Appositives

In the English language, appositives work to rename nouns.

For example, in the sentence...

Joe Montana, a famous quarterback, is signing autographs.

...the phrase "a famous quarterback" functions as an appositive since it renames the noun "Joe Montana." Appositives can be taken out of the sentence and the sentence is still complete.

Joe Montana is signing autographs.

On Thursday, my students were taking a vocabulary test. The test required them to write a short essay using eight of our ten current vocabulary words correctly.

While the students were writing their essays, I was at my desk grading papers. At one point, a student I'll call Jim approached my desk. Now Jim is a relatively quiet student, but he does have the tendency to be what we educational professionals call "a smart ass."

Jim walked over to me and said, "Um, Ms. Zeldagrrrl, can I use two appositives in a row?"

Not sure what he meant, I asked him to clarify with an example.

"Um, like, could I write, `Ms. Zeldagrrrl, a teacher, an old hag..."

He stared at me intently. I placed my pen down. Across the classroom, I could see students wincing, as if they could not believe one of their own could be so dumb.

"You," I said, "cannot be serious. Are you serious? Seriously?"

"I....I....I didn't mean it like that," stammered Jim.

"I'm writing you up, sit down," I announced, reaching for my "Incident Referral Form." These forms require a teacher to write out an elaborate explanation of what happened and when, therefore I rarely write a child up.

Jim got Saturday detention. Today he approached me in the hallway.

"I'm really, really sorry," said Jim. "I was...I was trying to be funny, that's all. I'm really, really sorry."

"It's okay, Jim," I answered. "I don't hold grudges with my students." I accepted his apology sincerely.

You gotta admit...the kid had balls.