Nouns are one of the major parts of speech that we use in our sentences. Often, we replace nouns with pronouns in order to make our sentences shorter or less repetitive. But what if we want to make our sentences more … intense? For example, we could say Santa Claus attended the holiday party. Snoresville! We knew he was coming. However, we can call up …
Here is a story about something that happened yesterday. A man named Frank woke up late to discover that a mariachi band had been playing music outside his window all morning. He ran outside to see what was going on and learned that his neighbors were celebrating their daughter’s 15th birthday. He suddenly remembered that they had invited him to the party last week. Needless …
After you are done reading this article, you will be patting yourself on the back because you’re so good at grammar. Before you congratulate yourself, though, take a second look at the last sentence. The main verb phrase of the sentence looked pretty unique, didn’t it? English is full of surprises, and today we will look at a particularly interesting way of using verbs: the …
Pop quiz! Do you have any pets? Do you have any siblings? Do you have sore feet? Have you brushed your teeth today? Are you afraid of mice? Don’t worry, there are no wrong answers. As you took our silly quiz, you may have noticed something strange going on. Our little quiz used several different nouns, words we use to refer to people, places, and …
Often, we find ourselves as members of groups. We might be a member of a family, a team, a society, or a club. Not only do all of these things prevent us from being lonely, but the words used to refer to them are all nouns. We use nouns to refer to friendly people, interesting places, and amazing things, and we use many different types …
Yesterday, I washed my car. Last week, I visited my friends. Last year, I broke my arm. Ten years ago, I studied Korean. All of these things happened in the past, but these sentences also all have one other thing in common: they use verbs in the simple past tense. For now, let’s focus on the present and learn more about this particular verb tense. …
Though these symbols—( ), [ ], { }, and ? ?—regularly appear in our books and screens, they all have odd, unexpected origins. Let’s explore them a bit closer and find out their actual names, too! What are brackets? If you’ve ever seen these keys on your computer: { }, [ ], or < >, well then you know where all of the types of …
An amazing thing happened the other day. A man had finished his jog around the block when he saw a tiger stroll down the sidewalk. A woman nearby told him that the tiger had escaped from the circus. Before an influencer could take a selfie with the tiger, a troupe of clowns had chased it down the street. On the news later that night, a …
As if the words to “Auld Lang Syne” weren’t difficult enough to remember, ringing in a brand-new year comes with some particularly befuddling grammar landmines. Of course, the punctuation we use when talking about the New Year’s holiday couldn’t do us a solid and follow the same pattern as Veterans Day (note the lack of apostrophe), because … well, that’s the English language for you. Don’t …
When we write our sentences, we want them to be clear and informative so that everyone easily understands what we are trying to say. To that end, we can write a sentence like The tall clown, the one with the green shoes, is my little brother. This silly sentence includes an example of an especially useful bit of grammar: an appositive phrase. Appositives and appositive …
The difference between the verbs lay and lie is one of English’s most confusing questions. Both words involve something or someone in a horizontal position, but where the two words differ has to do with who or what is horizontal—the subject of the verb (the one doing the action) or the direct object (the person or thing being acted upon). In this article, we’ll break …
Ok, let’s face the facts: English is a tough and often weird language. English grammar is rarely cut and dry. We all know it, so why mention this now? Well, we’re about to talk about infinitives. Are they verbs? Are they nouns? Are they adjectives? Are they adverbs? Are they taking all of our missing socks? The answer to the last question is “No” (probably), …