It’s simple. If you are trying to choose whether to use but or however, choose the bold but over the weak, wimpy however – every single time. If I could choose just one topic in grammar where I could way a magic wand and have my way, it is this: the issue of using but
While other parts of speech have rules governing where they are placed – for example, verbs need to be the first or second element in a sentence – adverbs can float around quite happily. Often we use them at the start (as you can see where the adverb often is used in this sentence) to
Comparing adverbs In the same way that we can compare adjectives, we can compare adverbs. When we have two actions being compared, we use the comparative form of the adverb. When three or more actions are compared, we use the superlative form of the adverb. For short (one-syllable) adverbs – which tend to the irregular
Conjunctive adverbs are one of the new categories of adverbs created by modern grammarians. Most of these words fit into the traditional grammar categories of adverbs of reason or degree. The recognition of conjunctive adverbs is the main reason I disagree with modern grammar! In modern grammar, conjunctive adverbs, sometimes called sentence connectors by other
Adverbs have always been my favourite part of speech. I think this is partly because, when I first learnt about them in primary school, there was a beautiful simplicity to them – or at least there was in my view. As the name suggests, adverbs add to a verb. The primary school definition is that
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