Pronouns: a substitute for nouns In life, we often find it handy to use substitutes. In sport, the use of substitute players is not just a useful back-up but often a strategic move. Pronouns are the substitute players of the language world, and they substitute for nouns. They are not a subcategory of nouns; they
Verbs as nouns Some words are like amphibious vehicles that can be both a boat and a truck: the same basic word form is equally at home behaving in very different ways One of the confusing aspects of English is that the same word can act as different parts of speech, or change the function
The parts of speech is simply the term used to describe the group of functions that words carry out in speech and writing. One of the hardest things to cope with in English is the fact that most of the ‘rules’ aren’t black and white, and it can hard to pin exact answers to any
Apostrophes and contractions Part of the reason that people find apostrophes confusing is that we use them in two different ways: to show possession (or, as I prefer to say, close association) between two things to show where letters have been left out of word or where it has been contracted (sometimes the contracted word
Welcome to Apostrophes, Etc. In my first post, I thought I’d tackle one of the most common questions about apostrophes. It’s is always an abbreviation for it is or it has, in the same way that he’s is an abbreviation for he is or he has. It’s, despite having an apostrophe, has nothing to do