1 Busy 2 Cheap/Taste
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Five Lessons
Below: WARNING: Do not go beyond this grammar section until you have
accomplished the following: 1.
Memorized/know all the non-action verbs (linking, BE,
helping) listed below, all
of them in order. 2.
Memorized/know all the prepositions listed below, all of them in order.
If you have not been taught the "small" stuff listed below
while you were in elementary through high school, you NEED to do it
now. You will not be able to punctuate properly until you know the
"small stuff." If you
move on beyond this page before you know them, you will continue to
"guess" whether your sentence is correctly written or
correctly punctuated. Knowing most of them will NOT DO you any good;
you need to be able to identify all of the "simple," childish
words, and what they do in a sentence, especially the verbs. Good
Luck. Or perhaps I'll see you next semester; on the other hand, you
really don't want to see me a second time; once is enough. Lesson 1:
Be & Linking Verbs You
are required to memorize the non action verbs—Be & Linking
Verbs—below. Knowing these verbs will help you to properly identify a sentence so that you can
punctuate correctly. Writers cannot
use a coordinator, subordinator or semicolon properly unless they can
accurately identify a sentence(s). You will be expected to write a list
of the non-action verbs during the second week of class from memory.
Memorize them in order; your mind works in order or sequence: top to bottom,
left to right, one through 20, and A through Z, so learn them,
alphabetically, A-Z, because that is how your memory works. MEMORIZATION LIST (non Action Verbs—Be Verbs & Linking Verbs) BE
verbs
True
Linking verbs & Some BE Verbs
Non-Action Verbs—Be & Linking Verbs—EXPLAINED
|
do is |
will have |
must may |
should be |
In the first sentence, the helping verb, is, helps out the main verb, reading, by telling when the action
is taking place—right now.
In the second sentence, the helping verb, should, helps out the main verb, go, by telling about its
importance—dancing must be important, if it is something that should happen.
Note that you can't is or should something. This let's know you that
they are not action verbs. Is and should just are; they do
nothing. Try to "is'ing" something;
for example, "is" a ball. You can't because "is"
wouldn't allow you to do anything to the ball.
Be, have, and do are the most common auxiliary-helping
verbs. Other common auxiliary-helping verbs include can, could, should, would, may, might, and must.
Grammar REVIEW/QUIZZES on the Web Review Verbs: Verbs #1 and Verbs #2
A verb lets know about an action (hit,
fell) or a state of being (is, can). There are three types of verbs: action
(hit), linking (seems), and helping (should).
An action verb shows action. It tells what
a person or a thing does.
There are
three types of action verbs:
Type of
Action Verb |
Verbs |
Sentence
Examples |
Transitive |
swim, jump, run, play, swing, etc. |
He swims. She jumps. He plays.
They swing.
They ran.
Muskrats swim. |
Transitive with Direct Object (DO) |
kicked, slapped, pushed, threw, kissed,
picked-up, hung, etc. |
He threw the toy. |
Transitive with Direct Object (DO) and
Indirect Object (IDO) (only a few verbs can create two nouns within a
sentence with a DO and IDO. |
handed, made, make, mail, mailed, send,
sent, find, found, give, gave, show, showed, ask, asked, tell, told, sell,
sold, offer, offered, promise, promised, chose, chosen, take, took select,
selected, elect, elected, etc. |
He handed Sara her comb. |
To find out whether a word is an action
verb, ask yourself whether that word expresses something you can do. Can you little? No! Can you window? No. But can you swim? Yes—swim is an action verb.
The voice of a verb is active or passive. The voice of the verbs in a
sentence should be consistent unless there’s a good reason for a shift.
Avoid unnecessary shifts if you can do. Brown = Passive |
Brown
= Passive Wrong:
Larry polished
the diamond engagement ring, rechecked the certificate of authenticity, and was demolished
when his intended bride said
no Polished--Active Correct: Larry polished the diamond engagement ring, rechecked the
certificate of authenticity, and cried like a baby when his intended bride said no. Correct: Larry polished the diamond engagement ring and
rechecked the
certificate of authenticity. His intended bride completely demolished him with her
refusal. |
In general, active voice
is better than passive. The passive
verbs create an awkward, wordy mess. |
The
diamond engagement ring was polished and the certificate of authenticity was
rechecked by Larry, and Larry was
completely demolished when “no” was said to him by his intended bride. |
Which sentence is correct? |
A.
Maria popped the cork from the champagne, reached for the chilled glasses,
and was shocked to learn that the caviar had been confiscated by customs
officials. B.
Maria popped the cork from the champagne, reached for the chilled glasses,
and was shocked to learn that customs officials had confiscated the caviar. C.
Maria popped the cork from the champagne, reached for the chilled glasses,
and staggered in shock when she heard that customs officials had
confiscated the caviar. C—correct
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Also,
keep all your verbs in the same tense—past
or present Note: In English 100 use all present or past tense in the
“active” voice. Use NO “Be” verbs with present/past verbs—also known
as helping verbs or auxiliary verbs. |
Larry begs
Ella to marry him, offers
her a crown and a private room, and finally won her hand. (Present
to present to past.) Larry begs
Ella to marry him, offers
her a crown and a private room, and finally wins her hand. (All three verbs are in present tense.) Larry begged
Ella to marry him, offered
her a crown and a private room, and finally won her hand. (All
three verbs are in past tense.) |
Sometimes in telling a story, you must shift tense
because the action of the story requires a change in time. |
Betsy always practices
for at least ten hours a day, unless she is giving a concert. Last week she flew to Antarctica for a recital. When she arrived, the piano was frozen. Nevertheless, the
show went on. Next week
Betsy will practice twelve
hours a day to make up for the time she lost last week. Betsy’s story has present (practices), present progressive (is giving), past (flew, arrived, was frozen, went, lost),
and future tenses (will practice).
Each change of tense is justified by the information in the story. |
Can you tell which sentence is correct? |
A. Jim scrambled to the finish line a second before
the next fastest racer and then raised his arms in victory. B. Jim scrambles to the finish line second before the
next fastest racer and then raises his arms in victory. Answer: Both sentences are correct. In
sentence A, both scrambled
and raised are in past tense. No
shift, no problem. In sentence B, both scrambles and raises
are in present tense.
Again no shift, again no problem. |
Fix these sentences: |
1.
They were telling people to just depend on God and forget about depending on the
government. 2.
The government announced that it was lifting a ban on food and aid,
but it later changed course. 3.
We were arrested several times by the police, and they were refusing that we cross into
Kenya. |
One way to fix them: |
1.
They told people to just depend on God and forget about government help. 2.
The government announced it lifted a ban on food and aid, but
it later changed course. 3.
The police arrested us several times, and they refused to let us cross into Kenya. |
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Lesson 4: Nouns (determiners, possessives &
adjectives)
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Lesson 1 | Lesson
2 | Lesson
3 | Lesson 4 | Lesson
5 |
|Identifying a noun. You cannot write a sentence correctly unless you know you have a subject/noun. How do you know when you have a noun in your sentence? It is very simple. You can locate a noun by locating or identifying two simple type of words: determiners/articles and possessives, which are the most accurate way to identify nouns plus adjectives. Yep, more of the simple/small words that make it impossible to write clearly.
ONE: Determiners/articles are special kinds of words that IDENTIFY NOUNS.
·
Determiners
identify a noun and count or tell how many.
·
More, each,
every, either, all, both, he, an, a, several, many, some, most, few, less,
this, these, those, and any are just a few determiners.
o a six-year-old child
o these tables
o every
girl
o all
students
o the crazy
rule the world.—Yep, crazy is a noun in this phrase.
o The player hit four runs.—Yep, runs is a noun in this sentence.
Also, a determiner is any number—one, two, three, four, five, etc.: one house, two dogs, and five people.
A determiner is always followed by a noun. If you use a determiner, it will be followed by a noun; it has to happen: a house, the dog, many people, etc. However, an adjective can come between a determiner and its noun: a large house, the brown dog, many loud people, etc. So if you use "crazy," it is manly used as an adjective: The crazy girl ran. But, if I say: A crazy was elected. The word "crazy" is now used as a noun because "a" precedes or comes before it. Determiners are said to "mark" nouns. That is to say, you know a determiner will be followed by a noun
More
importantly, determiners are not part of any sentence pattern. For
example: "The boy ran." Cross out the determiner,
"the," because it is not part sentence patterns. Articles,
determiners, and quantifiers are those little words that precede and modify
nouns; there are hundreds of them. Again, it is impossible to know how
to write a sentence unless you know what these "small words" do and
know their function is.
Also, possessives identify a noun:
On the other hand, you can have an "adjective appear in between the "determiner or possessve" and its "noun." Please see the four examples below under "Adjectives." In the sample below "the" is followed by the noun "professor."
determiner
adjective noun
several
tall professors
Possessive
adjective noun
Maria’s
tall friend
Like determiners possessives are said to "mark" nouns. That is to say, you know a determiner will be followed by a noun.
Lastly. Why is it important to be able to locate a noun? Unless you cannot identify your subject in your sentence, you cannot make sure your subject/noun agrees with your verb. Plus, if you cannot make sure you have a sentence with a subject and verb, you will have problems using the comma and semicolon properly in a complex or compound sentence.
TWO: Adjectives are
words that describe (modify) something.
Before getting into other usage considerations, one general note about the use—or over-use—of adjectives: Adjectives are delicate; don't ask them to do more work than they should. Let your heavy-duty verbs and nouns do the hard work of description. Be especially careful in your use of adjectives that don't have much to say in the first place, such as interesting, beautiful, lovely, exciting. It is your job as a writer to create beauty and excitement and interest in your story telling not your adjectives.
Chew on the uses of adjectives
(modifiers) in this adjectivally loaded paragraph from Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel--slightly
altered. (Charles Scribner's, 1929, p. 69.)
Adjectives are highlighted in this "pink" and the described-nouns are underlined in brown:
He remembered yet the East India Tea House at the Fair, the sandalwood, the turbans, and the robes, the cool interior and the smell of India tea; and he had felt now the homesick thrill of wet mornings in Spring, the cherry scent, the cool earth, the wet earth of the garden, the strong breakfast smells and the floating snow of blossoms. He knew the sharp excitement of hot dandelions in young earth; in July, of watermelons bedded in sweet hay, inside a farmer's covered wagon; of cantaloupe and crated peaches; and the scent of orange rind, bitter-sweet, before a fire of coals. He knew the good smell of his father's sitting-room; of the smooth old leather sofa; of the blistered varnished wood upon the hearth; of the heated calf-skin bindings; of the flat moist plug of apple tobacco, stuck with a red flag; of burnt leaves in October; of the brown autumn earth; of honey-suckle at night; of a clean rosy farmer who comes weekly with printed butter, eggs, and milk; of fat limp underdone bacon and of coffee; of a bakery-oven in the wind; of large stringbeans smoking-hot and seasoned well with salt and butter; of a room of old pine boards in which books and carpets have been stored, long closed; of Concord grapes in their long white baskets.
Please note a few of the words in Wolfe's paragraph above have been slightly altered for intelligibility.
In the first part of the sentence above East and India tell us more about the noun, "Tea House." Although "India" is usually used as a noun in a sentence, here it is used as a descriptive word. India wants more jobs. In this sentence India is in a noun position at the beginning of the sentence.
In Contrast, in the same paragraph above cool is a typical adjective that describes the noun, interior, one that seems more familiar to use as an adjective.
Consequently, you cannot
ever know what part of speech a word is until you see what it is doing in its
sentence. If you say unusual is an adjective without knowing what it is
doing in a sentence, you may be wrong: The unusual rule the world. Here
"unusual" is in a noun position.
Grammar
REVIEW/QUIZZES on the Web
Quiz: Subject
Review: Adjectives
Quiz: Adjectives and Adverbs
Review: Subject Verb Agreement
Quiz: Subject Verb Agreement 1
Quiz: Subject Verb Agreement 2
Lesson
5: Prepositions
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Lesson 1 | Lesson
2 | Lesson
3 | Lesson 4 | Lesson 5 |
You
are required to memorize the prepositions below. Knowing these verbs
will help students to properly identify prepositional phrases in a
sentence. You cannot use a coordinator, subordinator or semicolon
properly unless you can accurately identify prepositional phrases, which
expand a sentence and are not a major part of the sentence. You will be
expected to write a list of them during the second week of class from
memory. Memorize them in order; your mind works in order or sequence:
top to bottom, left to right, one through 20, and A through Z, so learn them
alphabetically, A-Z.
Time or
space
Other relationships
(position or
direction)
(addition, comparison, etc.)
about |
into |
according
to |
above |
near |
as |
across |
next
to |
as
for |
after |
off |
aside
from |
against |
on |
because
of |
along |
onto |
concerning |
along
with |
on
top of |
despite |
among |
out |
except |
around |
out
of |
except
for |
at |
outside |
excepting |
before |
over |
in
addition to |
behind |
past |
in
spite of |
below |
since |
instead
of |
beneath |
through |
like |
beside |
throughout |
of |
between |
till |
on
account of |
beyond |
to |
regarding |
by |
toward |
regardless
of |
down |
under |
unlike |
during |
underneath |
with |
for |
until |
without |
from |
up |
|
in |
upon |
|
inside |
within |
|
inside
of |
|
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Source: Fowler HR, Aaron JE. The Little, Brown Handbook., Addison, Wesley, Longman, New York.
A preposition connects a noun to another word in the sentence:
The
noun (pillows) is the object
of the preposition (pillows) .
The preposition plus its object and any modifiers is a prepositional phrase;
hence, "Cats make beds on pillows'." Prepositions normally
come before their objects.
Preposition |
Object of the Preposition |
on |
the surface |
with |
great satisfaction |
upon |
entering the room |
from |
where you are standing |
except for |
ten employees |
Grammar
REVIEW/QUIZZES on the Web
Quiz: Prepositions
Quiz: Preposition 1
Quiz: Prepositions 2
x
On the other hand, when a preposition is used in a sentence without an object (noun) at the end of a sentence; then it becomes an adverb that tells how, what, when, where. For example, in the sentence: He went down the road. "Down," a preposition, has an object noun, road, so down the road is a prepositional phrase. However, in the sentence: He went down; "down" does not have an object noun, so it is behaves like an adverb that tells “where” he went.
N
V Prep
Preposition used as an
adverb:
The ball bounced down the road.
N V Adverb
Prepositions can be used as an
adverb: The
ball went down.
Prepositions can help show where something took place (under, on, across,
etc.). So they can also be used as "adverbs." For
example, the ball bounced down the
road. "Down" is a preposition because it has a noun with it,
"road." But, drop the noun "road" off and
"down" becomes an adverb as show in sentence above.
Preposition used as
a preposition, creating "prepositional phrase:"
The car went down the street. |
down = Preposition: |
Prep has a noun with it
(street). |
The car went over the curb. |
over = Preposition: |
Prep has a noun with it (curb). |
The car went through the water. |
through = Preposition: |
It has a noun with it (water). |
Preposition used as an "adverb:"
The car went down. |
down = Adverb: |
Prep does not have a noun with
it (street). |
The car went over. |
over = Adverb: |
Prep does not have a noun with
it (curb). |
The car went through. |
through = Adverb: |
Prep does not have a noun
with it (water). |
Simply put, if a preposition has an noun-object with it, it creates a prepositional phrase (down the hill); however, if it does not have a noun-object with it, the preposition becomes an adverb--telling where.
Prepositions as "prepositions and adverbs"
A prepositional phrase links a noun, pronoun, or phrase to another part of a sentence. Because many pronouns show direction, some say that "a preposition is anywhere a cat (thing) can go."
Look at
the Examples below; then, identify i the
"colored" word as a "preposition" or "adverb."
The cat walked around the ball. The cat
leaned against the box. The cat strolled near the box. The cat
sneaked across the box. 1.
The cat
leapt at the
box. 2.
The cat
crept behind. 3.
The cat hid
below. 4.
The cat
went beneath
the box. 5.
The cat
leaned beside
the box. 6.
The cat
tip-toed by. 7.
The cat
crawled onto the
box. 8.
The cat
strutted near. 9.
The cat
jumped off. 10.
The cat
marched over
the box. 11.
The cat
rambled past. 12.
The cat
traipsed to the
box. 13.
The cat
stalked toward
the box. 14.
The cat
wiggled under. 15.
The cat
settled upon
the box. 16.
The cat
snuggled next to
the box. |
Preposition Preposition Preposition Preposition 1.
__________ 2.
__________ 3.
__________ 4.
__________ 5.
__________ 6.
__________ 7.
__________ 8.
__________ 9.
__________ 10.
__________ 11.
__________ 12.
__________ 13.
__________ 14.
__________ 15.
__________ 16.
__________ 17.
__________ |
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A preposition leads to an object, which is the part of the sentence that receives the action of the verb. The preposition also tells how the object is related to the rest of the sentence.
The cat walked across the ball.
The ball is the object because it receives the action of the verb—the walking. The preposition, across, tells how the ball is related to the rest of the sentence. It links the fact that the cat walked with information about where it walked: across the ball.
Besides the ones listed above, some common prepositions are about, after, among, between, beyond, but, despite, during, for, of, since, through, until, and without.
On the other hand, when a preposition is an adverb it does not have an object after it.
The cat walked across.
Answers to 1-16 quiz
Grammar Quizzes on the Web
Review
Verbs: Verbs #1 and Verbs #2
Quiz: Subject
Quiz: Prepositions
Review: Subject Verb Agreement
Quiz: Subject Verb Agreement 1
Quiz: Subject Verb Agreement 2
Quiz: Preposition 1
Quiz: Prepositions 2
Quiz: Adjectives and Adverbs
Review: Adjectives