Interjections
What are interjections?
Interjections are short words that are grammatically unrelated that can express emotion, reaction or feeling. Furthermore, Interjections are words that show emotion either positive or negative. Also, these words don’t carry a lot of linguistic importance and are not grammatically related to the sentence that they are in, but are still widely used in the English language.
For example, popular interjections include: aw! wow! alas! ouch! ugh! phew! gee! hooray! Shoot! Etc.
It should also be mentioned that these interjections don’t need to carry the exclamation marks as shown. This is completely subjective to the person using them. Normally, they will take either an exclamation mark, comma, or question mark.
Interjections with an exclamation mark
- Alas! You finally managed to get the girl of your dreams.
- Phew! I’m so lucky, I could have fallen.
- Boo! We don’t support you!
Interjections with an interrogation mark/question mark
- Huh? What do you mean exactly?
- Eh? I have no idea.
- Aah? Excuse me, did you bump into me?
Interjections with a comma
- Duh, I told you all along. You’ll believe anything I say.
- Gee, I guess we didn’t see that coming.
- Ouch, that really hurt.
Bear in mind that all interjections can be used with a comma, exclamation mark, question mark etc. It’s completely subjective to the person using it. These examples above are only examples.
Dialogue with Interjections
- Woah!1 Look! It’s a snake. I don’t like snakes at all. Can we call someone to remove it please?
- Ah2, Look, I think it’s better that we just wait until it decides to go away. Here in Australia it’s normal for the occasional snake to crawl around in the city.
- Ugh3, I’m not a fan4 of snakes at all. I don’t like the way they slither around.
- Neither do I to be honest.
- Huh?5
- I said, neither do I to be honest. I’m also not a big fan of snakes or any types of insects.
- Oh, OK.
- Alas!6 The snake is finally moving! I was getting worried we’d7 be here for a while.
- Phew!8 It’s about time. Let’s take precautions to make sure this doesn’t ever happen again.
- Yes, absolutely.
Analysis
- Woah: an interjection that expresses sudden emotion or fascination. Usually, it will take the exclamation mark (!).
- Ah: interjection that expresses various emotions of any sort.
- Ugh: interjection that expresses disgust or fear.
- To be a fan: one can say that he/she is a fan of something or someone even though they might not be, it’s a way of speech, an idiom.
- Huh: interjection that usually takes the question mark (?). It’s a more informal way of saying pardon or I don’t understand.
- Alas: interjection is used to express grief or compassion.
- We’d: contracted form of we would. It could also be we had. You’ve got to take care of the context and make sure you understand which the correct contraction is.
- Phew: interjection that usually takes the exclamation mark (!) or comma (,) and is a way of expressing relief.
Interjections review
- Interjections:
- Ay, I’m really not feeling like going to work tomorrow.
- Err, I hear you. Mondays are everyone’s worst day of the week.
- I wish we had three-day weekends, gee whiz.
- Well, ah, I think we have a three-day weekend coming up next week. It’s, um, a bank holiday I believe.
- Hmm, that gives me an idea.
- Huh?
- An idea.
- So, what’s your idea then?
- Well, since we have a three-day weekend coming up, I’ll go for a drive around New York state. I’ve always wanted to do that. What about you, Jim, what will you do?
- Umm, I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe I’ll take my wife and kids out to go bowling. They love it.
- I’m sure you’ll have a good time. Anyhow, we’ll catch. Have a good one!
- You too. Catch you later, George.
See also
Auxiliary verbs:
Modal auxiliary verbs:
Advanced grammar:
- Articles (a/an, the, zero article)
- Pronouns: subject, object and possessive
- Question tags
- English conditionals
- Interrogatives in English
- Determiners
- Phrasal verbs
- Prefixes and suffixes
- Reported and direct speech
- Punctuation: apostrophes, colons, semi-colons, commas, dashes, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, and quotation marks
- Numbers: cardinal, ordinal, and Roman numbers
- The verb: “get”
- ‘Get’ vs. ‘go’ and ‘got’ vs. ‘gotten’
- Copular verbs
- Cleft sentences
- Subjunctive in English
- Vulgar and taboo in English
- Ellipsis
- Split infinitive
- Emphasis with inversion
- Gerunds in English
- To + infinitive
- Bare infinitive
- British and American spelling