A Word Please

June Casagrande Grammar can be intimidating. I’ve been saying for years that this is a bad thing. Fear isn’t conducive to learning. And it can keep you from ever realizing that grammar is a lot easier, more intuitive and more useful than most people know.

That’s my official position, anyway. But today I’ll make a little confession: Sometimes grammar intimidation is good. You know the times I’m talking about: like when some blowhard corners you at a cocktail party to patronizingly explain how much better off we’d all be with Lyndon LaRouche in charge. Or at family gatherings when your hot-shot brother-inlaw is trying to make you feel small because you didn’t buy Goldman Sachs stock until after Warren Buffet did.

Those are the times when you want to reach for a blunt weapon. And in my experience, no legal weapon can inflict more damage on a deserving opponent than grammar jargon. So, as the holidays threaten to usher in social events overrun with know-it-all uncles and diamondflaunting cousins, have a few of these terrifying grammar terms at the ready.

Intimidating term: “participle.” Weaponized form: “It’s hard to make sense of your argument for a flat tax when it contains a dangling participle, Uncle Lou.”

Don’t tell Uncle Lou, but a participle is a simple thing to understand. Think of it as a form of a verb that works with a helping verb to show time or duration: Past participles often end in “ed” or “en.” “Lou has spoken.” Progressive participles, often called present participles, end in “ing.” “I am leaving.”

When they’re not working with auxiliary verbs, participles usually work as modifiers. In “Filled with disgust, I left the party,” the participle “filled” modifies the subject “I.” When the stuff after the participle phrase isn’t the thing being modified, that’s a dangling participle: “Filled with disgust, the party made me want to leave.”

Intimidating term: “Copular verb.” Weaponized form: “When you say that I should feel badly about not having a husband, what you’re really saying is that you’re ignorant about copular verbs.”

Copular verbs, often called linking verbs, don’t show action the way other verbs do. They express states of being or the five senses. The most common one is “to be,” as in “I am not related to you people” and “You are drunk.” “Seem,” “appear,” “become” and others are copular verbs, too. Copular verbs have a special rule. Unlike other verbs that are modified by adverbs, “Betty talks loudly,” a copular verbs takes an adjective as its complement, “Betty is loud.” That’s why “I feel bad” is correct and “I feel badly” is usually an error by someone trying to sound smart.

Term: “Object pronoun.” Weaponized usage: “Yes, Bif, I saw your E-class Mercedes parked out front. But it hardly compensates for your failure to use an object pronoun when you say ‘between you and I.’”

Nouns and pronouns can work as subjects, performing the action in a sentence. Or they can work as objects of verbs or of prepositions. But unlike regular nouns, pronouns sometimes change form according to these jobs. “I” is a subject, “me” is an object: “I like dogs.” “Dogs like me.” “Dance with me.” The pairs “he”/“him,” “she”/“her,” “we”/“us” and “they”/“them” work the same way.

People often incorrectly say “between you and I” because they don’t understand that “between” is a preposition and prepositions take objects like “us” and “me.”

There are plenty more intimidating grammar terms, but that should be enough to fend off the know-it-alls and smug braggarts at this season’s social gatherings. As with all weapons, use them only in self-defense. Remember: Words don’t kill people. Drunk uncles humiliated in public kill people.

June Casagrande is the author of “Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered By the Grammar Snobs -

Even If You’re Right.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.