Adjectives from proper nouns
Adjectives that derive from a proper noun have an initial capital letter. Examples: The English language An African country This Russian girl A Parisian cafe The Freudian theory
Author: Graham
What’s the difference between “barter” and “haggle”?
A surprising number of native English speakers confuse these two words. They might say, for example: “I like to go to the market and barter”, when they really mean: “I like to go to...
The position of adjectives
Adjectives usually appear immediately before a noun. Examples: A large table. Daniel’s blue book. Her new clothes. The thirsty horse. These are called attributive adjectives. They tell us about the attributes of something. Sometimes...
Adjectives
An adjective adds more information about a noun or pronoun. Adjectives are sometimes called ‘describing words’. More technically, an adjective is a word that ‘modifies’ or ‘qualifies’ a noun or pronoun. Examples: An old...
What does it mean to “shoehorn something in”?
A shoehorn is a device used to help someone put a shoe (particularly a tight shoe) on to their foot. So ‘to shoehorn something in’ is an idiom about putting something (or someone) into...
‘Recognise’ or ‘recognize’?
‘Recognise’ and ‘recognize’ are both correct spellings. ‘Recognise’ is mainly used in British English. ‘Recognize’ is used in American English. Many people say that ‘recognise’ is the correct spelling in British English, but other...
Regular and irregular verbs
Most English verbs are regular verbs. They follow a standard pattern for the infinitive, third person singular, present participle, and past participle. Examples: Infinitive Third person singular Present participle Past participle Stop Stops Stopping...
Verb tenses
A verb’s tense tells us the time of the action or the state of being. The main tenses are present, past and future. These are divided into simple (or imperfect, or indefinite), continuous, perfect...
Verbs
Verbs express actions or states of being. They are often described as ‘doing words’, but they are more than this.
Noun phrases
A noun phrase consists of a noun joined with one or more other word. Together they can act as the subject, object or complement of a sentence. Examples (with the noun phrases underlined): The...