NOUNS 2

Common Nouns and Proper Nouns

A common noun is a general name.

It is common to all the people, all the things, all the places, etc... that are of the same type.

e.g.

• Girls (there are many girls and they are all referred to as girls)
• Cat (there are many cats in the world, and each one is a cat)
• Library (each of the different places in the world where different books are kept so that people can read and borrow them is known as a library)

A particular noun is a particular name.

e.g.

• Mount Fuji (there is only one place in the world that has this name)
• The Longman Dictionary of Grammar and Usage (this is the name of one particular publication)
• Charles Dickens (there is only one English author called Charles Dickens. No one has this particular name)

Here are the details:
Common Noun:  man, author  >  Proper Noun:  Charles Dickens, George Orwell
Common Noun:  country, nation  >  Proper Noun:  Singapore, Indonesia
Common Noun:  city, place  >  Proper Noun:  Bali, Jakarta
Common Noun:  book, novel  >  Proper Noun:  "A Tale of Two Cities", "War and Peace"
Common Noun:  queen, person  >  Proper Noun:   Queen Elizabeth II

A proper noun begin with a capital letter. Words like of and and (prepositions and conjunctions) are normally not written with their first letter capitalized. The first letter of a preposition or conjunction is capitalized if the word is the first word of the title of a publication.

Source: 
The Longman Dictionary of Grammar and Usage

Parallel Structure (part 2)

PARALLEL STRUCTURE (part 2)

Recognize parallel structure when you see it.

Whenever you include a list of actions or items, you must use equal grammatical units. If the first item is a noun, then the following items must also be nouns; if the first action is a simple past tense verb, then make the other items simple past tense verbs as well.
Nonparallel structure looks like this:

Students , , and .

Students capped their pens, were closing their notebooks, and zipped their book bags as they tried to alert Professor Jones, rambling at the lectern, that the end of class had arrived.

Capped and zipped are both simple past tense verbs, but... (read more>>) 

How to join all those items?

You can use these coordinating conjunctions to make parallel sentences:

• and
• but
• or
• not only... but also...
• not... but...
• both... and...
• neither... nor...
• either... or...

Examples:

1. I like eating fruit and vegetables
2. I hate playing football but I love watching it.
3. Which one do you like: fried chicken or fried fish?
4. I love not only swimming but also dancing.
5. We are not for war but for peace.
6. Both pizza and lasagna are delicious.
7.  John was neither here nor there.
8. You should buy either the red shirt or the blue one.

When you find some sentences like these:

• I buy some pens
• I buy some clothes
• I buy some scarves

Simply delete the repetition sentences, write it once, and combine the nouns by using COMMA (,) and AND to create parallel sentence.

• I buy some pens, clothes, and scarves.

Take a look at this sentence:

Paula went to work, a restaurant, and to the movie.

If the preposition or article (a, an, the) is the same for all items in the list, the writer can decide to include them in all of the items or write it just in the first.  Therefore, the above sentence is incorrect.   The items in the list are work, a restaurant, and the movies.  However, the writer used the preposition to with the first and third items only.   

Incorrect:  Paula went to work, a restaurant, and to the movies.
Correct:  Paula went to work, a restaurant, and the movies.
Correct:  Paula went to work, to a restaurant, and to the movies.


Here is another example:

There are trains leaving the station in the morning and noon.

The preposition is in.  When proofreading, ask yourself, "Is this the correct word for each item?"

In the morning?  YES! In noon?  NO!

The correct preposition for noon is at.  Therefore, we must write

There are trains leaving the station in the morning and at noon.

Some words and verbs use prepositions as well.   Look at this example:

The cancer researcher is interested and excited about the new advances in medical technology.

What are the words in the parallel structure?  They are interested and excited.  When the writer wrote excited, she also correctly wrote about.  How about interested?  Do you use about with interested?  Let's do the proofreading test that we learned above.

excited about the advances...?  YES! interested about the advances...?  NO!

The correct preposition used with interested is in.  Therefore, the above sentence is INCORRECT.   The correct preposition must be used in each item of the parallel structure.

The following is correct:
The cancer researcher is interested in and excited about the new advances in medical technology.

Are you ready to do some exercises?  Click here >>

Parallel Structure

Parallel Structure

Contributors:Dana Lynn Driscoll

Parallel structure means using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. This can happen at the word, phrase, or clause level. The usual way to join parallel structures is with the use of coordinating conjunctions such as "and" or "or."

Words and Phrases

With the -ing form (gerund) of words:

Parallel:

Mary likes hiking, swimming, and bicycling.

With infinitive phrases:

Parallel:

Mary likes to hike, to swim, and to ride a bicycle.
OR
Mary likes to hike, swim, and ride a bicycle.

(Note: You can use "to" before all the verbs in a sentence or only before the first one.)

Do not mix forms.

Example 1

Not Parallel:
Mary likes hiking, swimming, and to ride a bicycle.
Parallel:
Mary likes hiking, swimming, and riding a bicycle.
Read more >>

Is parallel structure different from series?

Recognize an item in a series when you see one.

Items in a series occur whenever a sentence includes a list of two or more things. The items can be any type of grammatical unit, such as nouns, verbs, participles, infinitives, or subordinate clauses, to name a few. Read the examples that follow:

To make her famous muffins, Paulette bought fresh broccoli, baker's chocolate, flour, sugar, and eggs.

Broccoli, chocolate, flour, sugar and eggs = all nouns.
Read more >>






 

Objects

What is OBJECT? Is it different from NOUN?

Nouns may function as Objects in sentences.

Subjects do the action and objects receive it.

See the following example:
1.  Diaz kicks the ball  
Diaz is the subject, because she does the action.
Kicks is the verb, it is the action.
While ball is the object, it receives the action, kick. 

Pronouns may also function as objects, as following:
1.  I cooked chicken soup this morning, my mom likes it very much.

The common object pronouns are me, you, them, us, him, her, and it

NOUNS 1

NOUNS 1

A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, state, or action. The following table gives examples of NOUNS.

Nouns                                                                           Function
1.  man, boy, Ali, John                                                    words that name people
2.  zoo, school, Singapore, London                              words that name places
3.  box, shoes, boxes                                                         words that name things
4.  happiness, freedom, beauty, certainty,                 words that refer to states
     kindness                   
5.  laughter, flight, persuasion, graduation               words that refer to actions

A noun may be used in the following ways in a sentence:

#  as a SUBJECT:  (1) John eats.  (2)  The man runs.

#  as a DIRECT OBJECT:   (1)  She loves John.  (2)  He writes books.

#  as an INDIRECT OBJECT:  (1)  He gave John a book.  (2)  She bought the man some food.

#  as the OBJECT OF A PREPOSITION (ie words such as to, of, on, in ...)
     (1)  According to John, you are wrong.  (2)  The details are given by the man.

#  as the SUBJECT COMPLEMENT (ie the word that is linked to the subject by a verb, such   as is, was, seen, become)
     (1)  This is John.  (2)  That seems to be the man.

#  as the OBJECT COMPLEMENT (ie the word that comes after the object and is directly related to it)
     (1)  She calls him an angel.  (2)  They appointed me Chairman.

#  as an APPOSITIVE (a word or phrase place next to another word or phrase to explain what the latter refers to)
    (1) John, the Chairman, gives us the instruction. (2) The hero, Tarzan, is a very brave man.

#  as a POSSESSIVE (ie a word that indicates ownership)
    (1)  John's project has been praised.  (2)  That man's work has been completed.

#  to MODIFY ANOTHER NOUN
     (1)  The bank manager is very efficient.  (2)  The shoe factory has a lady accountant.

source:  Longman Dictionary of Grammar and Usage

Adverbs, Verbs, Adjectives

Welcome, May!

Now, let's discuss about ADVERBS. Here are the explanation about adverbs.

Check these out...

ADVERBS answer the questions how, how often, when, and also where. Here are the examples: (1) Andy did the test easily. (2) My mom goes to the traditional market early. (3) The beautiful butterflies fly everywhere. (4) I always call my friends pretty.

Here are more example of how to use adverbs in sentences.

This picture shows the adverbs of frequency. Here are some more examples: (1) Danny never goes to the supermarket alone. (2) They always play football in front of the lake.

The explanation of adjectives, verbs, and also adverbs. As you can see, there are some examples in each of the box.

Sometimes, some people or students get confused of how to organize some adjectives in a sentence at a time. Here is the order of adjectives. These are the examples: (1) She is a beautiful old Italian tourist. (2) This is an expensive antique silver mirror. (3) There are some several enormous young American basketball players at my school.

Those pictures above can be seen here:

www.rapidonline.com

www.mrswarnerarlington.weebly.com

www.englishatsalgar.blogspot.com

www.zolaenglish4a.wordpress.com

www.fixyourwritinghabit.tumblr.com

www.englishvilladeabaran.blogspot.com

Basic English for English Learners

Welcome to my blog

Here are some new-beginning posts for you, especially those who love and learn English, just like me. Hope they are useful for you, English lovers.

Have a nice day ^-^

Descriptive words. This picture shows some synonyms of some basic adjectives. You can use these words to describe about appearance of place, person, thing, animal, situation, etc. By memorizing all of these words, you are able to make simple sentence. Here is an example: My aunt looks happy today.

These are some positive words. it's very good to know these. You may use these to motivate friends around you and yourself of course.

The third picture is about hair styles. There are some ways to modify the descriptive words, one of them by using these hair style descriptions. Here is an example: My sister's french twist hair style is really adorable, she created it by herself.

Capital letter. It is important to know where to write capital letter, especially in writing.

This is an interesting fact that men and women see color in different way. Women say there are four tones of BLUE, but men say there is only one; BLUE.

Here are countable and uncountable things. Some countable things can be recognized by adding s/es in the end of the word, some have special form.

This is the picture of rules in classroom. You can make it by yourself and modify the rules.

PUNCTUATION

Request words. These can be used to motivate people around you or ask something or ask someone to do something.