Troubles with Grammar

I am attempting to channel Brigitte Bardot tonight. The boyfriend and I are going to his friends' house warming party tonight. I've got the tousled blond hair, winged black eyeliner, and boat-necked black and white striped shirt (which the boyfriend ironed for me!) down pat. Now if only I had her mastery of the French language.

I spent most of my day proofreading the boyfriend's physics thesis. As I took the minimum amount of science courses required in both high school and college, it has been an ordeal.

As the boyfriend is exceedingly logical, he asks me to explain my corrections. I resorted to wikipedia-ing 'however' today in order to explain how it functions as a conjunctive adverb in a sentence, and where it should be placed.You cannot break up the verb and the predicate with a conjunctive adverb. You just can't!

My trouble explaining why grammar rules function the way they do reveals just how big the gap is between the humanities and the sciences. In the humanities, you can chalk a talent up to being a gift. In the sciences, you must belabor each and every potential condition that could of possibly brought that talent into existence and then explicate why in disjointed 'scientific' English.