5 English grammar myths you need to stop believing RIGHT NOW

80,003 views ・ 2019-03-14

English with Alex


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Hey, everyone.
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I'm Alex.
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Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "5 English Grammar Myths".
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So, these are five things that, if you went to an English-speaking high school, college,
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university, elementary school - you probably heard at some point from an English teacher
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or someone else, or your friends who heard it from an English teacher.
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So, today we are going to break down some of those things that you were told, and we
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will unlearn what you have learned.
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So, let's begin with number one.
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Never start a sentence with "But" or "And", or other coordinating conjunctions you can
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extend this to.
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But why not?
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Or what?
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There are numerous examples in popular literature and even Holy Scripture where this rule is
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broken again and again and again.
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For example, in the story, The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans C.A. (Christian Andersen):
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"But the emperor has nothing at all!"
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Here you have a story by Francis Bacon in Of Death: "And what are you reading, Miss?"
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And, here, in the King James Bible: "Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be
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cured by reform or revolution.
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But men do not live only by fighting evils."
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So, as you can see, it is totally possible and it's unrealistic to expect people, especially
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in conversation, not to start sentences with "But" or "And" sometimes.
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Okay?
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It's a decent guideline for essay writing, but for speech, and for writing fiction and
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literature, it's...
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It just...
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It just doesn't happen.
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All right.
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Number two: Don't end a sentence with a preposition.
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Now, a "preposition" is a word like: "at", "on", "in", "for", "by", "with", "against",
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and it shows a relationship of time or place between words.
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So, ideally, I think whoever came up with this myth thinks that, you know, you need
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another word after the preposition to show the relationship between the words.
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For example: "I'm excited about your birthday party", "I'm interested in music/video games",
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so you need something after that "in", you need something after that "about"; you can't
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just leave it just dangling at the end of a sentence.
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Or can you?
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Let's look at some sentences where we do this all the time.
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So: "There's something I'd like to talk to you about."
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How about: "What kind of music do you listen to"?
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"To what kind of music do you listen?"
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- that's ridiculous.
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"What kind of music do you listen to"?
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"Which school do you go to?"
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I think you can see, here, that: "This is a rule you should be cautious of", you should
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be wary of, and maybe this is a rule you shouldn't care about.
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So let's continue to number three.
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Double negatives are always wrong.
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Now, I kind of agree and I'm on board with the idea that we need to be careful when we
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use double negatives; the problem is when we say that they are always wrong.
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Now, in this case, if you have a phrase, a sentence, like: "I don't have nothing!"
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I agree; this is a bad sentence because it literally means: "I have something.
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I don't have nothing; I have something."
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So, if your meaning-your intended meaning-here, is that you have nothing, just say: "I have
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nothing."
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Okay?
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In that case, I agree, double negatives - not cool.
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However, you can use double negatives if you want to emphasize something, like: "I can't
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not help people."
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So, imagine in...
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Maybe in a comic book, you have a superhero and they have these powers, and they need
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to help people, so they say: "I can't not help; I must help."
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It really makes it that much stronger to have the double negative there.
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"We couldn't not pay attention."
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Maybe the talk was very captivating or maybe it was very loud, so you were forced to pay
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attention.
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"We couldn't not pay attention; we had to pay attention."
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Also, double negatives are very often used in pop culture, specifically pop music, like
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this song here: "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone", something.
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Those are the only words I know, and I can't even sing them very well, so I'm going to
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continue to number four.
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Never split infinitives - angry face.
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Now, for some reason, I guess people think that "to" plus base verb should always be
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together, and you cannot separate them because they're a compound unit of language that just
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sticks.
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However, here we have an example where you see this working in two ways.
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So: "I really wanted to help her!"
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So, we have "to" plus "help", this is the "to" infinitive that people say you should
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never split.
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Let's look at this sentence: "I wanted to really help her!"
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So, here you can see that the meaning of the sentence changes based on the fact that you
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moved the adverb really between "to" and "help", and it gives it an extra emphasis.
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"I didn't only want to help her; I wanted to really help her.
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Legitimately help her."
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Okay?
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I guess you could say: "I wanted to help her really", but it sounds kind of ridiculous.
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So, it works better if you put the adverb between "to" and the base verb.
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And, by the way, it is typically adverbs that people oppose when you're splitting infinitives.
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So, here: "They plan to completely destroy the planet."
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Yes, you could say: "They plan to destroy the planet completely", but it also works:
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"They plan, not just to destroy it, but to completely destroy it."
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The emphasis right before "destroy" gives it an extra punch.
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Next: "We need to carefully map out our strategy."
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Okay?
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So: "We need to map out our strategy carefully", you can do that, too.
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But, again, that extra punch before the base verb: "We need to carefully map out our strategy."
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And finally, Star Trek fans: "The mission of the U.S.S.
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Enterprise is to boldly go where no one has gone before".
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"to boldly go".
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Not just: "to go", "to go boldly" - "to boldly go".
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All right?
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So, we've done one, two, three, four - I guess that only leaves one.
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Let's go on to number five.
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Never use the passive voice.
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Now, I get it - teachers don't want to receive a bunch of essays where students write: "School
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was attended by me."
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Okay?
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Just say: "I attended school."
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Use the active form.
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However, there are some cases where the passive works, and it's used in many contexts; you
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hear it on the news, you do see it in essays, and in some sentences it's really one of the
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only things you can use in certain parts of the sentence.
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So, let's look at some examples.
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Here we have an active sentence and the passive equivalent.
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So: "The earthquake toppled the Central Bank."
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Here, this is active; the earthquake is the actor so it is doing the action.
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"The earthquake toppled the Central Bank."
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You can do this in the passive, and you can read this in a newspaper or hear it on a news
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report, on TV, or on your laptop, or whatever screen you're using.
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"The central bank was toppled by the earthquake."
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You often hear the passive used when people want to, you know, not make the deaths of
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people in a natural disaster seem as extreme, I guess.
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I mean, you could say: "Yes, 2,000 people were killed", but this is better than saying,
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like: "The gunman killed 2,000 people", which sounds very, very direct.
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The passive takes you away from the event itself a little bit.
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We also have sentences, like: "Obama was elected in 2008."
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Yes, you could say: "The United States of America" or "The people elected Obama to be
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president in 2008."
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That's a mouthful, but why not just say: "Obama was elected in 2008"?
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"Pesos are used in Mexico."
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Fact.
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So, you can use the passive to talk about simple facts like this, about which currency
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is used in which countries.
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And: "She deserves to be promoted."
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Now, yes, you have "deserves" which is active.
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"She deserves".
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"...to be promoted", this is a passive construction.
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"...to be promoted, you know, in her company, by her employer".
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So, if you can say by who, by a person, by someone, by a body of people - you're using
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the passive.
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So: "She deserves to be promoted."
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What other way are you going to say this sentence?
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All right?
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So, you know, generally it's a decent guideline for fiction writers, you know: Use active
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writing, active writing, active writing.
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Your protagonists should be active protagonists, but there are several contexts that aren't
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even mentioned here that you can use the passive voice in, and I just used a preposition at
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the end of a sentence.
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Yes.
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Screw you, grammar people.
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Yeah, okay.
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So, that's it - five grammar myths.
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I hope after this video you realize that: Yes, we have rules.
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And I don't like the word "rule", per se, because these were guidelines that were given
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to you by teachers in high school, and elementary school, college, university because they didn't
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want to read terrible, terrible sentences that, you know, are possible when you don't
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follow some of these rules.
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They don't want to see: "I don't got nothing."
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Okay?
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Like, that's a terrible sentence if your meaning is: "I have something" or you're trying to
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say you don't have anything.
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Okay?
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So, that makes sense to me.
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But these are guidelines, and guidelines do have room to go off the path a little bit.
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You have some flexibility.
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So, yes, try to follow the rules-"rules"-as best you can.
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Think of them as guidelines - guidelines.
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But know that you can go off the path a little bit, and that grammar isn't always a fixed
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thing.
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I will repeat that: Grammar isn't always a fixed thing.
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If anyone tells you that, like: "This is the way it must be with prepositions, and double
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negatives, and you know, the passive voice", say: "Hey, examples A, B, C" or just direct
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them to this video, and say: "There's this guy on YouTube named Alex, and he works for
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this website called engVid, and he said that your rules are just guidelines that I can
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break because sometimes it makes sense to break rules."
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All right?
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If you want to test your understanding of this material and you want to break some grammar
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rules, check out the quiz on www.engvid.com.
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Also, subscribe to my channel on YouTube, click that bell, and check me out on Facebook
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and Twitter.
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Also, don't forget you can support what we do here on engVid by donating to the site
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if you feel so inclined.
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So, till next time, thank you for watching, thanks for clicking, and see you again soon.
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