FANBOYS [rivers_bend]

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so last night there was this show I watch on, which distracted me from the thing I was going to post about my class yesterday. Which is this.

I was sitting there feeling a little sulky because I did the homework, and so many other people hadn't that the teacher gave us time in class to do it, but as mentioned, I had done it already, but couldn't even check my email because the school internet doesn't reach into that classroom. And I wasn't paying much attention and she was answering some questions and went up to the board and said, "So if you need mumblemumblesomething the acronym is FANBOYS mumblemuttercan'thearbecauseshejustwroteFANBOYSontheboard"

F.A.N.B.O.Y.S is the acronym for something grammar related that I will have to find out next week.

THIS MAKES ME HAPPY, OKAY?

*glee*

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There are 29 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Now that is awesome :D

I was just like, lalalalala what? OMG FANBOYS! MY LANGUAGE IS BEING SPOKEN HERE!

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Ooh, ooh, ooh, I KNOW WHAT FANBOYS ARE, I DO, I DO!
*grins and twirls you*

Actually, I'm looking forward to hearing what your prof. has to say about FANBOYS. There are theories on whether the FANBOYS rule is a rule at all.

Edited Date: 2009-02-06 09:05 pm (UTC)

I don't know if she will even bring it up again. but I shall let you know if she does! :D :D

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I know this one!

FANBOYS = for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so (coordinating conjunctions)

AHHHHH! yay!

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For
And
Nor
But
Or
Yet
So

The conjunctions that take a comma when joining two independent clauses.

:-)

(and thus making one of them a dependent clause?)

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I'm not sure how to answer that because I was taught at a whole language grammar school (which is, yes, an oxymoron over which I've never quite gotten, since I'm actually an English teacher with a Ph.D. *sighs*). But I can tell you that I learned (my first year of graduate school--not kidding) that FANBOYS are used to take two independent clauses and combine them with a conjunction and a comma. In all other cases of a conjunction in a sentence, you do not need a comma with one of the FANBOYS conjunctions.

In other words:

The dog went to the store, and I waited for him outside.

They're still both independent; take the conjunction and comma out, and they stand alone.

The comma and FANBOY can also be replaced with a semi-colon.

The dog went to the store; I waited outside.

So, I think the answer is no; neither clause becomes dependent.

Uh...right?

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except that "and I waited for him outside" is dependent on the first half of the sentence to be grammatically correct. If you take the conjunction and the comma out, you are changing the sentence, and therefore changing its nature. The first thing we were taught this semester is NEVER CHANGE A SENTENCE in order to try and figure out what the grammar is doing.

but I suppose it depends on your point of view. Which is the kind of fucked up thing about grammar. like, if you have the sentence: The police all stumbled over John, and underline it thus: The police all stumbled over John, (S, V, adverbial) it is apparently a pattern four sentence. But if you underline like this: The police all stumbled over John, (S, V, DO) it is a pattern 5. and to me, they would mean two different things (the first they tripped on him, the second, they found him), but other people had different and apparently equally valid interpretations.

this class makes my head hurt.

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But...okay...I don't have any clue what you're getting into here because I only know how to write and how to tell someone that the writing is incorrect. I can't name the parts. Seriously.

But if you start with two separate sentences:

The dog went to the store. I waited for him outside.

And change it to:

The dog went to the store; I waited for him outside.

Is that not the same meaning?

And if you change it to:

The dog went to the store, and I waited for him outside.

Are you changing its meaning. That is, are you making the waiting dependent on the dog going to the store?

This begs the question: What was the dog going to the store to purchase? Why couldn't the person go in? Is there some no-human injunction at this store? Is it a secret front run by Korean cats to lure dogs to their unfortunate ends? If that's the case, shouldn't the person go in to save the dog?

Sorry...clearly, I am a writer and not a grammarian. *grins*

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no, the meaning stays just the same. but the grammar is different. Though why someone would be dim enough to try to split the sentence and keep the 'and' I am not sure.

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OMG! The police all stumbled over John? Where were the boys? How long was he in lockup? Did Sammy get sick and develop a high fever while the police had John? Did Dean panic? i think i read that story once!

:)

This post made me think of a favorite button I've had for, gasp, almost 20 years -- back when LOBO was introduced as a Marvel comics character, and they made a button for him that said BITE ME FANBOYS! I liked it because I was a very rare girl in the comic books world in those days.

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Well, I was going to ask you to make sure and tell us what it stood for when you found out, but seems like everyone else already knew.

Clearly I had boring grammar teachers when I was in school, and they knew not of fanboys.

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OK, see, now, I can't resist linking you to one of the "they may have been better off not teaching fanboys" articles. *googles*

http://english-jack.blogspot.com/2006/07/myth-of-fanboys.html -- here, have one.

(Editing. Way to go, Alex. You forgot words and punctuation when making a grammar-related comment. FAIL.)

Edited Date: 2009-02-06 09:41 pm (UTC)

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*reads* Ah! So it's a good thing that I didn't know! Awesome, thank you.

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Of course, now I feel like I'm harshing completely innocent fanboy squee. So, um. Yeah. In either case, my only memorable grammar teacher was a very surly woman. She didn't believe in mnemonic devices (something about you only remember the mnemonic device after a while, not what it stands for, as evidenced by all these people she knew remembering "sohcahtoa" from freshman math, without a clue what it stood for).

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Is there any such thing as 'innocent' fanboy squee? Don't worry about it - it's still an awesome acronym, even if it's wrong.

(And, I'm not sure I ever knew what sohcahtoa stood for. I remember people saying it a lot before exams, and me thinking 'well, you've already failed that part of the paper.')

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Hee, I know the feeling. We didn't do mnemonics in Russia, so when I went to school here in the States, I was forever going, "what the heck is 'king Philip came over for some sort of soda or possibly spaghetti'?"

(Sohcahtoa is a trig functions mnemonic, for a triangle. Sine = opposite/hypotenuse, cosine = adjacent/hypotenuse, tangent = opposite/adjacent.)

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Well, I remembered it was trigonometry, at any rate. *shrugs* I can't think I'll ever need that knowledge - I haven't since I last studied maths eight years ago. I think the only mnemonic that I use at all, really, is Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain whenever I need to draw a rainbow. Not that that happens very often either.

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ah! I didn't realize it actually had some sort of RULE attached. the little I did get of her context seemed to be explaining to the girl who asked, why "but" couldn't be a subject. so when I saw Wendy's and Sylvanwitch's answers, I just assumed it was a way of remembering conjunctions :D

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I'm sorry! I know I'm supposed to be squeeing over fanboys making it into classes, not harshing the happy. BUT I JUST COULDN'T RESIST, because I am clearly a very bad person. Um. It was better when I was just *twirling*, wasn't it?

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I only really remember being taught French and German grammar. English grammar was too plebian, clearly, for us to have to actually learn it. This is why I never managed to actually get fic posted to that HP archive with the grammar Nazi mods. *nods*

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I can see I'm going to be getting a lot of use out of this icon in your journal this semester! :D

I approve!
:D :D

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*falls over laughing*

LOL! That's awesome...

How very excellent!

January