Superlative adverbs
Superlative adverbs. Let’s think first about adverbs that form their comparative form with _er and their superlative with _est. Such adverbs include loud, louder, loudest or quick, quicker, quickest. For such adverbs: We don’t...
Graham's Grammar Posts
You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs
When we say that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs we mean that it’s impossible to do something good without damaging something else. It’s an idiom that we often use – sometimes...
The Subjunctive Mood
Let’s start with a warning: the subjective mood isn’t something that most people need to be concerned with. It’s difficult to learn and, anyway, isn’t often used in everyday speech. You only really need...
Adverbs
Adverbs are words that modify a verb. They explain how, when, where or why something is done. Adverbs of manner Adverbs of manner explain the manner in which (how) an action is carried out....
Bee in your bonnet
We say that someone has a bee in their bonnet when they can’t stop talking or thinking about something. This might be because they are worried or angry about it. Or it might be...
Possessive case
This post is about the possessive case of nouns. The case of a noun is the form that shows its relation to other words in a sentence. Grammarians disagree about how many cases there...
To put one’s foot in it
“To put one’s foot in it” is an idiom. We use it to talk about someone saying something embarrassing without meaning to do so. If I say “I put my foot in it”, I...
Mind-boggling
When we say that something is mind-boggling, we mean that it is so large, complicated or extreme that it is very surprising and difficult to understand or imagine. For example: We often use the...
Distributive pronouns
We use distributive pronouns to refer to the members of a group. The main distributive pronouns are: all, both, any, each, every, either and neither. Examples: We normally follow distributive pronouns by ‘of’. Distributive pronouns are...