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Do you live in, on, or at a house? Are you heading toward or far from the tree? These words that show the relationship between ideas are called prepositions. Keep reading as I go over a preposition’s simple definition, types, and how to identify one. You’ll also learn its correct …
Gerunds hit two birds with one stone because they look like verbs but act like nouns. They all end in “-ing,” but not all “-ing” words are gerunds. So, what is a gerund? Keep reading to learn about its functions and how to use it in a sentence. I’ll also …
Why is the passive voice so frowned upon? My editor flags every bit of passive voice in all my writing. But why do so many people prefer to write in the active voice? In this blog post, I’ll discuss the differences between the two voices and give tips on how …
There are almost too many types of verbs in the English language, but one of which is an auxiliary verb and is super important to speech and writing. What is an auxiliary verb, and how do you identify one? Great question and one I’ll go over in detail. My guide …
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Verbs might seem straightforward and easy to understand, but these words have several types. Each type of verb has a unique purpose so you can communicate your intended message. This goes for both writing and speaking. One type of verb is the non-finite verb. I’ll discuss the definition and uses …
Every language has specific parts of speech that help create understandable speech and writing patterns. Grammatical terms are a foundation for learning the English language, and knowing what order to place words in helps language learners become more fluent. Infinitives are verbs used as a noun or modifiers within a …
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A participial preposition is a participle (an -ed or –ing verb) that functions as a preposition. Some of the most common examples are assuming, barring, considering, during, given, notwithstanding, provided, regarding, and respected. Unlike other participles, participial prepositions don’t necessarily create dangling modifiers when they don’t correspond to a subject. So, to take …
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In a sentence, the grammatical mood conveys the speaker’s attitude about the state of being of what the sentence describes. This may sound a little complicated, but it’s simple enough: In the indicative mood, for instance, the speaker is sure that something is the case, while in the imperative mood the …
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A run-on sentence is not simply a sentence that is too long. Rather, it is a sentence in which two or more independent clauses are fused together without the proper punctuation or conjunctions needed to hold them together in a grammatically correct way. There are many types of run-ons. We’ll …
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Nouns sometimes function as adjectives. For example, in each of these phrases, the first word is usually a noun but here functions as an adjective modifying the second word: city government, article writer, bicycle thief, Sunday picnic, pumpkin pie. Adjective–noun confusion When this type of functional switching could cause confusion, …