Write Right - Jan Venolia 2001
Glossary
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Active Voice: The form of the verb to use when the subject performs the action. See Passive Voice and this page.
Adjective: Modifies (describes or limits) a noun or pronoun. It may be a single word, phrase, or clause. See this page.
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.—H. L. Mencken
Adverb: Modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. May be a single word, phrase, or clause. See this page.
The language of advertising … profoundly influences the tongues and pens of children and adults.—E. B. White
Antecedent: The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. In the following example, the pronoun it refers to book; thus, book is the antecedent of it.
It occurred to me that perhaps writing a book was not as entertaining an activity as signing the contract to write it.—Pete Dexter
Antonym: A word having a meaning opposite to that of another word. Spicy is the antonym of bland; ill is the antonym of healthy. See Synonym.
Appositive: A word or phrase that explains the preceding word or phrase. Since appositives are nonrestrictive, they should be surrounded by commas. See this page.
Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist and engineer, received a British patent for dynamite in 1867.
Article: The words a, an, and the.
Case: The changes in form made in nouns or pronouns to reflect how they are used in a sentence. For example, the noun children is changed to children’s and the noun person is changed to person’s to show possession. Nouns in English once had many case forms, but the only one used today is the possessive. Pronouns, however, continue to change form to show their relation to the rest of the sentence. The three cases of pronouns are nominative, objective, and possessive. See this page.
Clause: A group of words that contains a subject and verb. See this page. Coordinate clauses have the same grammatical rank and are connected by coordinating conjunctions.
The wise make proverbs and fools repeat them.—Isaac Disraeli
Dependent clauses (also known as subordinate clauses) do not express a complete thought.
If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.—Kingsley Amis
Independent clauses (also called principal or main clauses) are complete statements that make sense by themselves.
There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either.—Robert Graves
Nonrestrictive clauses could be omitted without changing the meaning; they are separated from the rest of the sentence by commas.
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.—John Maynard Keynes
Restrictive clauses could not be omitted without changing the meaning of the sentence.
The man who walks alone is soon trailed by the F.B.I.—Wright Morris
Cliché: An expression that has lost its freshness by being overused. Examples are conspicuous by its absence, in the final analysis, add insult to injury, and it goes without saying.
Comma Fault: The error in which a comma is the only punctuation between two independent clauses. Rewrite by replacing the comma with a semicolon or period. See this page.
Complement: A word or phrase that completes the meaning of the verb. See this page.
Great artists need great clients.—I. M. Pei
A human being is nothing but a story with skin around it.—Fred Allen
Compound: Consisting of two or more elements. See this page. A compound adjective, also known as a unit modifier, consists of two or more adjectives modifying the same noun.
That swarming, million-footed, tower-masted and skysoaring citadel that bears the name of the Island of Manhattan.—Thomas Wolfe
A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses.
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.—Wilson Mizner
A compound subject consists of two or more subjects having the same verb.
Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips; especially prunes and prism.—Charles Dickens
A compound verb consists of two or more verbs having the same subject.
The strong winds tore off roofs and blew down power lines.
Conjunction: A single word or group of words that connects other words or groups of words. See this page. Coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases, or clauses of equal grammatical rank: and, but, or, nor, for, and so.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.—T. S. Eliot
Subordinating conjunctions connect clauses of unequal rank (i.e., an independent and a dependent clause). Examples are as, as if, because, if, since, that, till, unless, when, where, and whether.
When I am ready to write a book, I write the ending first.—Marcia Davenport
Dangling Modifier: A modifier with an unclear reference. See this page.
Taking the elevator to the fifth floor, the room is easy to find.
Double Negative: Two negative words that cancel each other to create a positive meaning. Such usage is incorrect if it is unintended (You won’t hardly believe this), but may be used for its nuances (The movie was not without its entertaining moments). See this page.
Gerund: The -ing form of a verb that serves as a noun.
Seeing is believing.
There must be more to life than having everything.—Maurice Sendak
Idiom: A form of expression that, while natural or preferred in a language or region, does not always conform to the rules of grammar or logic. Examples are rubbing someone the wrong way, taking it easy, stood me in good stead, and to make up for. Though difficult to translate into another language, idioms have a long history of use by good writers.
Infinitive: The form of a verb used with the word to.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.—Abraham Lincoln
Split infinitives (words inserted between to and the verb) have long been an acceptable way to avoid awkward writing.
Feel free to utterly disregard this formerly steadfast rule.
Interjection: An exclamation such as Wow! or Cool!
Misplaced Modifier: A modifier that gives a misleading meaning by being incorrectly placed in a sentence. See this page.
The mayor met informally to discuss food prices and the high cost of living with several women.
Mood: Used by a writer to indicate the mode or tone of an action: Is it factual, hypothetical, commanding? See this page.
Nonrestrictive Elements: Words, phrases, or clauses that add information not essential to the meaning. See Appositive.
Theobald Tompkins, who has been our neighbor for twenty years, is moving to Arizona next week.
Noun: A word that names a person, place, thing, quality, or act. See this page.
Number: Changes made, such as adding an s, to reflect whether a word is singular or plural. See this page.
Object: The word or phrase that names the thing acted upon by the verb. Objects are complements; they complete the meaning of the verb. See this page.
She visited the ancient cathedral.
A direct object names the thing acted upon by the verb.
I bought a book.
An indirect object receives the direct object.
I bought Aunt Marie a book.
Participle: A form of a verb that has some of the properties of an adjective and some of a verb. Like an adjective, it can modify a noun or pronoun; like a verb, it can take an object. See this page.
Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.—Charles E. Kettering
In the following examples, the underlined words are participles (verb forms functioning as adjectives):
glowing coals
grayed collars
run-down heels
whipped cream
Parts of Speech: Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. See this page. In the days of McGuffey’s Reader, students learned the parts of speech with the help of a jingle.
A NOUN’s the name of anything;
As, school or garden, hoop or swing.
ADJECTIVES tell the kind of noun;
As, great, small, pretty, white, or brown.
Instead of nouns the PRONOUNS stand:
Their heads, your face, its paw, his hand.
VERBS tell of something being done:
You read, count, sing, laugh, jump, or run.
How things are done the ADVERBS tell;
As, slowly, quickly, ill, or well.
CONJUNCTIONS join the words together;
As, men and women, wind or weather.
The PREPOSITION stands before
a noun; as, in or through a door.
The INTERJECTION shows surprise;
As, Oh! how pretty! Ah! how wise!
Passive Voice: The form of the verb used when the subject is the receiver of the action. See Active Voice and this page.
Person: Person denotes the speaker (first person), the person spoken to (second person) or the person or thing spoken about (third person).
Possessive: Showing ownership; also known as the genitive case. See Case.
He is a sheep in sheep’s clothing.—Winston Churchill
Predicate: A group of words that makes a statement or asks a question about the subject of a sentence; a predicate is everything in a sentence except the subject. See this page. A simple predicate consists of a verb.
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.—Oliver Goldsmith
A complete predicate includes verbs, modifiers, objects, and complements.
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.—Oliver Goldsmith
Prefix: A word element that is attached to the front of a root word and changes the meaning of the root. See Suffix.
Disbelief inattentive
Preposition: A word or group of words that shows the relation between its object and some other word in the sentence. See this page.
The playwright needs a producer who will stick by him through thin and thin.—Louis Phillips
Pronoun: A word that represents or stands in for a noun. See this page. Personal pronouns are I, you, he, she, it, they and their inflected forms (me, my, your, them, etc.). Possessive pronouns indicate ownership.
The book is mine.
Relative pronouns (who, whom, which, that, what) join subordinate clauses to their antecedents. In the following sentence, the relative pronoun who joins the clause sang Irish folk songs with the antecedent girl.
The girl who sang Irish folk songs was the star of the show.
Restrictive Elements: Words, phrases, or clauses that are essential to the meaning. See this page.
The joke that gets the most laughs wins the prize.
Run-on: The error of connecting two independent clauses without a conjunction or any punctuation. See this page.
Sentence: A group of words that contains at least one subject and predicate and expresses a complete thought. See this page. A simple sentence consists of subject and predicate (in other words, an independent clause).
My speed depends on the state of my bank account.—Mickey Spillane
Just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.—Red Smith
A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses.
Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.—Voltaire
A complex sentence consists of one independent clause and one or more dependent (subordinate) clauses; in the following example, the independent clause is underlined.
New York is the only city in the world where you can be deliberately run down on the sidewalk by a pedestrian. —Russell Baker
Subject: The part of a sentence about which something is said. See this page.
Time flies.
You can identify the subject by asking what or who; your answer is the subject. (What flies? Time flies.)
Some people think they are worth a lot of money because they have it.—Edmund Fuller
Subordinate Clause: See Clause, Dependent.
Suffix: A word element added to the end of a root or stem word and serving to make a new word or an inflected form of the word. Thus,-ness and-ren added to gentle and child create the new word gentleness and the inflected word children. Other examples of suffixes are motherhood, dependable, arrangement, ended, and walking. See Prefix.
Synonym: A word having a meaning identical with or very similar to that of another word. Shout is a synonym for yell; likely is a synonym for probable. See Antonym.
Tense: Tells when an action takes place (present, future, past). See this page.
Unit Modifier: See Compound Adjective.
Verb: A word that expresses action, being, or occurrence. See this page and this page.
Time flies.
Voice: See Active Voice, Passive Voice.