The difference between these two words is simple to remember: dependant is a noun and dependent is an adjective. The dependent calf relies on its mother for food and protection. Official forms often ask how many dependants you have. One way to remember the difference is to be confident that (like confident, silent, diligent and
It’s actually very simple: there are some pronouns that we use after prepositions, and some that we don’t. In technical terms, prepositions have an object, and we use the dative form of pronouns to show this. Now, since I won’t be explaining either objects or dative forms for a while yet, this may not make
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
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
Adjectives and nouns: a close relationship In my first blog on the parts of speech, I wrote that the same word can often be used as different parts of speech, and we have already looked at how some words can be both nouns and verbs. But it is probably adjectives that are the part of
There are a couple of ‘rules’ about pronouns: a pronoun must always follow its antecedent, and agree with it in number. Like so many things in grammar, there are some occasions when it is fine, even necessary, to break the rule but, on the whole, it is a good rule to follow and will generally
Verbing: when nouns become verbs Our language is changing all the time; this keeps it alive. One of the most controversial areas is the practice of using what used to be a noun as a verb – a practice that, like nominalisation, also has its own name: verbing. As you can see, the very word
Catenatives (not to be confused with native cats) When the first Europeans came to Australia, they were very confused by what seemed to them to be very odd wildlife. They gave many animals names that referred back to European animals, probably as a way to make sense of the new environment. Koalas, for a while,
Mass or count? In this stunning photograph, we use two nouns to describe what we can see: we see two penguins on ice. And these two nouns demonstrate the final way nouns can be divided: into count nouns and mass nouns. Count nouns are also sometimes called unit nouns (in that unhelpful way in English