"enjoy your food", "talk to me" - imperatives, right?

[emkana]

Not according to dd's teacher - she keeps going on about "imperative verbs" to which group talk and enjoy apparently do not belong. I am german so just to make sure I got this is not a difference in the languages I'm unaware of - every verb can be put into the imperative mood yes? No such thing as imperative verbs? And how do I tell the teacher?

Imperative

The imperative form of the verb gives instructions or commands. It is the base form of the verb, like the infinitive.

be

Don?t be afraid.

play

Play quietly.

talk

Talk to me!

put

Put three eggs in a bowl.

.

Mmmm I'm with you on this one. I also thought the imperative form of the verb was the one which was used for an 'order'.

Perhaps have a quiet word with the teacher and ask her to 'clear up the confusion'.

We teach Imperative verbs are also known as ?bossy verbs?- they tell people what to do!

What would you say to the teacher? She's an nqt and easily on the defensive.

I think the thing with your "enjoy your food" example is that it doesn't really mean "you must enjoy your food". It's a short cut for "I hope you enjoy your food".

You could play the German card, to make yourself seem unconfrontational. You know, "I'm a bit confused because in German we call this usage 'imperative'... and I thought it was the same in English, so when we got your instructions I had to look it up and found out ..." And so on.

I don't think that's right, SuziK. It's more of an exhortation than an order, it's true, but it's not an abbreviation - it's an encouragement, which is another valid use of the imperative.

Hmm, ok. Thinking about it, Bon Appetit! is clearly using the imperative and it's the same idea.

The teacher is wrong in any case, but she's probably of the generation (mine) who weren't taught grammar and is working it out as she goes along

I often have to think about grammatical terms in another language before I can apply them to English because we were taught grammar in French but not in English. Which was crazy.

I was the same - I learned all my grammar in French and Latin lessons!

dh thinks I should leave it, but I must admit it annoys me - the teacher marked the above examples as wrong in dd's homework, when they are not!

argh feel too shy about talking to teacher! Am a wuss!

I call them bossy verbs.

mrz Mon 18-Oct-10 19:10:23
"We teach Imperative verbs are also known as ?bossy verbs?- they tell people what to do!"

How do you make this out? I thought the imperative was a form of the verb, not a particular kind of verb. So surely that should be "bossy forms of a verb"?

I just remembered a couple of weeks ago dd had words like "go" "make" etc in her spelling test, I asked the teacher then why she had such easy words and she said "because we are doing imperative verbs and there aren't that many"

Should have realized then that she hasn't really fully understood what an imperative is.

oh dear

go and make are "imperative verbs" or "bossy verbs" yet talk and enjoy are not. Cringe.

Imperative was a mood, last thing I heard.

yy, imperative mood. Can you phrase it as a question, emkana, using your Germanness to your advantage - say that in German there's an equivalent, blah blah?

Imperative is a mood, not a verb form! And you are absolutely right that every verb can be put in the imperative. Please tell the teacher - as a secondary languages teacher I get so fed up of pupils coming to us with misconceptions about grammar because of over-simplification by some primary teachers and lack of grammar teaching in English at secondary level!!

If I have to teach another year 9 class that 'be' is a verb, I will scream!!! (but not at them. )

Oh god "imperative verns and there aren't that many" aaarrrghhh

go, take, believe, accept, oh yes, just about any verb can be used in the imperative.

Just as it can be used in the future tense, passive voice, subjunctive mood

I might be tempted to raise it with the teacher since she marked DD's work wrong Emkana.

LOL (in a rueful way) @ to be being a verb. I was struggling last week with a yr 7 class who, faced with "I was cold and hungry that day" asserted almost to a child that there was no verb in the sentence.

And when asked to categorise words as verbs, nouns or either, almost all thought 2remember" was a noun and "tennis" a verb - a "doing word" y'see.

what do they think "be" is if not a verb?

Oh man they have nooo idea.

Bless them, it's not their fault and I didn't get angry, they were really sweet anyway.

I said, how about "to be" and they just all said, oh, to be or not to be - but had no concept that that had anything to do with the words was or is.

I asked DD later (she is 9) and she got them all right but then she has grammar drilled into her (by me, natch!)

I wonder whose stupid idea it was in the first place to call it bossy verbs or imperative verbs, as if there are those and then some verbs that are not.

I highly doubt that the teacher was thinking of the optative mood when she marked it as wrong