English Grammar For Dummies

Geraldine Woods has more than 35 years of teaching experience. She is the author of more than 50 books, including English Grammar Workbook For Dummies and Research Papers For Dummies.

• Introduction 1Foolish Assumptions 1Icons Used in This Book 2Beyond the Book 3Where to Go from Here 3Part 1: Building a Firm Foundation: The Parts of the Sentence 5Chapter 1: Using the Right Words at the Right Time 7What This Year’s Sentence Is Wearing: Understanding Grammar and Style 8Distinguishing Between the Three Englishes 9Wanna get something to eat? Friendspeak 10Do you feel like getting a sandwich? Conversational English 11Will you accompany me to the dining room? Formal English 12Thumbing Your Way to Better Grammar 13Probing the Limits of Grammar-Checking Software 14What’s Your Problem? Solutions to Your Grammar Gremlins 15Chapter 2: Verbs: The Heart of the Sentence 17Expressing Meaning with Verbs 17Meeting the Families: Linking and Action Verbs 18Linking verbs: The Giant Equal Sign 19Forms of “to be” 19Synonyms of “to be” 20Savoring sensory verbs 21Completing linking-verb sentences correctly 22Lights! Camera! Action verb! 24Calling the Help Line for Verbs 25Timing is everything: Creating a time frame with helping verbs 25Don’t ask! Questions and negative statements 25Adding shades of meaning with helping verbs 27Pop the Question: Locating the Verb 29Chapter 3: Who’s Doing What? How to Find the Subject 33Who’s Driving the Truck? Why the Subject Is Important 33Teaming up: Subject and verb pairs 34Compound subjects and verbs: Two for the price of one 34Pop the Question: Locating the Subject–Verb Pairs 35What’s a Nice Subject Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Unusual Word Order 37Find That Subject! Detecting You-Understood 39Searching for the Subject in Questions 40Don’t Get Faked Out: Avoiding Fake Verbs and Subjects 40Finding fake verbs 41Watching out for “here“ and “there“ and other fake subjects 41Choosing the correct verb for “here“ and “there“ sentences 42Subjects Aren’t Just a Singular Sensation: Forming the Plural of Nouns 42Regular plurals 43The -IES and -YS have it 43No knifes here: Irregular plurals 44The brother-in-law rule: Hyphenated plurals 45Chapter 4: When All Is Said and Done: Complete Sentences 47Completing Sentences: The Essential Subjects and Verbs 48Complete Thoughts, Complete Sentences 50Joining Forces: Combining Sentences Correctly 53Connecting with coordinate conjunctions 53Attaching thoughts: Semicolons 55Boss and Employee: Joining Ideas of Unequal Ranks 55Choosing Subordinate Conjunctions 56Using Pronouns to Combine Sentences 58Understanding Fragments 59Placing fragments in the right context 60Steering clear of inappropriate fragments 61Reaching the End of the Line: Endmarks 62Chapter 5: Handling Complements 65Getting a Piece of the Action: Complements for Action Verbs 66Receiving the action: Direct objects 66Rare, but sometimes there: Indirect objects 68No bias here: Objective complements 69Completing the Equation: Subject Complements 69Pop the Question: Locating the Complement 71Pop the Question: Finding the Indirect Object 72Pronouns as Objects and Subject Complements 74Part 2: Clearing Up Confusing Grammar Points 75Chapter 6: Relax! Understanding Verb Tense 77Simplifying Matters: The Simple Tenses 78Present tense 78Past tense 79Future tense 80Using the Simple Tenses Correctly 82Present and present progressive 82Past and past progressive 82Future and future progressive 83Not Picture Perfect: Understanding the Perfect Tenses 84Present perfect and present perfect progressive 84Past perfect and past perfect progressive 85Future perfect and future perfect progressive 86Using the Perfect Tenses Correctly 88Case 1: Beginning in the past and continuing in the present 88Case 2: Events at two different times in the past 89Case 3: More than two past events, all at different times 90Case 4: Two events in the future 92Reporting Information: Verbs Tell the Story 93Summarized speech 93Eternal truths 95The historical present 95The Rebels: Dealing with Irregular Verbs 96To be, to have, to do 96Irregular past forms and participles 99Chapter 7: Nodding Your Head: All About Agreement 103Agreeing Not to Disagree 103Making Subjects and Verbs Agree 104The unchangeables 104The changeables 105Matching Subjects and Verbs in Some Tricky Situations 108Compound subjects 108Locating subjects and ignoring distractions 109Reaching an Agreement with Pronouns 110Choosing subject pronouns 111Matching pronouns to their antecedents 112Agreeing in Tricky Situations 114Five puzzling pronouns 115Each and every 116Either and neither: Alone or with partners 116Politics and other irregular subjects 118The ones, the things, and the bodies 119Who, which, and that 120Dealing Sensitively with Pronoun Gender 121Chapter 8: Pronouns and Their Cases 125Me Like Tarzan: Choosing Subject Pronouns 125Compounding interest: Pairs of subjects 126Attracting appositives 128Picking pronouns for comparisons 129Using Pronouns as Direct and Indirect Objects 130Are You Talking to I? Prepositions and Pronouns 131Attaching Objects to Verbals 133Knowing the Difference Between Who and Whom 134Pronouns of Possession: No Exorcist Needed 136Dealing with Pronouns and “-Ing“ Nouns 137Chapter 9: Small Words, Big Trouble: Prepositions 139Proposing Relationships: Prepositions 139The Objects of My Affection: Prepositional Phrases and Their Objects 140Pop the question: Questions that identify the objects of the prepositions 142Why pay attention to prepositions? 143A Good Part of Speech to End a Sentence With? 144Chapter 10: Two Real Really Good Parts of Speech: Adjectives and Adverbs 147Clarifying Meaning with Descriptions 147Adding Adjectives 148Adjectives describing nouns 149Adjectives describing pronouns 149Attaching adjectives to linking verbs 150Articles: Not just for magazines 150Pop the question: Identifying adjectives 151Stalking the Common Adverb 153Pop the question: Finding the adverb 153Adverbs describing adjectives and other adverbs 155Choosing Between Adjectives and Adverbs 156Sorting out “good“ and “well“ 157Dealing with “bad“ and “badly“ 158Adjectives and adverbs that look the same 159Creating Comparisons with Adjectives and Adverbs 160Ending it with -er or giving it more to adjectives 160Creating comparisons with adverbs 163Breaking the Rules: Irregular Comparisons 164Good, bad, well 164Little, many, much 165Part 3: Conventional Wisdom: Punctuation and Capitalization 167Chapter 11: Punctuation Law That Should Be Repealed: Apostrophes 169The Pen of My Aunt or My Aunt’s Pen? Using Apostrophes to Show Possession 170Ownership for singles 170Sharing the wealth: Plural possessives 171Possession with Proper Nouns 174Ownership with Hyphenated Words 175Possessive Nouns That End in S 176Common Apostrophe Errors with Pronouns 177Shortened Words for Busy People: Contractions 179You Coulda Made a Contraction Mistake 180Chapter 12: Quotations: More Rules Than the Internal Revenue Service 183And I Quote 184Punctuating Quotations 185Quotations with speaker tags 185Quotations without speaker tags 189Quotations with question marks 190Quotations with exclamation points 191Quotations with semicolons 192Quotations inside quotations 192Who Said That? Identifying Speaker Changes 194Germ-Free Quotations: Using Sanitizing Quotation Marks 195Punctuating Titles: When to Use Quotation Marks 196Chapter 13: The Pause That Refreshes: Commas 199Distinguishing Items: Commas in Series 200Using “Comma Sense“ to Add Information to Your Sentence 202Separating a list of descriptions 202Essential or extra? Commas tell the tale 204Commas with appositive influence 207You Talkin’ to Me? Direct Address 208Using Commas in Addresses and Dates 209Addressing addresses 209Punctuating dates 211Getting Started: The Introductory Comma 212Words not connected to the meaning of the sentence 212Phrases and clauses 212Punctuating Independently 213Chapter 14: Useful Little Marks: Dashes, Hyphens, and Colons 215Inserting Information with Dashes 215Long dashes 216Short dashes 216H-y-p-h-e-n-a-t-i-n-g Made Easy 217Understanding the great divide 217Using hyphens for compound words 218Placing hyphens in numbers 219Utilizing the well-placed hyphen 220Creating a Stopping Point: Colons 220Addressing a business letter or email 220Introducing lists 221Introducing long quotations 222Chapter 15: CAPITAL LETTERS 225Knowing What’s Up with Uppercase 225Capitalizing (or Not) References to People 227Sorting out titles 227Writing about family relationships 228Tackling race and ethnicity 230Capitalizing Geography: Directions, Places, and Languages 230Directions and areas of a country 231Capitalizing geographic features 231Marking Seasons and Other Times 232Schooling: Courses, Years, and Subjects 232Writing Capitals in Titles 233Headline style 233Sentence style 235Concerning Historic Capitals: Events and Eras 235?4U: Cn U AbbreV8? 236Chapter 16: Rules of Thumb: Adapting Grammar to Electronic Media 239Thumb Wrestling with Grammar: Texts, Tweets, and Instant Messages 240Choosing formal or informal language 240Getting creative within character limits 243Making a text and checking it twice 245Emailing Your Way to Good Grammar 246The heading 246The greeting 247The body 247The closing 248Handling Grammar on the Internet 248Blogging for fun and (sometimes) profit 248Navigating social networks 249PowerPoint to the People 250Writing titles 251Biting the bulleted list 252Part 4: Polishing Without Wax: The Finer Points of Grammar and Style 255Chapter 17: Fine-Tuning Verbs 257Giving Voice to Verbs 257Actively Seeking a Better Voice 258Getting Your Verbs in the Proper Mood 260Stating the facts: Indicative 261Commanding your attention: Imperative 261Discovering the possibilities: Subjunctive 262Using subjunctives with “were“ 262Forming subjunctives with “had“ 264Adding Meaning with Strong Verbs 265“There is“ a problem with boring verbs 265Does your writing “have“ a problem? 265Don’t just “say“ and “walk“ away 266Chapter 18: No Santas but Plenty of Clauses 269Understanding the Basics of Clause and Effect 269Getting the goods on subordinate and independent clauses 271Knowing the three legal jobs for subordinate clauses 273Untangling subordinate and independent clauses 275Deciding when to untangle clauses 276Putting your subordinate clauses in the right place 278Choosing content for your subordinate clauses 279Chapter 19: Spicing Up Sentence Patterns 281Getting Verbal 281Appreciating gerunds 282Working with infinitives 283Participating with a participle 284Choosing the Correct Tense 286Simultaneous events 286Different times 287Sprucing Up Boring Sentences with Clauses and Verbals 289The clause that refreshes 290Verbally speaking 291Mixing It Up: Changing Sentence Patterns 292Scrambling word order 293Going long or cutting it short 293Chapter 20: Staying on Track: Parallelism 295Constructing Balanced Sentences 295Shifting Grammar into Gear: Avoiding Stalled Sentences 299Steering clear of a tense situation 299Keeping your voice steady 301Knowing the right person 303Seeing Double: Conjunction Pairs 305Avoiding Lopsided Comparisons 308Chapter 21: Meaning What You Say: Clarity 311On Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly 311Misplaced descriptions 312Just hanging out: Danglers 314Avoiding confusing descriptions 317Finding the Subject When Words Are Missing from the Sentence 318Comparatively Speaking: Incomplete and Illogical Comparisons 320Missing and presumed wrong 320Illogical comparisons 322Steering Clear of Vague Pronouns 326Matching pronouns to antecedents 326One pronoun, one idea 327Chapter 22: Grammar Devils 331Deleting Double Negatives 331Scoring D Minus 334Distinguishing Between Word Twins and Triplets 335Three terrible twos 335Goldilocks and the three there’s 335Your and you’re: A problem 336The owl rule: Who’s, whose 336It’s an its problem 336Close, But Not Close Enough: Words That Resemble Each Other 337Continually (continuously?) making mistakes 337Are you affected? Or effected? Do you sit or set? 338Woulda, coulda, shoulda 339You gotta problem with grammar? 340Accepting the difference 340Hanged or hung up on grammar 341The farther or further of our country 341Roaming Descriptions 342Placing “even“ 342Placing “almost“ and “nearly“ 343Placing “only“ and “just“ 343Pairs of Trouble: Complicated Verbs 344Rise and raise 344Lie and lay 345Lose and loose 346Two Not for the Price of One 346Four for the Road: Other Common Errors 347Me, myself, and I 348In the group: Between/among 348Being that I like grammar 349Try and figure these out: Verbs and infinitives 349Part 5: The Part of Tens 351Chapter 23: Ten Ways to Improve Your Proofreading 353Reread 353Wait a While 354Read It Aloud 354Check the Commas 354Swap with a Friend 355Let the Computer Program Help 355Check the Verbs 355Check the Pronouns 355Know Your Typing Style 356The Usual Suspects 356Chapter 24: Relax Already! Grammar Rules You Can Stop Worrying About 357To Not Split an Infinitive 357A Good Part of Speech to End a Sentence With 358What Can or May I Do? 358Formal Greetings in Emails and Texts 358Addresses and Dates in Electronic Communication 359Periods and Commas in Some Electronic Messages 359The Jury Are Out on This Rule 359That? Who? 360Who/Whom Is Correct? 360Hopefully This Rule Has Faded 360Index 361

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