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Prepositions - Words That Glue

Now let’s explore a very important part of speech, the preposition. This little word helps us hook nouns onto sentences. When we do, we form prepositional phrases. When you complete this section, you might decide that a preposition is a good word t...

1. Simple Prepositions

Little but Important WordsIn the English language we have approximately 70 simple prepositions. About half of them have two syllables (under, over, behind, without) or more (underneath, notwithstanding).Here’s just a partial list of simple preposit...

2. Marginal Prepositions

Verbs as PrepositionsMarginal prepositions act like prepositions but derive from other word classes, primarily verb forms:Marginal Prepositionsbarring concerning considering pending Previous: 1. Simple PrepositionsNext: 3. Compound Prepositions...

3. Compound Prepositions

A Stuffy StyleThese come in two varieties:1. two-word prepositions 2. three-word prepositionsThe two-word varieties include pursuant to, according to, because of, prior to, subsequent to, and others. The three-word varieties include with respect to, ...

Prepositional Phrase - Two Parts

The prepositional phrase consists of two major parts:1. the preposition 2. the object of the prepositionThe object is the noun (or pronoun) attached to the sentence by the preposition. That noun might be a true noun, a noun phrase, or a noun clause. ...

Objective Case of Pronouns

Just Between You and MeA reminder. Whenever a pronoun serves as the object of a preposition, it must appear in the objective case.So please heed this advice from Henry Fowler: After a preposition the objective form of a pronoun . . . must always b...

Ending a Sentence or Clause with a Preposition

Yet Another MythHere we have another myth, which I briefly mentioned in the section on prepositions:Never end a sentence or clause with a preposition. Actually, a sound rule would urge you to avoid ending sentences or clauses with prepositions in for...

Serving as Other Parts of Speech

Prepositions Serving Double DutyMany words that serve as prepositions also serve as other parts of speech. The word up, for example, acts as a preposition: He looked up the tree. (prepositional phrase) But the word up can also serve as an adverb: He ...

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...