Search results for “adjectives”

As the third Sunday in June approaches, many of you may be wondering how to write the name of the holiday—is it Father's Day, Fathers' Day, or Fathers Day? We last looked into the topic of where to properly place holiday apostrophes in a 2018 newsletter. Today we provide an update. Do You Use an …

A leading principle in learning grammar is that there are no stupid questions. However, there can be questions about the word stupid. That brings us to the topic of today's post: Is stupider really a word? Or would it be better grammar to say more stupid? Neither is very polite, and the answers might surprise …

English has two kinds of clauses: subordinate (or dependent) and independent. The difference between them is that an independent clause can stand alone and a dependent one cannot. A subordinate clause by itself is a sentence fragment. Complete stand-alone sentence: I want the ice cream that is made with soy instead of milk and cream. Independent …

The em dash in American English is a punctuation mark that helps to convey emphasis, introduction, interruption, or a swift change of thought. In doing so, the em dash acts similarly to commas, semicolons, colons, and parentheses. In formal writing, an em dash is the width of an m and longer than both a hyphen and an …

A possessive pronoun is a pronoun that indicates or identifies ownership. It can be either an adjective or a stand-in for an antecedent, the noun to which it refers. Possessive Pronoun: Adjective Possessive Pronoun: Stand-In Noun my her mine hers your our yours ours his their his theirs What Are Possessive Pronouns: Adjectives A possessive …

The en dash and the em dash offer different functions for punctuation. They also have different ways they can be made using a keyboard. In this brief discussion, we’ll review common uses of the en dash and the em dash as well as methods for forming them with your keyboard. En Dash An en dash …

Many of us who learned American English in school likely received certain inviolable decrees about usage. One of them was to use "___ and I" only as a subject. Another was never to split an infinitive (not true). Yet another was never to end a sentence with a preposition, a breach of form that can …

A demonstrative pronoun is a pronoun that points to a specific noun or noun phrase in a sentence. It can substitute for the noun or noun phrase as long as what it represents is clear within the context. Example As far as sales are concerned, this has been a better month than the last. (The …

Writers and speakers of English use the verb continue to communicate the idea of something's going or keeping on, as in "We hope the good weather continues." The concept of the English word continue comes from the Latin root continuāre, meaning "to join together or connect, to make all one." We further understand the idea …

If you have friends and family members with an interest in grammar, asking whether the word none is singular or plural is a good way to start a spirited discussion (and if you have this kind of social circle, we would enjoy knowing how the discussion concluded, but we digress). For many, the presumed wisdom …