Definition:
A word or group of words that expresses a complete idea. The sentence is the largest independent unit of grammar. Conventionally, a sentence includes a subject and a verb. It begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "to feel."Examples and Observations:
- Declarative Sentence
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
(Mark Twain) - Interrogative Sentence
"But what is the difference between literature and journalism? Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all."
(Oscar Wilde) - Imperative Sentence
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
(Mark Twain) - Exclamatory Sentence
"To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
(H. L. Mencken) - "Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory."
(Denis Diderot) - "Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought."
(Stephen King) - "A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."
(William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style) - "None of the usual definitions of a sentence really says much, but every sentence ought somehow to organize a pattern of thought, even if it does not always reduce the thought to bite-sized pieces."
(Richard A. Lanham, Revising Prose, Scribner's, 1979) - "'I am' is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that 'I do' is the longest sentence?"
(George Carlin)
Pronunciation: SEN-tens
