Jason points to a 10-question gram­mar chal­lenge given to the stu­dents of a non-fiction work­shop held by David Fos­ter Wal­lace.

It’s not a par­tic­u­larly easy chal­lenge, made worse by the fact that my non-native Eng­lish speak­ing girl­friend just beat my score com­pre­hen­sively (this wasn’t a dif­fi­cult feat, how­ever). The answers are pro­vided, and I par­tic­u­larly like the method Wal­lace used to teach cor­rect adverb use:

You have been entrusted to feed for your neighbor’s dog for a week while he (the neigh­bor) is out of town. The neigh­bor returns home; some­thing has gone awry; you are questioned.

“I fed the dog.“
“Did you feed the para­keet?“
“I fed only the dog.“
“Did any­one else feed the dog?“
“Only I fed the dog.“
“Did you fondle/molest the dog?“
“I only fed the dog!” [Here Wallace’s voice cracked funnily.]

The excel­lent Tense Present: Democ­racy, Eng­lish, and the Wars over Usage (David Fos­ter Wal­lace) and Pol­i­tics and the Eng­lish Lan­guage (George Orwell) essays are men­tioned in the answers sec­tion and are well worth your time if you haven’t read them before and have even a pass­ing inter­est in grammar.

Another use­ful resource for those who fall into that cat­e­gory: the After Dead­line posts from The New York Times (“Notes from the news­room on gram­mar, usage and style”).