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...
Graham's Grammar Posts
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...
Compound nouns
A compound noun is formed by joining together two words. Sometimes these words remain separate. Examples: washing machine coffee cup fairy tale Sometimes they are hyphenated (joined together by a hyphen). Examples: holiday-maker hold-up...
Noun gender
Gender has very little place in English language, and no place at all in classifying nouns. There are some nouns that specifically relate to male people or creatures and some that relate specifically to...
Singular nouns and plural nouns
Most nouns in English can be said to be either singular or plural. The most usual way of forming a plural noun from a singular is to add –s. Examples: dog/dogs boy/boys desk/desks Most...