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Writings - Lighter Side

The Story of Grammarville
By Dan Learn

nce upon a time, in a small village called Grammarville, there lived many words. They often got together to attend sentencings, ask questions, or exclaim something.

Among the words, there lived a small little conjunction named “But”. But was often right in the middle of things, and he always had his little best friend, Comma, right there beside him.

One day, the rest of the words began to get annoyed with But.

“You’re always in the way!” Shouted a noun.

“You always ruin my independent clauses!” Added a verb.

This worried But and Comma. But knew he was only one syllable and three letters, and sometimes he was scared of the bigger words.

Just then, a silence fell over the words. In came another, bigger, meaner word: The Wicked Which of the Conjunction.

“I’ll get you, my little joiner, and your little comma, too!” She shouted.

But and Comma were really frightened now. So they ran away.

All of the other words seemed happy at first. Everything seemed better for the first few paragraphs.

Soon the other words began to notice something missing. They didn’t form long sentences like before. Independent clauses became… well, independent. Their sentences were very short and choppy.

Pairs of nouns and verbs began to get lonely. After all, what fun is it hanging out with the same word all the time?

“This is terrible!” A noun finally stood up and said. “We need something else here. We don’t have anything else.” The rest of the words shuddered at the short sentences that had plagued them.

So the words sent a pack of brave adverbs into the far margins to find But and Comma.

When they returned, all of Grammarville cheered.

“This truly is a great day, and cause for celebration,” proclaimed Title, the mayor of Grammarville. “Let us join together again, but never forget our short, choppy gatherings in the past.”

THE END

The moral of the story: If you want to do it right, you have to put your But on the line.

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