If you’re confused by commas, perplexed by pronouns, and plain
terrified by tenses, English Grammar For Dummies will put your
fears to rest. Packed with expert guidance, it covers everything
from sentence basics to rules even your English teacher didn’t know
– if you want to brush up on your grammar, this is the only guide
you’ll ever need.
Discover how to: avoid common grammatical errors; get to grips
with apostrophes; structure sentences correctly; use verbs and find
the right tense; and decide when to use slang or formal
English.
Table of Content
Introduction 1
Part I: The Parts of Speech and Parts of the Sentence 7
Chapter 1: I Already Know How to Talk Why Should I Study Grammar? 9
Chapter 2: Verbs: The Heart of the Sentence 17
Chapter 3: Relax! Understanding Verb Tense 33
Chapter 4: Who’s Doing What? Finding the Subject 51
Chapter 5: Having It All: The Complete Sentence 63
Chapter 6: Handling Complements 73
Part II: Avoiding Common Errors 83
Chapter 7: Getting Hitched: Marrying Sentences 85
Chapter 8: Do You Feel Bad or Badly? The Lowdown on Adjectives and Adverbs 99
Chapter 9: Prepositions, Interjections and Articles 115
Chapter 10: Everyone Brought Their Homework: Pronouns 125
Chapter 11: Just Nod Your Head: About Agreement 137
Part III: No Garage, but Plenty of Mechanics 153
Chapter 12: Apostrophes 155
Chapter 13: Quotations: More Rules than Revenue & Customs 171
Chapter 14: The Pause That Refreshes: Commas 193
Chapter 15: Adding Information: Semicolons, Dashes and Colons 203
Chapter 16: Capital Letters 215
Part IV: Polishing without Wax – The Finer Points of Grammar 229
Chapter 17: Pronouns and Their Cases 231
Chapter 18: Fine-Tuning Verbs 243
Chapter 19: Saying What You Want to Say: Descriptive Words and Phrases 259
Chapter 20: Good, Better, Best: Comparisons 265
Chapter 21: Keeping Your Balance 279
Part V: Rules Even Your Great-Aunt’s Grammar Teacher Didn’t Know 289
Chapter 22: The Last Word on Verbs 291
Chapter 23: The Last Word on Pronouns 301
Chapter 24: The Last Word on Sentence Structure 313
Chapter 25: The Last Word on Punctuation 327
Part VI: The Part of Tens 341
Chapter 26: Ten Ways Two to Improve Your Proofreading 343
Chapter 27: Ten Ways to Learn Better Grammar 347
Index 351
About the author
Lesley Ward is a teacher of grammar, proofreading and copy-editing. She leads training courses at the Society of Editors and Proofreaders, the Publishing Training Centre, the Irish Book Publishers’ Association and the London College of Communication. Geraldine Woods has taught grammar for more than 35 years and is the author of over 50 books.
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