Those Fancy Terms

Have you ever just accepted something because it sounded fancy? When we were young, we did it all the time. Before we develop minds of our own, we assume a person that is using complex terms to explain something knows precisely what they are talking about. For instance, I used to think my friend Jesse knew a lot about politics. However, as it turns out, he is just an average Joe who knows how to use the hot-ticket political terms. He is no better at actually understanding politics than Sally Sue or John Smith.

Here’s the thing though – not many people are willing to question Jesse about politics. It is almost as though he is off-limits to all critical thought. The only reason for this that I can think of is that he knows how to employ fancy terminology. The problem is only intensified because if the people around him do not fully understand the words he is using, they don’t ask him to define anything. I believe they don’t want to seem ignorant. In this way, Jesse continues to be considered a guy who understands politics quite well.

I say nay.

While I can see through Jesse’s facade of fanciness, I find myself making the same mistakes as the people who think he is a great political mind. What I mean by this, is I sometimes just accept complex terminology without really understanding what it is that I am acknowledging. I feel like I do this in the subject of grammar all the time. In example, I have never understood what transitive versus intransitive verbs are. I have known the terms for years, but I always just accepted them as fancy ways to say something was a verb. AND I never asked what they meant. I accepted the fancy.

After a few weeks in Barbara Monroe’s grammar class, I finally came across the meaning of transitive/intransitive verbs. In sentence structure, a verb is transitive when it has an object attached to it. So, in the sentence, “Seth uses glitter pens,” the word ‘uses’ is a transitive verb because it is using the glitter pens. Here, ‘glitter pens’ is the object that makes ‘uses’ a transitive verb. On the flip side, and intransitive verb has no object in the sentence structure. The object is merely implied. An example of this would be, “Seth uses.” In this case, ‘uses’ is an intransitive verb because the object of the sentence is only implied (the object being drugs).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do I understand transitive/intransitive verbs correctly?