Essential Grammar for Business

The Foundation of Good Writing

Ellen Jovin

• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781529303469
• eBook ISBN: 9781529303483
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

Reliable, authoritative, and designed to ease grammar anxiety! Words are the currency of every business transaction. They persuade, inspire, educate, and clarify. Essential Grammar for Business offers guidance to professionals perplexed by proper comma placement, dangling modifiers, or the difference between who and whom. With a better understanding of the building blocks, readers will be better equipped to focus on the other ingredients of good business writing such as content, clarity, and style. This book is fun, fast-paced, and easy to use.

Chapter 1

Parts of Speech

A basic knowledge of the parts of speech makes it easier to follow discussions of English grammar and to understand the conventions of standard English grammar. This first chapter introduces the fundamental characteristics of these eight word categories: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. If you already know this information, skip ahead to Chapter 2 and use this chapter for reference when you need it.

The Eight Parts of Speech

•nouns

•pronouns

•verbs

•adjectives

•adverbs

•prepositions

•conjunctions

•interjections

As you read through these descriptions, keep in mind that the same word can be a different part of speech depending on how it is used. For example, the word well can function as a noun, adverb, adjective, verb, or interjection. To determine part of speech, you will often need to examine how a word is functioning in a particular sentence.

Noun

The well ran dry.

Adverb

Ramón did well in his TV interview.

Adjective

Laila is not well today.

Verb

When I criticize Robin’s work, tears well up in his eyes.

Interjection

Well! I’ve never been called that before.

1.1 Nouns

A noun refers to a person, place, thing, or idea. If you can perceive something through one of your five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch—it is probably a noun. Examples include:

thinker	desk	noodle
notebook	stapler	medal
thunder	radish	car
courtroom	table	sushi
office	elevator	sandpaper

Other nouns describe abstract ideas that cannot be perceived through the five senses. The word idea is an abstract noun! Here are some other examples:

integrity	arrogance
belief	reason
reputation	information
justice	culture
creativity	motivation

There are two special types of nouns worth noting here. The first is the collective noun, which describes a plural concept but is singular in form. Examples include:

crowd	team
staff	board
faculty	couple
panel	group
committee	jury

Collective nouns create challenges with subject-verb agreement, which you will read about in 6.1.

Another special noun type is the proper noun, which refers to a specific person, place, thing, or idea. Joan Didion, New York City, and the American Bar Association are all examples of proper nouns.

1.2 Pronouns

A pronoun usually refers back to or replaces a noun or another pronoun. In the following sentence, for instance, the pronoun it refers back to the noun report.

Rochelle gave the report to Axel, who read it during lunch.

The word report is the antecedent for it. You can think of the pronoun in part as a tool for convenience; after all, without it we would have to write:

Rochelle gave the report to Axel, who read the report during lunch.

Pronouns don’t always act as surrogates for other words, however. If you think of pronouns as vague versions of nouns, that may help you recognize them. Listed here are some common pronouns:

I	which	no one
you	who	anybody
he	that	anyone
she	these	something
it	those	whoever
we	some	one
they	each	whom
me	everyone	neither
us	everybody	themselves
ours	nothing	either

1.3 Verbs

Verbs usually describe existence or action and can be divided into three broad categories: action, linking, and auxiliary (o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction. The Foundation of Good Writing
• Chapter 1. Parts of Speech
• Chapter 2. Sentence Structure
• Chapter 3. Punctuation
• Chapter 4. Minding the Details
• Chapter 5. Special Topics in Formatting
• Chapter 6. Common Verb Errors and Problems
• Chapter 7. Common Pronoun Errors and Problems
• Chapter 8. Sticky Structures
• Chapter 9. Picking the Right Words and Forms
• Chapter 10. Chronic Sources of Grammar Confusion
• Chapter 11. Grammar Superstitions
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Parts of Speech
• About the Author
• About Syntaxis
• Index