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The Let's Eat Grandma Brain Teaser
Read this sentence: "Let's eat Grandma!" As written, it sounds as though someone wants to eat their grandmother. Which single punctuation mark, added in the right place, turns it into an invitation for Grandma to come and eat?
Show the worked solution
What's the puzzle?
Read this sentence: "Let's eat Grandma!" As written, it sounds as though someone wants to eat their grandmother. Which single punctuation mark, added in the right place, turns it into an invitation for Grandma to come and eat?
What's the answer?
A comma: “Let's eat, Grandma!”
How do you work it out?
- Without punctuation before it, Grandma is the object of the verb eat, so she is the one being eaten.
- To show you are talking to Grandma, her name needs to be separated from the rest of the sentence.
- Speaking directly to someone by name is called direct address, and the name is marked off with a comma.
- The answer is a comma: "Let's eat, Grandma!"
Frequently asked questions
What is direct address in English grammar?
Direct address is when a sentence speaks to someone by name, as in "Thank you, Sam." The name is separated from the rest of the sentence with a comma, or with two commas if it sits in the middle.
Why is the Let's eat Grandma puzzle useful for punctuation practice?
The Let's eat Grandma puzzle from LoveMaths Tutoring UK makes the job of a comma easy to remember, because leaving it out produces a sentence with a very different and memorable meaning.
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