This article is part of the Today We Learn English! series.


Contrarily from A Mother's Arms, there is likeways a method of protecting your delicate sentences from a destructive, evil or lawbreaking clause. In a situation reversed from the previous, consider executing The Shackles upon your unruly clauses to prevent them from corrupting, harming or even killing your sentence. Witness this example:

Let us for a moment imagine that Dorroile, a wanted offender, is practicing his grotesque and unnecessary dance in a room full of baby goats. Oh, how nonplussed would these goats be if they were to witness such a horror. Here, we institute The Shackles:

The baby goats remained so safe and soft [but Dorroile remained a bastard as ever].

Is the exercise really necessary here? I think we all can tell how to do it, unless we have had our heads replaced with the heads of babies.



Undertake not The Chalice carelessly, for those who deploy the thing without reverence have been known to find themselves tethered to the poll, shamed by their superiors, and forbade from writing forevermore. You see, though: The Chalice denotes that a promise is about to be made, a The Chalice is as binding to law as a death certificate, or a notarized document proving that Dorroile has menaced a tiny goat. The Chalice must not be dirtied with irreverence.

Exercise: Has The Chalice been employed with care? Tell me, child.

a) Mary, I swear to you: your robe was in this condition when I found it.
b) I, Dorroile, do personally warrant this: no goats shall be menaced hereafter.
c) Your Head Better Superior promises you: improvements will be done.

And here is the truth of it:




Uncommon but often of a high necessity, Orion's Belt denotes that the speaker of a sentence is drifting into reverie. Perhaps he is enjoying a spiritual ecstasy, or has made an epiphanic revelation unto himself and is struck dumb, and maybe he is pausing for a daydream or a strange interlude. No matter what, you now use Orion's Belt to illustrate that his words drift into infinity.

Exercise: Ascertain somehow whether Orion's Belt has been used here:

a) I would love to purchase this walruscoat, but, o, a reverie...
b) Sometimes I imagine back to the days of my youth and...
c) Please hold the steering wheel, Mary, I am having a strange interlude...

If you must, please find the answers below:


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