That’s right, there are actually grammar rules you can ignore! The idea that our language is going to the dogs is a pedant’s meme that goes back at least as far as Seneca. Perhaps you had a teacher (or a boss or an editor) with a prescriptivist bent, someone who holds certain principles of language…
Category Archive for: English grammar
Should grammar lessons be renamed “Understanding Language”? Some of the country’s most eminent linguists came together for English Grammar Day, presented by UCL and Oxford University in association with the British Library, last week. With talks from grammarians including David Crystal and Dick Hudson, the event served as a crash course in the history, prevalence…
In English grammar there are 8 parts of speech.The 8 parts of speech are: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, interjections, conjunctions, prepositions, adverbs and verbs. What does each of the parts of speech do? 8 parts of speech Function or what it does (job) Verb action or state Noun are a thing or person Adjective describes a…
First there was a brouhaha about the Oxford comma, prompted by a post at FiveThirtyEight in which I was quoted. Then screams of outrage about the English grammar on Twitter followed an article by Roy Peter Clark defending the use of the passive voice. Outrage about the English grammar? I appreciate editors who have undertaken…
English grammar schools have widened the gap between rich and poor, according to a new study published today. Researchers have reached this conclusion after analysing the pay of more than 2,500 people born between 1961 and 1983. They found a much bigger gap between the wages of the highest and lowest paid individuals born in…
Page 1 of 1
Recent Comments