A site to help make English grammar more understandable without dumbing down either its significance or its usage.
With the death today of 89-year-old baseball and broadcasting legend [tag]Phil Rizzuto[/tag], the tributes poured in and the radio interviews abounded. I liked the comment by Yankee owner [tag]George Steinbrenner[/tag] that "Heaven must’ve needed a shortstop," but I was taken aback by the eloquence of former Detroit Tigers broadcaster [tag]Ernie Harwell[/tag]. It wasn’t so much [...]
As I mentioned in my previous explanation of modifiers, these little words and phrases need to immediately precede or immediately succeed that which they modify. If not, you can end up with two grammar errors. One is called a misplaced modifier; the other is labeled a dangling modifier. Let’s look at a misplaced modifier first. Here’s an [...]
Leave it to the British to develop slang that cuts to the quick. Case in point: Los Angeles Galaxy soccer superstar [tag]David Beckham[/tag] has been mostly unable to play since arriving in the states because his ankle is injured and troublesome. Here, the expression in describing the injury is to call it “day to day.” [...]
I struggled to map in my mind which topic to cover after phrases, which seemed like a logical follow-up to clauses. Eventually, I decided on modifiers. Now, without getting into the many different forms of modifiers, I want to start out basic building blocks on this topic by giving you two ironclad rules concerning modifiers. [...]
I’m not sure how other languages handle this (probably similarly since humans are the same the world over), but we Americans tend to use some pretty weird words to show our affection. For instance, when my dog is bugging me for attention, I’ll say, "You little creep." My wife, who is Chinese and for whom [...]
Actually, I had never before heard of these infant videos since my only offspring is a grown woman already, but a study has shown that the vids “Brainy Baby” and “Baby Einstein,” designed to teach English language skills to the very young, actually retard the kids’ learning process. Each hour of watching these videos (in [...]
Here’s a novel way to start your week–a Grammar Quiz from the SAT that will give you the results. Now, now, no cheating! (On one answer I disagree. It was not incorrect, just a weak form.)
The joint should try hiring back some copy editors who actually know English grammar, but Mr. Spell Checker–in all his ignorance–rules the roost at the Los Angeles Times. Seen as a headline in the paper’s Sports section on Friday, August 3, 2007: Dodgers put on a clinic, for who? I’m sure there’s boatload of people [...]
The main distinguishing feature of phrases is that they lack a subject-verb combination. They can certainly contain nouns and/or verb forms, but they are not joined as they are in a clause. Phrases can be used as nouns, adjectives and adverbs. A prepositional phrase contains a preposition. In the morning is a prepositional phrase. A [...]
Not to age myself (to not age myself? LOL), but I remember back when I started as a cub newspaper reporter that page composition was done by linotype. On a linotype machine, which produced hot metal slugs that would be arranged together and used for printing, the characters of the alphabet were arranged in vertical columns by frequency [...]