A Children’s Classic of Grammatical Rules

1. Chapter 2: The Plethora of Plurals Chapter 1: The Basic Beginning The Countable Nouns Vs. The Uncountable Nouns Chapter 3: The Quiet Quantity Chapter 4: The Artsy Article A Children’s Classic of Grammatical Rules Written and Illustrated by: Gelsey Plaza and Catherine Ha Period 5 Published on December 21, 2012

2. The Basic Beginning A long time ago, in a land far, far away, there was the kingdom of Nouns. One part was the Countable Kingdom, and the other part, the Uncountable Kingdom. They were separated by their different rules. They then had a mighty king by the name of Grammar who made rules to unite the two halves. They lived in peace for a couple of decades. But one day, Chaos, an evil beast, unleashed his wrath and fury on the people of the kingdom, making people speak improperly. He told people the wrong rules of grammar, eventually making everyone believe that he was right and their mighty king was wrong. King Grammar soon died of neglect. For years, Chaos “ruled” and messed up the peace of society. His rules and teachings caused the kingdoms to break apart. Soon, a brilliant new leader came to power. He was known as Count Capresius. He was going to overcome Chaos with help from his twin brother, Caleb. Caleb was an Uncountable Noun rebel.

3. The Basic Beginning The brothers came up with the idea of writing the rules out on a stone tablet so that no one could change them and everyone could see them. This would definitely make Chaos furious. They decided to start by defining who and what the Uncountable and Countable Nouns were. They wanted to make sure that they had fair rules for everyone. This is what they came up with: Countable Nouns were beings who existed as distinctive individuals and who could be perceived by the senses. Uncountable Nouns were a general population of those who could be counted as whole groups of things. They didn’t like to be taken apart and were always in groups with each other.

4. The Basic Beginning Examples of Countable Nouns are: girl, word, and table. You can count how many girls there are at a party, or how many words there are in a sentence, or how many tables are at your house. Examples of Uncountable Nouns include: anger, milk, and courage. You cannot count how much anger you have, nor can you count how much milk you have in your cup, and nor can you count your courage.

5. Plethora of Plurals There was another kind of noun; the Plurals. The Plurals were nouns who were very dependent of each other. They always had to be together. They were quite unruly when they were together because they were together all the time. They sometimes forgot their own rules of courtesy, so Capresius and Caleb had to make rules for them to follow. Most of the time, only Countable Nouns can pluralize, and Uncountable Nouns cannot. To pluralize, most nouns must add an –s. For example, The citizens lived by the Plural Pyrenees. Capresius and Caleb made an exception to the rule, though. Some nouns can be Countable and Uncountable. For example, the word difficulty. Capresius and Caleb are having difficulties defeating Chaos. (a countable meaning) Chaos is messing up the kingdom with little difficulty. (an uncountable meaning)

6. The Quiet Quantity Now the brothers went into the smaller parts of the kingdom and found a quota of Quantity Nouns. They were often used nouns, but people tended to forget about them. The king and his brother did not, though. They created rules for them too. Those rules allowed them to combine nouns with quantity terms. Singular Countable Nouns are allowed to use each, every, any, and one. Plural Countable Nouns are allowed to use some, more, a lot of, many, both, a few, and few/fewer/fewest. Uncountable Nouns are allowed to use much, very little, most, more, none of the, and other words. Count Singular: Capresius eats one fish custard every day. Count Plural: Caleb has more polka dots. Noncount: Chaos has very little courage.

7. The Artsy Article There was another section that was known as the domain of the Artful Articles. They were skilled artists and artisans who created things with what little they had. They used small words to complete whole sentences and make the whole kingdom flow smoothly. The Singular Countable Nouns used articles like a, an, the, this, and that. The Plural Countable Nouns used articles like the, these, those, or no article was used. The Uncountable Nouns used words such as the, this, that, or no article was used. Count Singular: Obi-wan Kenobi was a Jedi Knight. Count Plural: Yoda and the masters trained the Younglings. Noncount: The music in the movies is amazing.

8. The Evitable Ending After the brothers finished writing all of the rules down on the stone tablets, they exiled Chaos to the Plural Pyrenees. Soon, Chaos was forgotten and Grammar’s basic laws were once again restored. The kingdom was united and a new era, called the “Grammar Age”, appeared. King Capresius made a speech to all the Nounspeople: “In this new age of prosperity, there are plenty of opportunities to make our kingdom a better and stronger place of living. There is enough food for everyone and no person shall be turned away from a place to sleep for the night. This will give us the chance to be a more unified civilization and prosper and grow together. There will never be another time like this, but we have to make the most of it. No person shall be left behind. No noun will be left behind. And, alas, I have one more rule to write on the stone tablet that will remind us that we are one. “ He then went up to the last stone tablet and proceeded to inscribe: There are plenty of Nounspeople and enough rules to keep us together. No Noun shall be discriminated because enough, plenty of, and no modify both sections of uncountable and countable nouns.