aPad-2: Today's Subject--I Predict a Predicate

A Paragraph a Day: Today's Subject--I Predict a Predicate

"The family enjoys eating and playing with the animals."

MY COWORKER HANDED ME a slip of paper with this written on it, asking whether or not this was a compound subject and/or a compound predicate. And of course, as a writer, I froze. My mind blanked and I totally forgot what a predicate was.

WHY? Candidly, I learned more about grammar in my first semester in college than during my four years of high school. My college English professor was WAY more invested in what she was doing, and I was too. I bought a little maroon book called The Only Grammar Book You'll Ever Need then preceded to teach myself what a subject and predicate was among other grammar rules.

THIS WAS BACK in 2004/2005. When I was asked to analyze the sentence above, of course I was rusty. I already knew what the subject was, and it took a few minutes to remember that the predicate modifies the subject (usually the predicate being the main verb of the sentence). In the example above, the subject is "family" and the predicates are "enjoys", "eating", and "playing".  One subject, multiple predicates.

IF ONLY I was taught this in school, at a younger age, I would be so much better for it. Maybe. Which is funny, because my coworker went on to tell me her son's teacher told her students the word "animals" was also the subject of the sentence. Funny, because that's what's called a direct object.

THANKS, The Only Grammar Book You'll Ever Need. I'm not saying I'm a language guru, because I'm not, but maybe teaching myself the rules of grammar was a good thing.

JJ