Learn parts of speech with a childhood poem I discovered this childhood poem that I hadn’t read before. Every name is called a noun as field and fountain, street and town. In place of a noun the pronoun stands as he and she clap their hands. The adjective describes a thing, as magic wand or […]
Squinting modifier: children who play in the sun often have a high risk of cancer Squinting adverbial modifiers is a phrase that makes me wonder who invented grammar terms – I find it hard to imagine an adverb squinting! Adverbs are words that add information to parts of a sentence about time, manner, place or degree (soon, […]
One bird is different from/than/to the rest. Which of the following sentences do you prefer? Your opinion is different from mine. Your opinion is different to mine. Your opinion is different than mine. Does it matter? Traditionally, different from was regarded as Standard English, but different to and different than are becoming increasingly common. I don’t think […]
‘Either you apologise or I’ll sulk for hours’ Either/or and neither/nor connect two balanced words, clauses or phrases. They are called correlative conjunctions. Singular or plural verb? When two singular subjects are connected by either/or or neither/nor, use a singular verb. Either Sally or Peter is invited. Neither Sally nor Peter is invited. If one of […]
But and however can often be used interchangeably But and however are often used interchangeably to mean ‘yet’, but they are punctuated differently because however in this context is a conjunctive adverb, (also known as an adverbial conjunct) not a conjunction. Jim lost a fortune gambling, but he still lives in a mansion. Jim lost […]
Do you get confused about when to use a and an? If the first sound of the following word is a vowel sound (whether or not the letter is a vowel), use an. an elephant, an hour, an honour, an urn If the first sound of the following word is a consonant sound (whether […]
Grammar myths are not based on the truth Language evolves, yet we often cling to the rules we were taught at primary school in the belief that resisting change keeps the language pure. But, whether we like it or not, change does occur and some ‘rules’ have become myths. None must take a singular verb A common misconception is […]
Answering your grammar questions Punctuation with brackets Question: A colleague often uses a full stop after a bracket that has an exclamation mark at the end: (So it looks like this!). Is it correct to have a full stop after an exclamation mark in a bracket? I’m sure it’s wrong but not sure why! Answer: […]
Answering grammar questions What pronoun should you use after ‘than’? Question: Here is a question I’ve been wondering about for years. Here is the basic sentence – and I’m going to focus on race car drivers – hope you don’t mind: Nico Rosberg was faster than Lewis Hamilton in the last race. That’s pretty straightforward. One could switch […]
Data or datum? Microsoft Word accepts data as correct spelling when used in the singular and the Macquarie Dictionary says: ‘The connection between data the plural and datum the singular has been almost completely broken, so that while datum survives in such compounds as datum point, it does not have the frequency of use that data […]