English Grammar For Dummies

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.

Auteur

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.

Texte du rabat
Learn to:

• Get down to basics with the rules of English grammar
• Improve your writing and verbal communication skills
• Brush up on your proofreading abilities

• Improve your academic performance and results From basic sentence construction to rules even your English teacher didn't know – conquer English grammar the fun, easy way Petrified at the prospect of tripping over tenses when it really matters? Draw a blank over the difference between who and whom, a clause and a phrase, a colon and a semicolon? Don't sweat it; English grammar is much easier to master than your teachers led you to believe – especially with this book as your guide. Plain-English explanations and loads of lively examples and exercises quickly get you up to speed on all the rules, terms and parts of speech, and, more importantly, how to use them properly to boost your speaking and writing skills.

• Make your future perfect perfect — learn to keep your tenses straight, your cases kosher, your singulars and plurals in line, and avoid pronoun gender-bending
• Objectify your prepositions — find out when it's appropriate to use 'I' or 'me', 'who' or 'whom', and when it's okay to end a sentence with a preposition and when it isn't
• Punctuate perfectly, every time! — discover simple tricks for knowing when to use a comma or a semicolon, a colon or a period and to avoid overdoing it with exclamation points!
• Know when to 'when' and when not to — never again be confused about whether to use single or double quotation marks, or none at all
• NEVER COMMIT A CAPITAL OFFENCE — you'll never have a doubt about whether to capitalise words and phrases or to use lowercase spellings

• Know when 'ain't' is okay and when it is not — discover valuable rules to guide you so you always know when it's fine to slangify your speech and writing, and when only formal English will do Open the book and find:

• The parts of a sentence and how they fit together
• The rules of verbs and prepositions
• Priceless pointers on how to polish your speaking and writing skills
• The latest techniques for improving your command of grammar
• Grammatical rules of the road for emailing, texting and blogging
• Simple strategies for keeping your tenses in order
• Useful rules even your teacher didn't know about
• Help for speakers or writers of any skill level

Résumé
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.

Contenu

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