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The hyphen is used in all sorts of different situations, from making compound words to uniting adjectives to joining prefixes to words that have to...
ACT English 4.1 Punctuation 335 Views
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Description:
ACT English: Punctuation Drill 4, Problem 1. How should this sentence be changed, if at all?
Transcript
- 00:04
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the word "hooray." It was really excited
- 00:08
about bringing it to you--but then...it's excited about everything.
- 00:11
How should you change the below sentence to make it correct, if at all?
- 00:15
Hooray, we are already there.
- 00:22
Whenever somebody says "hooray" they're usually excited about something.
Full Transcript
- 00:26
They might be being sarcastic.
- 00:27
Which...we wouldn't know anything about.
- 00:29
There's nothing in the sentence to make us think the speaker is being sarcastic, though,
- 00:33
so we'll assume he or she is genuinely excited.
- 00:37
We can get rid of (A), because a period just doesn't give us enough... oomph.
- 00:40
(B) seems suspicious as well, since there's no reason to make the sentence a question.
- 00:46
Both (C) and (D) end with exclamation marks, so they have the oomph we were looking for earlier.
- 00:51
However, we also know that "hooray" is an interjection, a word that expresses a certain
- 00:57
sentiment like, in this case, excitement.
- 01:00
Whenever we have an interjection in a sentence, we have to set it apart somehow.
- 01:03
It's just too much for the rest of the sentence to handle without some space.
- 01:08
Knowing all this, we can dub (D) the correct answer, since it separates the interjection,
- 01:11
"hooray" with a comma.
- 01:13
Quick word to the wise: It's important to warm up prior to hooraying. We suggest hip-hipping
- 01:18
beforehand to avoid pulled muscles.
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