Grammar 101

From Split Infinitives to Dangling Participles, an Essential Guide to Understanding Grammar

Kathleen Sears

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781507203606
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Grammaire et ponctuation

Learn the rules of the English language with this easy and engaging style guide. Grammar is complicated. But many textbooks and style guides are often so long and tedious that even English teachers use them as a classroom doorstop. Grammar 101 is a fun, comprehensive guide focusing on the essentials of grammar. With simple explanations and entertaining examples, you can learn everything you need to know to employ commas, semicolons, and em dashes with confidence. You'll even be prepared to wrangle your run-on sentences and sharpen your syntax with ease.So whether you're looking for an introduction to the rules of grammar or a refresher to keep on your desk, Grammar 101 has all the answers.

Chapter 1

Spelling

Today, with the proliferation of computers and technology in our world, people have come to rely on their devices to tell them if a word is spelled correctly. As long as they run a spell check and no words come up, most people assume everything is accurate and spelled correctly. But computer-based spell checkers are not always accurate—after all, a computer spell checker is essentially a lexicon (a list of words). The computer compares your word against its list of properly spelled words, and if it doesn’t match it simply gives you an error message. Sometimes your computer will offer suggestions on how to spell a word, but these are simply based on similarities between your word and the computer’s list of words. The meaning may be completely different. Computer spell checkers give a false sense of security. Nothing can match the ability of knowing some basic spelling rules, such as using root words and mnemonics, and of course reaching for a good dictionary. Let’s begin our explorations into the wonderful world of grammar and style with the most elemental unit through which you communicate meaning: the word. A single word includes a world of significance—so make sure you spell it correctly!

SPELLING BASICS

Every Rule Has an Exception

Nearly 90 percent of English words can be spelled correctly if you know the basic spelling patterns and rules. You probably remember a few rules about spelling from your elementary-school days. The poem that most students deem unforgettable is this one:

I before e,

Except after c,

Or when sounded as a,

As in neighbor or weigh.

That’s certainly a helpful mnemonic—most of the time. It works for words such as beige, ceiling, conceive, feign, field, inveigh, obeisance, priest, receive, shield, sleigh, and weight.

But take a look at these words that don’t follow the rule from the poem: ancient, caffeine, codeine, conscience, deify, deity, efficient, either, feisty, foreign, forfeit, height, heist, kaleidoscope, leisure, nucleic, protein, reimburse, reincarnation, science, seize, sleight, society, sovereign, species, sufficient, surfeit, and weird.

You see enough exceptions to wonder about the rule, don’t you?

There are also other common spelling rules including:

• Silent e helps a vowel say its name: This means when a word ends with a vowel followed by a consonant and then silent e, the vowel has a long sound (this is the reason for the differences in rate and rat, fine and fin, cube and cub).

• When two vowels are together, the first one does the talking: Meaning the first vowel in a vowel pair will be long (the sound is the same as the sound of the letter) and the second vowel will be silent (for example, meat, seat, rain, goat).

• Most nouns become plural by adding –s, except for those that end in ch, sh, s, x, or z—those become plural by adding –es.

However, memorizing rules is not the most effective way to learn spelling as most rules have exceptions.

Grammar Facts

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You do know, of course, not to rely on the spell-check feature of your word processor to catch all your spelling mistakes. Off coarse ewe due. Ewe no the programme that ewe ewes two cheque mite look threw and thru an knot find awl your miss takes. An it wont tell ewe what ewe kneed too change the word two.

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Here are some rules that generally apply to English nouns. (Note the word generally.) English has adopted words from many languages, and those languages have differing ways of changing word forms. That means, unfortunately, that every rule will have an exception (and probably more than one, as you’ve seen). Although the whole enchilada can be pretty confusing, the information you’ll learn in this chapter will provide you with some useful guidelines for making your spelling decisions.

AMERICAN VERSUS BRITISH SPELLINGS

You probably know the meanings of some words are different in Britain than in the United States, such as the British usage of chips for what Americans call French fries and lorry for what Americans call a truck. But are you aware that the two languages have many variations in spelling as well? Here are a few of the spelling differences between American English and British English words:

AMERICAN ENGLISH	BRITISH ENGLISH
airplane	aeroplane
annex	annexe
center	centre
check	cheque
color	colour
cozy	cosy
curb	kerb
draft	draught
gray	grey
jail	gaol
licorice	liquorice
maneuver	manoeuvre
mold	mould
plow	plough
spelled	spelt
smolder	smoulder
theater	theatre
tire	tyre

Grammar Facts

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Our present-day study of grammar and spelling descends from the Greeks. While many philosophers...