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A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause used to provide additional information in a sentence. The information is not vital to the sentence's meaning, but it often gives details that offer readers extra clarity. Examples I love when Samantha wears that jacket. Josef waited patiently for two hours. Kathy plans to work as a …

We use words constantly to express ourselves and exchange thoughts with others. We write, speak, hear, read, and listen to words. Some research suggests the average person can speak from 4,000 to 7,000 words in a day. All words have origins that might date from days to millennia since their inception. The English language is …

Verbs are words that describe a mental or physical action, a state of being, or an occurrence. By doing so, they often give us the most information among the parts of speech in a sentence. A sentence can exist without a noun, but it cannot without a verb. Verb Definitions and Verb Examples A verb's …

Writing and speaking in American English often includes the relative pronouns which and that. We use these words to provide essential and nonessential (also known as restrictive and nonrestrictive) information that further explains or identifies. The distinction between which and that was once more established within daily formal writing. The word which was used for …

Percentages are common in our daily communication. They express groups of numbers in ways that let us quickly interpret them and relate them to one another. At the same time, we might wonder how we should present these figures in our writing. Do we use 10 per cent, 10 percent, or 10%? Let's review some …

Part of being a precise and eloquent communicator is conveying the right point of view. Person is used in grammar to distinguish who is speaking, who is being addressed, and who is not speaking or being addressed. Grammatical person includes first person, second person, and third person. In this post we will help you understand …

Imagine you are reading the police-report section of your community newspaper. Someone has been committing a rash of local burglaries. The description in the report says, "The man is identified as being age 20 to 25 and approximately 5'9" to 6' tall with shoulder-length blond hair weighing 160 to 170 pounds." You furrow your brow …

A reflexive pronoun in English is one that refers back to itself: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves. It is used when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same. It can act as either an object or an indirect object: We should finish it by ourselves. (object of a …

A personal pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. It stands in for a particular person or thing after that person or thing (the antecedent) has been identified. We use personal pronouns to avoid redundancy that can become distracting. Redundant: Sheila goes to the library every other Saturday. Sheila returns old books and checks …

Every English verb has an infinitive, which is the base form of the verb before it is conjugated. It consists of the word to and the present form of the verb (the infinitive stem): e.g., to run, to sing, to write, to follow. Although an infinitive is the base of a verb, it does not …