Posted by admin on Dec 31, 2009 in
English Editing Grammar is a way of describing how words are combined to form sentences.
SENTENCE: Martin Like Football.
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WORD WORD WORD
Each of the words in that sentence can be used in particular ways to form sentences. So each can be allocated to a WORD CLASS (or ‘part of speech’):
SENTENCE: Martin Like Football.
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NOUN VERB NOUN
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Posted by admin on Dec 30, 2009 in
English Editing Putting words into classes like this tells us a lot about how words are used, but it doesn’t tell us much about how sentences are constructed. To do that we need to look at sentences in a different way. We do this by looking for patterns in the way that sentences are constructed. For example, we can see that these two sentences follow a similar pattern:
Martin likes Football.
Mary writes books.
If we think a bit, we can see that the sentence below follows a similar pattern, even though it is longer:
Our friends at number 29 are visiting their relatives in Australia.
We can see this more clearly if we set the sentences out in a table:
A B C Martin Likes Football.
Mary writes books.
Our friends at are visiting their relatives in Australia number 29
The first thing to notice is that each cell in the table can contain one word (e.g. likes) or a group of words (e.g. are visiting). But each cell contains a word or words that have a particular job to do in the sentence. The first cell tells us what the sentence is going to be about; it contains the SUBJECT of the sentence. The second cell provides in formation about what the subject does by giving us a VERB. The third then provides further information by giving us an OBJECT; it tells us, for example, what Mary writes.
Each of the sentences above contains three sentence components: subject, verb, object:
SUBJECT VERB OBJECT
Mary writes books.
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Posted by admin on Dec 29, 2009 in
English Editing For this purpose an A-Z arrangement is the most suitable. The problem with grammar, however, is that in order to understand one term, you usually need to know what one or more other terms mean. For example, if you look up the term ABSTACT NOUN the explanation assumes that you know what a NOUN is. If you look up NOUN, it takes it for granted that you know what a PHRASE is, and so on. Readers who have little or no background knowledge about grammar may find this very frustrating. So the purpose of this brief introduction is to explain the basic terms of English grammar.
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Posted by admin on Dec 24, 2009 in
English Editing Consider these two sentences:
X. Keep straight on, swerving neither left or right. X. An assistant commissioner said they could neither vouch for the truth nor accuracy of the reports.
What is the matter with each of them? Neither . . . nor . . . is not neither . . . or . . . as in the first example. And the neither . . . nor . . . construction must balance, which it fails to do in the second sentence. The elements that follow neither and nor should be grammatically symmetrical, generally having the same pattern of parts of speech. So the second sentence should read either they could neither vouch for the truth nor confirm the accuracy of the reports or they could vouch for neither the truth nor the accuracy of the reports. But as it stands the sentence does not balance.
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Posted by admin on Dec 22, 2009 in
English Editing In writing especially, not . . . because can give rise to serious ambiguities. Consider these sentences:
I didn’t go because I was ill. I didn’t go, because I was ill.
The problem seldom occurs in speaking. The first version, without a pause after go, suggests that I did go (to the doctor’s, for instance), but for some reason other than illness. The second reports that I did not go, and then gives the reason for my not going. The sentences would also probably be distinguished by a rising voice pitch in the first and a falling one in the second.
In writing, the distinction hinges – precariously – on a single comma. Many people leave out the comma in sentences with the second meaning. To be on the safe side, you could rewrite both versions. The first could be something along the lines of I went not because I was ill, but to get some jabs or It wasn’t because I was ill that I went. The second could become Because I was ill I didn’t go.
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