P is for Peony

Peonies have magic.

P is for pronoun

Pronouns represent unnamed people or things. Here is a list for your reference.

First person

I

possessive

mine

reflexive

myself

plural

we

possessive

ours

reflexive

ourselves

object

me

plural

us

 

Second person

you

possessive

yours

reflexive

yourself

plural

you

reflexive

yourselves

object

you

plural

you

 

Third person

he, she, it,

possessive

his, hers, its

reflexive

himself, herself, itself

plural

they

reflexive

themselves

possessive

their, theirs

object

him, her, it

plural

them

 

Demonstrative pronouns

this, these

that, those

 

Indefinite pronouns

anybody, anyone, anything

everybody, everyone, everything

nobody, no one, nothing

somebody, someone, something

 

Relative pronouns

who, whom

whose

which

that

 

Other words used as pronouns

These words may be used to refer back to a subject or object within the sentence.

all, another, any

both

each, either, enough

few, fewer

less, little

many, more, most, much

neither

several, some

 

Exercises

1. Read a news article and analyse the text for pronouns. How many can you find? Is it obvious who or what each pronoun refers to?

Special reading assignment

1. When it came to peony bushes, there were only a few in the garden.
2.  In the year 77, Pliny wrote a natural history with a medicinal recipe using peony; we now know that these flowers are particularly poisonous.

 

Note: This blog post is an excerpt from a book, “English Manual: Letter by Letter,” to be published in the summer of 2015.

P is for Parade

A marching band turns a corner in Toronto’s Easter Parade.

P is for palindrome
A palindrome is a word, a sentence or a row of words, or even a longer statement that has the same meaning when the letters are reversed.

noon

Ah ha!

Tut tut!

A man, a plan, a canal: Panama

 

P is for pangram
A pangram is a sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet.

The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.

My girl wove six dozen plaid jackets before she quit.

 

P is for paraprosdokian
Paraprosdokian is a newly formed word created from the Greek for “against expectation”. It is a figure of speech with a surprise ending, popular with comedians.

I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it. —Groucho Marx.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with. —Anonymous.

 

P is for prosody and prosify
What’s that? Prosody is the study of poetry, even though it sounds as if it should be about prose. The word contains inside it the root ode, which is a lyric poem, perhaps meant to be sung. Prosody includes the study of versification, including metre, rhyme, and stanzas.

Getting the feel of the rhythms of a language as it is spoken is important for gaining understanding, and therefore, poetry is important for learning a language.

Prosify, on the other hand, means to turn something into prose.

 

Exercises

1. Can you find another palindrome? How about a pangram?
2. Can you create a paraprosdokian?
3. Find a little poem and write it out as prose (that is, prosify it).

 

Special reading assignment

Pease porridge hot,

Pease  porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot,

Nine days old!

— English nursery rhyme, first published in 1760

 

Note: This blog post is an excerpt from a book, “English Manual: Letter by Letter,” to be published in the fall of 2014.

P is for Pelican

The White Pelican, which summers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada, has a wingspread of about nine feet.

Prefixes

ped— usually relates to feet, footed, or a line of descent.

pedestrian

peddle

pedigree

post— means “after”, “afterwards”, “later”, or “behind”.

posterior

post-glacial

post-graduate

postpone

pre— means “before” in time or place, or in the order or importance of things.

precaution

precede, precedent

predate

preface

prescribe, prescription

president

pro— can mean “before” in time or place, or in the order of things.

promise

prophet

pro— can mean “favouring” or “supporting”.

pro-government

pro— can mean “in front of”, “forwards”, or “onward”.

probation

proceeds

progress

pros— means “towards” or “in addition to” something.

prosecute

prosper

prospect

proto— means “first”.

protocol

prototype

Suffixes

—pede or —pedal create a noun or adjective that refers to feet or something footed.

bipedal

centipede

impede

stampede

 

—pod or —pode also refer to feet or a number of feet.

hexapod

megapode

tripod

Exercises

1. Which suffixes correspond to a prefix similar in meaning?
2. Identify additional words with prefixes and suffixes beginning with the letter P.

Special reading assignment

1. Philippa and her friend Stephen sloughed off their scarves and photographed the phantom pheasant phenomenon in the pharmacy.
2. White pelicans scoop up fish while swimming; brown pelicans plunge from a height, bill-first, to catch fish.

 

Note: This blog post is an excerpt from a book, “English Manual: Letter by Letter,” to be published sometime soon.

P is for Poison Ivy

“Leaves of three, let it be.” Poison ivy may be a low, sprawling plant, a climbing vine, a tallish bush, or individual small plants scattered amongst other vegetation.

Sounds of P

The sound of P is a sudden breath (a plosive) made by closing and opening the lips.

pat

pet

pit

pot

put

PH is a digraph

The Greeks invented the letter phi to represent a sound not present in the Phoenician language. It was written as ph when the Romans adopted it into their alphabet. Phi was originally pronounced with an extra breath, as in uphill or loophole, but eventually was changed to an f sound in Latin and Greek. French also adopted the f sound for ph. English was influenced by these other languages, whereas some other European languages have not adopted ph; they just use f. English words with ph are often of Greek or maybe Latin origin.

alpha

gopher

nephew

phase

phobia

telephone

sphinx

trophy

Silent Ps

The letter P is silent in words that start with pne— or psy—.

pneumatic

pneumonia

psych

psyche

psychic

psychotic

Exceptional silent Ps

corps

coup

psalm

receipt

Exercises

1. Look at the P words in the lists. Are they nouns or verbs? Could you use one as an adjective?
2. Can you make a compound word using one of these words? Use that word in a sentence.
3. Look for a word containing ph. Is it a compound word or does it contain the ph digraph?
4. Define the words containing a silent P.

Special reading assignment

1. The philosophy of the first Pharaohs formed a phantom phalanx.
2. Pretty parrots’ performances pleased partying people, poolside.
3. Please note: poison ivy does grow in cities in North America. Poison ivy is extremely variable in its height, size, and growth pattern. Learn to know the pattern of its leaves and stay away. Every new contact with this plant increases your susceptibility.

Note: This blog post is an excerpt from a book, “English Manual: Letter by Letter,” to be published in the summer of 2015.