Phrasal verbs as nouns Prepositions are easy to identify when they are fulfilling their main function: connecting nouns. But their nature becomes less clear when they combine with verbs to form phrasal verbs, and even less clear when those verbs are used as nouns and adjectives. Just like many other verbs are used as nouns,
That is grammar up with which I will not put Winston Churchill never said or wrote these words, which are frequently attributed to him (but since we are only a couple of weeks past the anniversary of Victory in Europe, why not have a photo of the inspirational wartime leader?). The joke quote seems to
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
Prepositions serve a similar function to conjunctions: they connect other parts of speech together. But while conjunctions connect clauses, or groups of words containing a noun and related verb, prepositions connect nouns (or pronouns) with other nouns (or pronouns). In addition, this connection is usually one that relates to space or time. (There is hint
Does the difference between ‘who’ and ‘whom’ really matter? No man is an island, entire of itself: every man … is a part of the main … any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in all mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. John
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
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