Informal and Formal Language

Hey! Whatcha doing?

• Formal

• Informal

When's dinner?

• Formal

• Informal

Knock, knock! Who's there?

• Formal

• Informal

Were Uncle Ray's letters formal or informal?

• Formal

• Informal

He's an easy fella to travel with. This is informal because...

• it is a long sentence

• it uses big words

• it says fella

My sisters and I had the distinct pleasure of entertaining Mr. Woodman for the past 23 days. This is formal writing because....

• it is a long sentence

• it uses big words

• it says Mr. Woodman

• all of the above

We gotta get this done before we can go anywhere. Change to a formal sentence

• We haveta to getter done before we can go anywhere,

• We must complete this before we can go to the movies.

The project is to be completed by the end of the week. Change to informal language

• The project should be finished by Friday.

• The paper's gotta be done by Friday.

Which sentence shows formal language?

• Guess who came to dinner? Oliver

• He hung out with us for a couple of days and the girls liked him better than Quinn.

• Our dear papa died in January and left us an inheritance.

• Poor fella- a mouse was building a nest in his backpack

Which sentence shows informal language?

• To: Raymond Johnson

• So when Quinn's cousin's boyfriend's aunt was leaving to visit her sick grandfather in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the guys loaded Mr. Ok into the aunt's station wagon and sent him on his way.

• Your friend managed to frighten him away.