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The “Like” Word

Like, Wow!The word doing the most damage to the communicative “skills” of young people today happens to be a preposition … the word like. It also happens to be a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a conjunction, and an interjection.The word...

A Summary of Prepositions

In this section, we learned all about the preposition, whose primary role in life is to stick nouns on sentences. We met three basic kinds: simple, marginal, and compound. We learned that skilled writers don’t use too many compound prepositions lik...

The Last Part of Speech - The Interjection

We don’t need to spend much time with the eighth and final part of speech—the interjection.Like wow!Rats.Damn!Oh!These and other words of surprise are interjections. Use them in speech and creative writing. Leave them out of your master’s thesi...

Common Grammatical Mistakes

We have broken some of the longer topics into multiple pages. So watch for references to “Pages 1-2-3” at the bottom of the topic. Click the next page number to continue reading.Please note:You may download this entire section and read it in hard...

Chapter 1 - Subject-Verb Disagreement

“There’s lots of these mistakes.”Way too many people have forgotten the rule: A subject must agree with its verb in number. A singular subject demands a singular verb. A plural subject demands a plural verb. Writers risk their credibility with ...

“There is” - Huge Grammatical Mistake

I’ll go out on a limb: Sometime today, most people reading this section will make this grammatical mistake, perhaps not in writing, but certainly in speech. Listen carefully to your sentences starting with there’s, which is to say, there is. You...

Three Rules on Subject-Verb Agreement

There are, of course, many other kinds of mistakes made with subjects and verbs. Classifying the types often helps reduce the mistakes you might make.But first, a review of the basics.Let’s start with three basic and immutable rules:1. If the gramm...

Common Traps to Avoid

The English language can lay many traps for unwary writers, who can embarrass themselves by using a plural verb with a singular subject (more common) or a singular verb with a plural subject (less common). Once you understand the most common traps, h...

Subjects Joined by “and”

A compound subject consists of two or more words acting as the subject of the sentence. When the series is joined conjunctively, that is, with the word and, in the vast majority of cases the subject is plural and requires a plural verb. Look at the f...

Subjects Joined by “or”

When you have a series joined disjunctively by the word or, the number of the verb is determined by the number of the noun closest to the verb, that is, the last in the series. One apple, one orange, or two bananas are then added to the blender. Two ...

Subjects Joined by Other Connectors

Watch OutWatch out for along with, as well as, together with, not to mention, and others. These are not conjunctions and do not form plural subjects.Writers often use other connecting words to join nouns to the subject of the sentence. If that subjec...

Group Nouns - “majority do” or “majority does”?

Another problem of subject-verb disagreement arises when the subject of the sentence is a group noun, also called a collective noun, that is, a word describing a bunch of people or things, such as group, team, majority, and many others.The question i...

British Approach to Group Nouns

As an interesting aside, the British always use plural verbs with collective nouns. On May 15, 2001, I was watching a BBC-produced documentary about a blues musician who made a comeback. Describing the musician’s band, the narrator said: The band a...

“None” - Singular or Plural?

The indefinite pronoun none requires some separate discussion. A myth has emerged that none always requires a singular verb.Not true.Singular or PluralThe word none can take the singular or the plural. In the words of New Fowler: It is a mistake to s...

“Each” - Singular or Plural?

Under the traditional rule, the indefinite pronoun each is always singular and takes a singular verb.Thus: Each of the golfers wants to win the PGA. Each of us wishes for success. The Views of Usage PanelsSome usage panels disagree. Consider this usa...

Now let’s fix the chapter title…

The chapter title "There's lots of these subject-verb disagreements" should read:There are lots of these subject-verb disagreements.The expression "there is" should always be followed by a singular noun. If the noun is plural, you must use "there are...

Chapter 2 - “Could of”

“We could of used the right helping verb.”We understand where this mistake came from. It came from speech. The word “have” when joined with “could” to form “could have” sounds a lot like “could of.” The latter, of course, is a gro...

We should fix the chapter title…

The chapter title reads: "We could of used the right helping verb."Let's fix it: We could have used the right helping verb.The words "could of" make no grammatical sense whatsoever. Sure, "could of" sounds like "could have," and you can get away with...

Chapter 3 - “Your” and “You’re”

“Your leaving out the word are.”Anyone who has ever joined a “thread” on the Internet has seen this mistake a thousand times. Of course, making the mistake on the Internet won’t harm your career, but if “your” instead of “you’re” ...

So our chapter title should read…

You are leaving out the word are.Or perhaps:You’re leaving out the word are. Previous: Chapter 3 - “Your” and “You’re”Next: Chapter 4 - Case of Pronouns...

Chapter 4 - Case of Pronouns

“You and him confuse the case of pronouns.”In this chapter, you’ll find a table showing all the personal pronouns in their various cases and numbers. We urge you to commit it to memory. Misuse of pronoun case marks one as intellectually challen...

Memorize the Various Personal Pronouns

Here are the same tables on personal pronouns you memorized in Grammar.com’s section on the Parts of Speech (Pronouns):Singular Personal Pronouns Person Subjective Case Objective Case Possessive Case First Person I me my-mine Second Person y...

Case of Pronouns - The Rule

In formal settings, you must follow the rules governing the case of pronouns.If your sentence calls for the subjective case, you must use I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they (see the subjective-case columns in the two tables above).If your sentence ca...

Pronoun as the Object of a Preposition

Object of a PrepositionA noun attached to a sentence by a preposition is the object of the preposition, which requires the objective case of a pronoun taking the place of the noun.Wrong: A Grammar Book for You and I . . . . Right: A Grammar Book f...

Shall we fix the chapter title?

The chapter title read: “You and him confuse the case of pronouns.” Let’s fix it:You and he confuse the case of pronouns.Remember, when a pronoun acts as a subject, you must use the subjective case (he, not him). Previous: Pronoun as the O...