and other English speakers make is confusing the word "there," spelled t-h-e-r-e, with the shortened⁹ version of "they are," spelled t-h-e-y-apostrophe-r-e. Many English speakers also mix up the word "your," spelled y-o-u-r, with the shortened version of "you are," spelled y-o-u-apostrophe-r-e.

By saying only their kidnapping could cause such a mistake, the writer drives home that they would never mix up these homophones.

Memes like these can help us learn more about English grammar. They can also help us to laugh at common mistakes even native English speakers make.

Words in This Story

punctuation –n. marks, such as periods and commas, that are used in writing to make meaning clear and to separate ideas

spelling –n. the way to use letters correctly to form specific words

consecutively –adv. following one after the other in a series

mug –n. a large drinking cup with a handle

sum –v. to tell information again in fewer words

pause –n. a temporary stop; a period of time, usually short, in which something has stopped before restarting

comma –n. a punctuation mark used to separate words or groups of words in a sentence

ridiculous –adj. very silly or unreasonable; to be laughed at

1 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

2 punctuation   

n.标点符号，标点法

参考例句：

• My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
• A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。

3 consecutively   

adv.连续地

参考例句：

• He was actually too depleted to think consecutively about anything. 他已经打不起一点精神，根本谈不上好好思考一下。 来自辞典例句
• In any game, the right to serve shall pass consecutively. 在一局中，不错的发球挨次应该是。 来自互联网

4 grammatically   

adv.符合语法规则地

参考例句：

• This essay is grammatically smooth and readable. 这篇作文写得还顺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Grammatically, the Sanskrit paradigm exemplifies the concept of radical. 从语法的观点看，梵语的变格范例明确了词根的概念。 来自辞典例句

5 clauses   

从句( clause的名词复数 )； （法律文件等的）条款

参考例句：

• Relative pronouns and adverbs introduce attributive clauses. 关系代词和关系副词引导定语从句。
• Please underline the noun clauses in the passage. 请用线画出短文中的名词性从句。

6 clause   

n.（正式文件或法律文件的）条款，从句，分句

参考例句：

• The sentence consists of a main clause and a subordinate clause.这句中有一个主句和一个从句。
• What clause do you require in the contract?你要求在合同中订上什么条款？

7 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

8 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

9 shortened   

v.弄短，缩短( shorten的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She shortened the skirt by an inch. 她把裙子缩短了一英寸。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Vacations have lengthened and the work week has shortened. 假期延长，工作周就缩短了。 来自辞典例句