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A & P By John Updike Summary

606 Words3 Pages

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the grammatical structure of John Updike’s short story entitled “A&P” as well as examine common grammatical errors in English speaking and writing. This essay will examine first examine the forms and functions of Updike’s short story and will also spend time examining its errors. The second portion of this essay will discuss common grammatical errors in the written and spoken English language such as subject-verb agreement, sentence fragments, dangling or misplaced modifiers, comma splices, tense shift, preposition misuse, and vague pronoun reference. Form structures include noun phrases, verb phrases, and clauses. Noun and verb phrases are quite simple in meaning; noun phrases contain either a one-word …show more content…

The following quotations is an example of dependent clauses used effectively: “Plastic toys done up in cellophane that fall apart when a kid looks at them anyway” (Updike, A&P). In this specific example, the phrase “when a kid looks at them anyway” functions as the dependent clause, because this statement cannot stand on its own, but when paired with the independent clause “plastic toys done up in cellophane that fall apart” which contains a subject and a verb, the sentence is now complete. In addition to this, one can once again see the proper use of a dependent clause in the following example as well. “The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn't know which tunnel they'd come out of (Updike, A&P). The clause “The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn't know” operates as an independent clause while “which tunnel they’d come out of” is the dependent clause. Both of these examples can be classified as complex sentences which are sentences when “one independent and any number of dependent clauses joined by subordinating conjunction(s) (Rodby,

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