A colon and a semicolon can both connect related information, but they don’t do exactly the same job. Consider: The ferry service was suspended: strong winds had made the crossing unsafe. The ferry service was suspended; passengers gathered at the…
Limiting adjectives are words that tell us which person or thing we mean, whose it is, or how many or how much there is. In traditional grammar, words such as this, my, some, and three belong to this group. Many…
Helping verbs do much of the grammatical work inside English verb phrases. They help us form questions and negatives, build continuous, perfect, and passive constructions, and add meanings such as possibility, ability, necessity, and prediction. In Mila has finished the…
Quotation marks show when you’re using someone’s exact words rather than reporting what they said in your own words. They also appear around titles of shorter works and certain words or expressions. For example: The engineer said, “The bridge will…
Adjectives of material describe what something is made of, as in a wooden chair or a woollen coat. English also uses material nouns such as cotton, leather, and steel before other nouns, although these words are not always adjectives in…
A Japanese novel, a Brazilian architect, and a Sicilian recipe all use adjectives that connect a noun with a place, region, or culture. These forms can show where something is associated with, but the relationship is not always as simple…
A predicate nominative is a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase that follows a linking verb and identifies or classifies the subject. It is also called a predicate noun. Consider: The new manager is Olivia. Olivia is the predicate nominative because…
A simple predicate is the main verb of a clause, together with any helping verbs that belong to it. It expresses an action, event, or state without including objects, complements, or ordinary modifiers. Consider: The bakery has reopened after several…
A complete predicate is the part of a clause that contains the verb or verb phrase and the other words that tell us what the subject does, what happens to it, or what it is like. Consider: The neighbourhood bakery…