Vagaries of the English Language, part n: I need to tell my boss why the contraction "I'm" cannot stand alone as a sentence. For example, "Yes, I am" is okay. "Yes, I'm" is not. I haven't been able to find any good logic for this case or that works for the different contractions in general ("don't" can also stand alone, "I'd" and "I've" cannot). Given this is about languages, and particularly English, "just because" is, alas, potentially the best answer.
posted by whatzit on May 15, 2008 - 36 answers

Where does the sentence structure 'Something, something and something, oh my!' come from? I'm seeing this everywhere and it's been bugging me. [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave on May 1, 2007 - 52 answers

How do I diagram this sentence? [more inside]
posted by mai on Apr 25, 2007 - 26 answers

Good sentences for translation practice? [more inside]
posted by graymouser on Dec 5, 2006 - 4 answers

I'm confused by the sentence structure of "The more I chew, the sorer my jaw gets" and "the heavier the atom, the less it rotates." Do these "The more..the less..." sentences have understood omitted verbs or something? They seem to not have all the prescribed elements of a sentence.
posted by eighth_excerpt on Jan 1, 2006 - 12 answers

When (and where, and maybe why) did people start doing this ? Is it mostly a UK/Europe thing ? Is it only occasional or a valid trend now ?
(Another question about a grammar anomaly, but I'm not complaining this time, only curious. This one only occurs in informal [Internet] communication and for some reason I enjoy it: a space between sentence end and final punctuation, when punctuation is a '!' or '?' Mostly UK- and Ireland-ers do it, like sgt serenity [a mad Scotsman] here.)
posted by Shane on Mar 27, 2004 - 22 answers