then show how real-life individuals of this sort are not stereotypical. Pay special attention to how the use of grammar affects a stereotype. (Do all professional football players use double negatives, for example?) Careers Job descriptions rarely specify that applicants be able to use grammar correctly. Does this mean that grammar is unimportant in most jobs? Examine five dif- ferent careers that interest you and decide how important correct grammar is in each job. Give examples of responsibilities and activities that support your analysis. Slow Children at Play The careless-or uninformed-use of modifiers, verbs, and pronouns some- times leads to unexpected humor. Read signs in your town or city or surf the Internet to find humorous errors or interpretations. Write a short skit or dialogue, using the sign/sentence as a punch line, or create a cartoon drawing or comic strip inspired by the humorous error. How would you rewrite the sign or sen- tence to make its meaning more clear and specific?Real-World Applications Using Grammar It's time to take a break from traditional grammar exercises. The following activities ask you to explore how people use grammar in the real world, outside your classroom walls. Which activity sparks your interest? Choose an activity to complete; then, with your teacher's approval, share the results with your classmates. Have a good time! Now Crispier! How do advertisers use the degrees of comparison? Do a study of what kinds of things are compared-products, qualities, consumer preferences, and so on. Then examine how advertisers phrase the comparisons. For example, why do agazine. they sometimes use open-ended comparisons, such as "Now crispier!"? (You are left to wonder, Crispier than what?) Write a summary of your findings, giv- selves, theirself ing examples of comparisons in advertisements along with your own analysis of why ads are worded this way. Oh, Don't Nobody Love Me? Take a few days to listen-really listen-to the lyrics in songs. How many gram- mar errors can you collect? Make a list of grammar errors, along with the songs and artists responsible. Then think about how each error affects you as a listener. Does it interfere with your understanding? Create a particular mood? Send a message about the speaker in the song, or about the artist? Local Color Find out about the local color movement in American literature. When was the local color movement? What qualities define local color writing? Who are some of the authors who wrote in this style? And, most important, how do these authors use grammar in characters' speech to help show local color? Check It Out Many people rely on grammar-check software to find the grammar errors in their writing. How reliable is this method of finding errors? Is the software "blind" to certain kinds of errors? Does it always suggest the best correction? Perform a test of grammar-check software to see how it responds to the kinds of errors discussed in Lessons 3-6. Based on your findings, what recommendations do you have for writers? Prima Donna The dumb jock, the ditzy cheerleader, the country bumpkin, the rich snob- these are just a few stereotypes. Does one of these stereotypes, or some other one, strike you as particularly unfair? Prepare a defense of this kind of person- an athlete, for example, or a politician. Present a summary of the stereotype, Review of Using Verbs, Modifiers, and Pronouns 75