Abbreviate the following:

Titles before names:

Mrs., Mr., Ms., Prof., Dr., Gen., Rep., Sen., St. (for Saint)

Notice that Miss is not an abbreviation, so we don't put a period after it. Ms. is not an abbreviation, either, but we do use a period after it — probably to keep it consistent with Mr. and Mrs.

The plural of Mr. is Messrs. (We invited Messrs. Carter, Lincoln, and Ford.) The plural of Dr. is Drs. (We consulted Drs. Carter, Lincoln, and Ford.) The plural of Mrs. is Mmes or Mmes. (with or without the period).

In most formal prose, we do not use titles, abbreviated or otherwise, with individuals. Ms. Emily Dickinson is simply Emily Dickinson, and after the first use of her full name, Dickinson will do (unless we need Emily to avoid confusion with other Dickinsons).

The abbreviations Rev. and Hon. (for Reverend and Honorable) are not, strictly speaking, titles; they are adjectives. In informal language or when we're trying to save space or make a list, we can write Rev. Alan B. Darling and Hon. Francisco Gonzales. In formal text, we would write "the Reverend Alan B. Darling" and "the Honorable Francisco Gonzales" (i.e., it's not a good idea to abbreviate either Reverend or Honorable when these words are preceded by "the"). Incidentally, we cannot say "We invited the reverend to dinner" and only a cad would invite "the rev."

Titles after names:

Sr., Jr., Ph.D., M.D., B.A., M.A., D.D.S.

These are standard abbreviations, with periods. The APA Publication Manual recommends not using periods with degrees; other reference manuals do recommend using periods, so use your own judgment on this issue. All sources advise against using titles before and after a name at the same time (i.e., she can be Dr. Juanita Espinoza or Juanita Espinoza, PhD, but she cannot be Dr. Juanita Espinoza, PhD). And we do not abbreviate a title that isn't attached to a name: "We went to see the doctor (not dr.) yesterday."

The Chicago Manual of Style recommends not using a comma to separate the Jr./Sr./III from the last name, but you should follow the preferences of the indivdual if you know those preferences. If you list a "junior" with his spouse, the "Jr." can go after both names, as in "Mr. and Mrs. Arthur C. Banks Jr." or "Mr. Arthur C. Banks Jr. and Gloria Banks — but not Arthur C. and Gloria Banks Jr. You should avoid using a "Jr." or "Sr." when you have only the last name — Mr. Banks Jr.

Have you ever run across an acronym or abbreviation and not known what it means? Try using the Acronym Finder. Just type in the letters and click on Search. Out of a database of over 190,000 abbreviations and acronyms, the Finder will probably discover what you're looking for.

Names of

• familiar institutions — UConn, MIT, UCLA, CIA, FBI, NATO
• countries — U.S.A., U.K.
• corporations — IBM, CBS, NPR, CNN, ITT
• famous people — LBJ, FDR, JFK, MLK
• very familiar objects — TV, VCR, CD-ROM.

Notice that U.S.A. can also be written USA, but U.S. is better with the periods. Also, we can use U.S. as a modifier (the U.S. policy on immigration) but not as a noun (He left the U.S. U.S.A.).

Terms of mathematical units: 15 in., 15 ft, 15 kg, 15 m, 15 lb

Generally, you would use these abbreviations only in technical writing. There is a space between the number and the abbreviation. Notice that we do not put an s after such abbreviations even when the plural is indicated. Also, we do not use a period with such abbreviations except for in. when it might be confused with the preposition in.

When the term of measurement is used as a modifier, we put a hyphen between the number and the term of measurement: a 15-ft board, a 6-lb line, etc.

Long, common phrases, such as IQ (Intelligence Quotient), rpm (revolutions per minute), mph (miles per hour), and mpg (miles per gallon).
Such abbreviations are acceptable even in formal academic text and may be used without periods.

Words used with numbers: He left at 2:00 a.m. She was born in 1520 B.C.

Either lower or upper case letters can be used with A.M., a.m., P.M., p.m. The abbreviation B.C. (before Christ) is used after the date; A.D. (anno domini, "in the year of the Lord") appears before the date. The abbreviations B.C. and A.D. are sometimes replaced with B.C.E. (before the common era) and C.E. (common era), both used after the date (although one must add that those abbreviations are neither widely used nor commonly understood). Sometimes you will see 790 BC and AD 78 written without periods and written in SMALL CAPS. Note that many style books are now recommending SMALL CAPS for all appearances of acronyms, such as NAACP or NCAA. The effect of this practice is to allow the acronym to blend more smoothly with the rest of the text.

It is considered bad form to use these abbreviations without a specific number attached to them: "We'll do this in the a.m." or "We'll do this tomorrow a.m."

Common Latin terms: etc. (et cetera — and so forth), i.e. (id est — that is), e.g. (exempli gratia — for example), et al. (et alii — and others).

The abbreviation i.e. (i.e., that is) is often confused with other abbreviations (e.g., e.g.). The i.e. generally is used to introduce matter that is explanatory as opposed to being the name of an example or list of examples. If you can say for example as a substitute for the abbreviation, you want to use e.g., not i.e. Do not italicize or underline these abbreviations. Most sources recommend avoiding the use of Latin abbreviations except within parenthetical notes and some sources say not to use Latin abbreviations at all (use the English terms instead) except within citations or reference lists. Good advice. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends using a comma after i.e. or e.g. in order to set off those abbreviations as introductory modifiers. Other resources say not to bother with the comma, but the comma makes good sense.

Except in the business of formally citing material you've used in research, it's a good idea not to use et al. when you mean "and others." And don't use etc. as a lazy person's way of getting out of work. Spell out the word versus unless you're reporting game scores, when you would use vs.; when you're citing legal documents, use the abbreviation v.

Names of states and territories in references and addresses, but not in normal text. Abbreviations accepted by the U.S. Postal Service (including abbreviations for words like Boulevard and Alley) are listed online. Do not use state abbreviations simply to save time or space except in an address on an envelope or list. We do not use periods with state abbreviations: CT, NY, NJ. We use D.C. after the name of the city within the District of Columbia: Washington, D.C.; the APA Manual does not use periods with DC. The U.S. postal service, incidentally, does not insert a comma between the city and the abbreviated state name: Hartford CT, Portland OR — at least not in the addresses on envelopes.

Abbreviate "Saint" in U.S. place names, as in St. Louis and St. Petersburg, Florida, and the St. Lawrence River. For the same word in other countries, you might have to consult a good dictionary (one that contains place names): St./Saint Martin's in the Fields, Saint Moritz, Saint Lucia, Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint Petersburg (Russia). When the word Saint is used to refer to a holy person, spell out the word — Saint Theresa, Saint Francis of Assisi. If an institution is named after a saint, spell out the word Saint unless you have some reason to save space — Saint Francis Hospital, Saint Joseph College, Saint Joseph's University. It is wise, as always, to consult the actual institution. Colleges, universities, and hospitals named after Saint Mary are about evenly divided between St. and Saint, but in formal situations, Saint seems to be favored more frequently.

Don't abbreviate the following:

(In formal academic prose it is considered bad form to abbreviate words simply to save space, time, or energy.)

• Words such as through (thru), night (nite).
• Days of the week or months of the year (in the normal flow of text).
• Words at the beginning of a sentence.
• People's names such as Chas. (for Charles) or Jas. (for James), unless those abbreviations have come to be accepted as nicknames for those particular individuals.
• States' names such as Mass. (for Massachusetts) or Conn. (for Connecticut). When appropriate (as in the addresses for envelopes), use the U.S. postal service's approved two-letter abbreviations: MA, CT (without periods).
• Courses such as econ (for economics) or poli sci (for political science).

Spacing and Periods

Abbreviations of units of measure are written without periods (with the exception of "in" when it could be confused with the preposition). We use periods for most lower-case abbreviations such as e.g. and i.e. and c.o.d. For very common abbreviations, leave out the periods, as in rpm and mph. When an abbreviation with a period ends a sentence, that period will suffice to end the sentence: He lives in Washington, D.C. Suffixes for people's names require periods: Joe Smith Jr. lives in Erie. In formal text it is not a good idea to abbreviate military titles — Lieutenant Colonel Chester Piascyk — but in informal text Lt. Col. Chester Piascyk would be acceptable. (Note the space after "Lt.") Academic degrees can be written with periods or not, but don't insert spaces — Ph.D. or PhD, M.B.A. or MBA — within the degree.

People's initials are usually followed by a period and a space — W. E. B. DuBois — but you need to be careful that a line-break doesn't come in the middle of someone's initials. (You can impose what is called a "forced space" or "non-breaking space" by holding down the option key while you hit the space bar.) You will find exceptions to this rule in the way that some companies write their name: JCPenney (no spaces or periods), L.L. Bean (no space in the initials), etc. In normal text, writers can safely ignore corporate aberrations in spacing and capitalization. (Some editors write Harry S Truman without a period after the "S," because the initial didn't really stand for anything, but the Truman Presidential Museum and Library contends that that practice is silly. Still, you will often find Truman's name written sans period in highly regarded places.) When a person's initials stand alone — either as a nickname, "Come here, JT!" — or as a common shortcut — JFK (for John Fitzgerald Kennedy) or LBJ (for Lyndon Baines Johnson) — type them without spaces or periods. Professional designations such as CPA (Certified Public Accountant) or CLU (Certified Life Underwriter) are separated from the last name with a comma and are written without spaces or periods, as in Bertha Bigknot, CPA, unless the designation is accompanied by an academic degree, as in Foxy Reynard, Ph.D., C.L.U.

Acronyms

There is a difference between acronyms and abbreviations. An acronym is usually formed by taking the first initials of a phrase or compounded-word and using those initials to form a word that stands for something. Thus NATO, which we pronounce NATOH, is an acronym for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and LASER (which we pronounce "lazer"), is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. FBI, then, is not really an acronym for the Federal Bureau of Investigation; it is an abbreviation. AIDS is an acronym; HIV is an abbreviation. URL is an abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator (World Wide Web address), but many people pronounce it as "Earl," making it a true acronym, and others insist on pronouncing it as three separate letters, "U * R * L," thus making it an abbreviation. The jury is still out. (I vote for Uncle Earl.)

It appears that there are no hard and fast rules for using periods in either acronyms or abbreviations. More and more, newspapers and journals seem to drop the periods: NAACP, NCAA, etc. Consistency, obviously, is important.

Using articles with abbreviations and acronyms: One of the most often asked questions about grammar has to do with the choice of articles — a, an, the — to precede an abbreviation or acronym. Do we say an FBI agent or a FBI agent? Although "F" is obviously a consonant and we would precede any word that begins with "F" with "a," we precede FBI with "an" because the first sound we make when we say FBI is not an "f-sound," it is an "eff-sound." Thus we say we're going to a PTO meeting where an NCO will address us. We say we saw a UFO because, although the abbreviation begins with a 'U," we pronounce the "U" as if it were spelled "yoo." Whether we say an URL or a URL depends on whether we pronounce it as "earl" or as "u*r*l."

Definitions of Basic Sentence Part

absolute phrases || adjectives || adverbs || articles || conjunctions || direct and indirect objects || interjections || modifiers || nouns || predicates || prepositions || pronouns || subjects || verbals || verbs

The hyperlinks above will take you to separate pages.

THE PARTS OF SPEECH

The eight parts of speech — verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections — are defined on the pages hyperlinked below. (Some authorities would not list interjections, but would list determiners or articles, instead.) In addition, you can use the Powerpoint presentation on the Parts of Speech. Visit the page on Powerpoint for further information. The terms below — and over 300 others — are also listed in the Guide's INDEX.

Here's a little rhyme — by David B. Tower & Benjamin F. Tweed —that teachers used in days gone by to help students learn the parts of speech. (We include it here in response to popular demand. Why the song leaves out pronouns is a mystery. A writer from Richland, Washington, suggests "A PRONOUN replaces any noun: / he, she, it, and you are found. ) It has been set to music, but we'll leave that up to you to discover or create for yourself:

Three little words you often see
Are ARTICLES: a, an, and the.

A NOUN's the name of anything,
As: school or garden, toy, or swing.

ADJECTIVES tell the kind of noun,
As: great, small, pretty, white, or brown.

VERBS tell of something being done:
To read, write, count, sing, jump, or run.

How things are done the ADVERBS tell,
As: slowly, quickly, badly, 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!

The whole are called the PARTS of SPEECH,
Which reading, writing, speaking teach.

Sentence Parts: Function and Usage Notes
Absolute Phrases	Adjectives	Adverbs	Determiners/ Articles
Clauses	Complements	Coordinated Adjectives	Conjunctions
Direct and Indirect Objects	Interjections	Nouns	Phrases
Predicates	Prepositions	Pronouns	Subjects
Verbs and Verbals (Infinitives, Participles, Gerunds)

Prepositions:Locator in Time and Place

A preposition describes a relationship between other words in a sentence. In itself, a word like "in" or "after" is rather meaningless and hard to define in mere words. For instance, when you do try to define a preposition like "in" or "between" or "on," you invariably use your hands to show how something is situated in relationship to something else. Prepositions are nearly always combined with other words in structures called prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases can be made up of a million different words, but they tend to be built the same: a preposition followed by a determiner and an adjective or two, followed by a pronoun or noun (called the object of the preposition). This whole phrase, in turn, takes on a modifying role, acting as an adjective or an adverb, locating something in time and space, modifying a noun, or telling when or where or under what conditions something happened.

Consider the professor's desk and all the prepositional phrases we can use while talking about it.

You can sit before the desk (or in front of the desk). The professor can sit on the desk (when he's being informal) or behind the desk, and then his feet are under the desk or beneath the desk. He can stand beside the desk (meaning next to the desk), before the desk, between the desk and you, or even on the desk (if he's really strange). If he's clumsy, he can bump into the desk or try to walk through the desk (and stuff would fall off the desk). Passing his hands over the desk or resting his elbows upon the desk, he often looks across the desk and speaks of the desk or concerning the desk as if there were nothing else like the desk. Because he thinks of nothing except the desk, sometimes you wonder about the desk, what's in the desk, what he paid for the desk, and if he could live without the desk. You can walk toward the desk, to the desk, around the desk, by the desk, and even past the desk while he sits at the desk or leans against the desk.

All of this happens, of course, in time: during the class, before the class, until the class, throughout the class, after the class, etc. And the professor can sit there in a bad mood [another adverbial construction].

Those words in bold blue font are all prepositions. Some prepositions do other things besides locate in space or time — "My brother is like my father." "Everyone in the class except me got the answer." — but nearly all of them modify in one way or another. It is possible for a preposition phrase to act as a noun — "During a church service is not a good time to discuss picnic plans" or "In the South Pacific is where I long to be" — but this is seldom appropriate in formal or academic writing.

Click HERE for a list of common prepositions that will be easy to print out.

You may have learned that ending a sentence with a preposition is a serious breach of grammatical etiquette. It doesn't take a grammarian to spot a sentence-ending preposition, so this is an easy rule to get caught up on (!). Although it is often easy to remedy the offending preposition, sometimes it isn't, and repair efforts sometimes result in a clumsy sentence. "Indicate the book you are quoting from" is not greatly improved with "Indicate from which book you are quoting." Based on shaky historical precedent, the rule itself is a latecomer to the rules of writing. Those who dislike the rule are fond of recalling Churchill's rejoinder: "That is nonsense up with which I shall not put." We should also remember the child's complaint: "What did you bring that book that I don't like to be read to out of up for?"

Is it any wonder that prepositions create such troubles for students for whom English is a second language? We say we are at the hospital to visit a friend who is in the hospital. We lie in bed but on the couch. We watch a film at the theater but on television. For native speakers, these little words present little difficulty, but try to learn another language, any other language, and you will quickly discover that prepositions are troublesome wherever you live and learn. This page contains some interesting (sometimes troublesome) prepositions with brief usage notes. To address all the potential difficulties with prepositions in idiomatic usage would require volumes, and the only way English language learners can begin to master the intricacies of preposition usage is through practice and paying close attention to speech and the written word. Keeping a good dictionary close at hand (to hand?) is an important first step.

Prepositions of Time: at, on, and in

We use at to designate specific times.
The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

We use on to designate days and dates.
My brother is coming on Monday.
We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.
She likes to jog in the morning.
It's too cold in winter to run outside.
He started the job in 1971.
He's going to quit in August.

Prepositions of Place: at, on, and in

We use at for specific addresses.
Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.

We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.
Her house is on Boretz Road.

And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).
She lives in Durham.
Durham is in Windham County.
Windham County is in Connecticut.

Prepositions of Location: in, at, and on and No Preposition
IN (the) bed* the bedroom the car (the) class* the library* school*	AT class* home the library* the office school* work	ON the bed* the ceiling the floor the horse the plane the train	NO PREPOSITION downstairs downtown inside outside upstairs uptown
* You may sometimes use different prepositions for these locations.

Prepositions of Movement: to
and No Preposition

We use to in order to express movement toward a place.
They were driving to work together.
She's going to the dentist's office this morning.

Toward and towards are also helpful prepositions to express movement. These are simply variant spellings of the same word; use whichever sounds better to you.
We're moving toward the light.
This is a big step towards the project's completion.

With the words home, downtown, uptown, inside, outside, downstairs, upstairs, we use no preposition.
Grandma went upstairs
Grandpa went home.
They both went outside.

Prepositions of Time: for and since

We use for when we measure time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years).
He held his breath for seven minutes.
She's lived there for seven years.
The British and Irish have been quarreling for seven centuries.

We use since with a specific date or time.
He's worked here since 1970.
She's been sitting in the waiting room since two-thirty.

Prepositions with Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs.

Prepositions are sometimes so firmly wedded to other words that they have practically become one word. (In fact, in other languages, such as German, they would have become one word.) This occurs in three categories: nouns, adjectives, and verbs.

NOUNS and PREPOSITIONS
approval of awareness of belief in concern for confusion about desire for	fondness for grasp of hatred of hope for interest in love of	need for participation in reason for respect for success in understanding of

ADJECTIVES and PREPOSITIONS
afraid of angry at aware of capable of careless about familiar with	fond of happy about interested in jealous of made of married to	proud of similar to sorry for sure of tired of worried about

VERBS and PREPOSITIONS
apologize for ask about ask for belong to bring up care for find out	give up grow up look for look forward to look up make up pay for	prepare for study for talk about think about trust in work for worry about

A combination of verb and preposition is called a phrasal verb. The word that is joined to the verb is then called a particle. Please refer to the brief section we have prepared on phrasal verbs for an explanation.

Idiomatic Expressions with Prepositions

• agree to a proposal, with a person, on a price, in principle
• argue about a matter, with a person, for or against a proposition
• compare to to show likenesses, with to show differences (sometimes similarities)
• correspond to a thing, with a person
• differ from an unlike thing, with a person
• live at an address, in a house or city, on a street, with other people

Unnecessary Prepositions

In everyday speech, we fall into some bad habits, using prepositions where they are not necessary. It would be a good idea to eliminate these words altogether, but we must be especially careful not to use them in formal, academic prose.

• She met up with the new coach in the hallway.
• The book fell off of the desk.
• He threw the book out of the window.
• She wouldn't let the cat inside of the house. [or use "in"]
• Where did they go to?
• Put the lamp in back of the couch. [use "behind" instead]
• Where is your college at?

Prepositions in Parallel Form

(Click HERE for a definition and discussion of parallelism.) When two words or phrases are used in parallel and require the same preposition to be idiomatically correct, the preposition does not have to be used twice.
You can wear that outfit in summer and in winter.
The female was both attracted by and distracted by the male's dance.

However, when the idiomatic use of phrases calls for different prepositions, we must be careful not to omit one of them.
The children were interested in and disgusted by the movie.
It was clear that this player could both contribute to and learn from every game he played.
He was fascinated by and enamored of this beguiling woman.

Verbs and Verbals

auxiliary || gerunds || infinitives || irregular || linking || mood || auxiliary || participles || phrasal || causative || factitive ||sequence || tense

There are separate sections on

• The Passive Voice
• Progressive, Stative, and Dynamic Verbs and
• Conditional Verb Forms
• The "To Be" Verb

Definitions

Verbs carry the idea of being or action in the sentence.

• I am a student.
• The students passed all their courses.

As we will see on this page, verbs are classified in many ways. First, some verbs require an object to complete their meaning: "She gave _____ ?" Gave what? She gave money to the church. These verbs are called transitive. Verbs that are intransitive do not require objects: "The building collapsed." In English, you cannot tell the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb by its form; you have to see how the verb is functioning within the sentence. In fact, a verb can be both transitive and intransitive: "The monster collapsed the building by sitting on it."

Although you will seldom hear the term, a ditransitive verb — such as cause or give — is one that can take a direct object and an indirect object at the same time: "That horrid music gave me a headache." Ditransitive verbs are slightly different, then, from factitive verbs (see below), in that the latter take two objects.

Verbs are also classified as either finite or non-finite. A finite verb makes an assertion or expresses a state of being and can stand by itself as the main verb of a sentence.

• The truck demolished the restaurant.
• The leaves were yellow and sickly.

Non-finite verbs (think "unfinished") cannot, by themselves, be main verbs:

• The broken window . . .
• The wheezing gentleman . . .

Another, more useful term for non-finite verb is verbal. In this section, we discuss various verbal forms: infinitives, gerunds, and participles.

For WebCT Users

The "-s" Problem Icon means that the verb requires an -s ending because it's a third-person (he/she/it) verb in the present tense. See the Table of Verb Tenses for help in identifying present tenses requiring the -s.

The "-ed" Problem Icon probably means that the verb requires an -ed ending because it's in the past tense or that an -ed ending has been used inappropriately. The -ed ending is particularly problematic when it occurs just before a "d" or "t" sound as in "We are used to doing things the way we're supposed to: like in the old-fashioned days." See the Table of Verb Tenses for help in identifying past tenses requiring the -ed.

The "Verb" Problem Icon probably means that the verb tenses in this sentence are inconsistent or incorrect. See the section on Sequencing for help in using the correct sequence of verb tenses. See the section on Consistency for help in maintaining a proper consistency in verb tense.

Four Verb Forms

The inflections (endings) of English verb forms are not difficult to remember. There are only four basic forms. Instead of forming complex tense forms with endings, English uses auxiliary verb forms. English does not even have a proper ending for future forms; instead, we use auxiliaries such as "I am going to read this afternoon." or "I will read." or even "I am reading this book tomorrow." It would be useful, however, to learn these four basic forms of verb construction.

Name of verb	Base form	Past form	Present participle	Past participle
to work	I can work. I work.	I worked.	I am working.	I have worked.
to write	I can write. I write.	I wrote.	I am writing.	I have written.

Linking Verbs

A linking verb connects a subject and its complement. Sometimes called copulas, linking verbs are often forms of the verb to be, but are sometimes verbs related to the five senses (look, sound, smell, feel, taste) and sometimes verbs that somehow reflect a state of being (appear, seem, become, grow, turn, prove, remain). What follows the linking verb will be either a noun complement or an adjective complement:

• Those people are all professors.
• Those professors are brilliant.
• This room smells bad.
• I feel great.
• A victory today seems unlikely.

A handful of verbs that reflect a change in state of being are sometimes called resulting copulas. They, too, link a subject to a predicate adjective:

• His face turned purple.
• She became older.
• The dogs ran wild.
• The milk has gone sour.
• The crowd grew ugly.

"This is he."

A Frequently Asked Question about linking verbs concerns the correct response when you pick up the phone and someone asks for you. One correct response would be "This is he [she]." The predicate following the linking verb should be in the nominative (subject) form — definitely not "This is him." If "This is he" sounds stuffy to you, try using "Speaking," instead, or "This is Fred," substituting your own name for Fred's — unless it's a bill collector or telemarketer calling, in which case "This is Fred" is a good response for everyone except people named Fred.

Active and Passive Voice

There is now a separate section dealing with issues raised by a verb's VOICE (active/passive).

Mood

Mood in verbs refers to one of three attitudes that a writer or speaker has to what is being written or spoken. The indicative mood, which describes most sentences on this page, is used to make a statement or ask a question. The imperative mood is used when we're feeling sort of bossish and want to give a directive, strong suggestion, or order:

• Get your homework done before you watch television tonight.
• Please include cash payment with your order form.
• Get out of town!

Notice that there is no subject in these imperative sentences. The pronoun you (singular or plural, depending on context) is the "understood subject" in imperative sentences. Virtually all imperative sentences, then, have a second person (singular or plural) subject. The sole exception is the first person construction, which includes an objective form as subject: "Let's (or Let us) work on these things together."

The subjunctive mood is used in dependent clauses that do the following: 1) express a wish; 2) begin with if and express a condition that does not exist (is contrary to fact); 3) begin with as if and as though when such clauses describe a speculation or condition contrary to fact; and 4) begin with that and express a demand, requirement, request, or suggestion. A new section on the uses of the Conditional should help you understand the subjunctive.

• She wishes her boyfriend were here.
• If Juan were more aggressive, he'd be a better hockey player.
• We would have passed if we had studied harder.
• He acted as if he were guilty.
• I requested that he be present at the hearing.

The subjunctive is not as important a mood in English as it is in other languages, like French and Spanish, which happen to be more subtle and discriminating in hypothetical, doubtful, or wishful expressions. Many situations which would require the subjunctive in other languages are satisfied by using one of several auxiliary verbs in English.

The New York Public Library's Writer's Guide to Style and Usage has this important note on the subjunctive: "The words if, as if, or as though do not always signal the subjunctive mood. If the information in such a clause points out a condition that is or was probable or likely, the verb should be in the indicative mood. The indicative tells the reader that the information in the dependent clause could possibly be true" (155). Cited with permission.

The present tense of the subjunctive uses only the base form of the verb.

• He demanded that his students use two-inch margins.
• She suggested that we be on time tomorrow.

The past tense of the subjunctive has the same forms as the indicative except (unfortunately) for the verb to be, which uses were regardless of the number of the subject.

• If I were seven feet tall, I'd be a great basketball player.
• He wishes he were a better student.
• If you were rich, we wouldn't be in this mess.
• If they were faster, we could have won that race.

Articles, Determiners,and Quantifiers

Definition

Articles, determiners, and quantifiers are those little words that precede and modify nouns:

the teacher, a college, a bit of honey, that person, those people, whatever purpose, either way, your choice

Sometimes these words will tell the reader or listener whether we're referring to a specific or general thing (the garage out back; A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!); sometimes they tell how much or how many (lots of trees, several books, a great deal of confusion). The choice of the proper article or determiner to precede a noun or noun phrase is usually not a problem for writers who have grown up speaking English, nor is it a serious problem for non-native writers whose first language is a romance language such as Spanish. For other writers, though, this can be a considerable obstacle on the way to their mastery of English. In fact, some students from eastern European countries — where their native language has either no articles or an altogether different system of choosing articles and determiners — find that these "little words" can create problems long after every other aspect of English has been mastered.

Determiners are said to "mark" nouns. That is to say, you know a determiner will be followed by a noun. Some categories of determiners are limited (there are only three articles, a handful of possessive pronouns, etc.), but the possessive nouns are as limitless as nouns themselves. This limited nature of most determiner categories, however, explains why determiners are grouped apart from adjectives even though both serve a modifying function. We can imagine that the language will never tire of inventing new adjectives; the determiners (except for those possessive nouns), on the other hand, are well established, and this class of words is not going to grow in number. These categories of determiners are as follows: the articles (an, a, the — see below; possessive nouns (Joe's, the priest's, my mother's); possessive pronouns, (his, your, their, whose, etc.); numbers (one, two, etc.); indefinite pronouns (few, more, each, every, either, all, both, some, any, etc.); and demonstrative pronouns. The demonstratives (this, that, these, those, such) are discussed in the section on Demonstrative Pronouns. Notice that the possessive nouns differ from the other determiners in that they, themselves, are often accompanied by other determiners: "my mother's rug," "the priests's collar," "a dog's life."

This categorization of determiners is based on Understanding English Grammar by Martha Kolln. 4rth Edition. MacMillan Publishing Company: New York. 1994.

Some Notes on Quantifiers

Like articles, quantifiers are words that precede and modify nouns. They tell us how many or how much. Selecting the correct quantifier depends on your understanding the distinction between Count and Non-Count Nouns. For our purposes, we will choose the count noun trees and the non-count noun dancing:

The following quantifiers will work with count nouns:
many trees
a few trees
few trees
several trees
a couple of trees
none of the trees

The following quantifiers will work with non-count nouns:
not much dancing
a little dancing
little dancing
a bit of dancing
a good deal of dancing
a great deal of dancing
no dancing

The following quantifiers will work with both count and non-count nouns:
all of the trees/dancing
some trees/dancing
most of the trees/dancing
enough trees/dancing
a lot of trees/dancing
lots of trees/dancing
plenty of trees/dancing
a lack of trees/dancing

In formal academic writing, it is usually better to use many and much rather than phrases such as a lot of, lots of and plenty of.

There is an important difference between "a little" and "little" (used with non-count words) and between "a few" and "few" (used with count words). If I say that Tashonda has a little experience in management that means that although Tashonda is no great expert she does have some experience and that experience might well be enough for our purposes. If I say that Tashonda has little experience in management that means that she doesn't have enough experience. If I say that Charlie owns a few books on Latin American literature that means that he has some some books — not a lot of books, but probably enough for our purposes. If I say that Charlie owns few books on Latin American literature, that means he doesn't have enough for our purposes and we'd better go to the library.

Unless it is combined with of, the quantifier "much" is reserved for questions and negative statements:

• Much of the snow has already melted.
• How much snow fell yesterday?
• Not much.

Note that the quantifier "most of the" must include the definite article the when it modifies a specific noun, whether it's a count or a non-count noun: "most of the instructors at this college have a doctorate"; "most of the water has evaporated." With a general plural noun, however (when you are not referring to a specific entity), the "of the" is dropped:

• Most colleges have their own admissions policy.
• Most students apply to several colleges.

Authority for this last paragraph: The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers by Maxine Hairston and John J. Ruszkiewicz. 4th ed. HarperCollins: New York. 1996. Examples our own.

An indefinite article is sometimes used in conjunction with the quantifier many, thus joining a plural quantifier with a singular noun (which then takes a singular verb):

• Many a young man has fallen in love with her golden hair.
• Many an apple has fallen by October.

This construction lends itself to a somewhat literary effect (some would say a stuffy or archaic effect) and is best used sparingly, if at all.

Interjections

Interjections are words or phrases used to exclaim or protest or command. They sometimes stand by themselves, but they are often contained within larger structures.

• Wow! I won the lottery!
• Oh, I don't know about that.
• I don't know what the heck you're talking about.
• No, you shouldn't have done that.

Most mild interjections are treated as parenthetical elements and set off from the rest of the sentence with a comma or set of commas. If the interjection is more forceful, however, it is followed with an exclamation mark. Interjections are rarely used in formal or academic writing.

Sentence Subjects

The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that is doing or being something. You can find the subject of a sentence if you can find the verb. Ask the question, "Who or what 'verbs' or 'verbed'?" and the answer to that question is the subject. For instance, in the sentence "The computers in the Learning Center must be replaced," the verb is "must be replaced." What must be replaced? The computers. So the subject is "computers." A simple subject is the subject of a sentence stripped of modifiers. The simple subject of the following sentence is issue:

The really important issue of the conference, stripped of all other considerations, is the morality of the nation.

Sometimes, though, a simple subject can be more than one word, even an entire clause. In the following sentence —

What he had already forgotten about computer repair could fill whole volumes,

—the simple subject is not "computer repair," nor is it "what he had forgotten," nor is it "he." Ask what it is that "could fill whole volumes." Your answer should be that the entire underlined clause is the simple subject.

In English, the subject of a command, order, or suggestion — you, the person being directed — is usually left out of the sentence and is said to be the understood subject:

• [You] Step lively there or I'll leave you behind!
• Before assembling the swingset, [you] read these instructions carefully.

For purposes of sentence analysis, the do-er or the initiator of action in a sentence is referred to as the agent of the sentence. In an active sentence, the subject is the agent:

• The Johnsons added a double garage to their house.
• The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter.

In a passive sentence, the agent is not the subject. In fact, sometimes a passive sentence will not contain an agent.

• The dean's report was reviewed by the faculty senate.
• Three cities in the country's interior were bombed.

Subject-Verb Inversion

The normal English order of subject-verb-completer is disturbed only occasionally but under several circumstances. Burchfield* lists about ten situations in which the subject will come after the verb. The most important of these are as follows (subjects in blue):

1. In questions (routinely): "Have you eaten breakfast yet?" "Are you ready?"
2. In expletive constructions: "There were four basic causes of the Civil War." "Here is the book."
3. In attributing speech (occasionally, but optionally): "'Help me!' cried Farmer Brown."
4. To give prominence or focus to a particular word or phrase by putting the predicate in the initial position: "Even more important is the chapter dealing with ordnance."
5. When a sentence begins with an adverb or an adverbial phrase or clause: "Seldom has so much been owed by so many to so few."
6. In negative constructions: "I don't believe a word she says, nor does my brother. Come to think of it, neither does her father."
7. After so: "I believe her; so does my brother."
8. For emphasis and literary effect: "Into the jaws of Death, / Into the mouth of Hell / Rode the six hundred."**

Predicates, Objects,Complements

Predicates

A predicate is the completer of a sentence. The subject names the "do-er" or "be-er" of the sentence; the predicate does the rest of the work. A simple predicate consists of only a verb, verb string, or compound verb:

• The glacier melted.
• The glacier has been melting.
• The glacier melted, broke apart, and slipped into the sea.

A compound predicate consists of two (or more) such predicates connected:

• The glacier began to slip down the mountainside and eventually crushed some of the village's outlying buildings.

A complete predicate consists of the verb and all accompanying modifiers and other words that receive the action of a transitive verb or complete its meaning. The following description of predicates comes from The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers (examples our own):

With an intransitive verb, objects and complements are included in the predicate. (The glacier is melting.) With a transitive verb, objects and object complements are said to be part of the predicate. (The slow moving glacier wiped out an entire forest. It gave the villagers a lot of problems.) With a linking verb, the subject is connected to a subject complement. (The mayor doesn't feel good.)

A predicate adjective follows a linking verb and tells us something about the subject:

• Ramonita is beautiful.
• His behavior has been outrageous.
• That garbage on the street smells bad.

A predicate nominative follows a linking verb and tells us what the subject is:

• Dr. Couchworthy is acting president of the university.
• She used to be the tallest girl on the team.

Direct and Indirect Objects

A direct object is the receiver of action within a sentence, as in "He hit the ball." Be careful to distinguish between a direct object and an object complement:

• They named their daughter Natasha.

In that sentence, "daughter" is the direct object and "Natasha" is the object complement, which renames or describes the direct object.

The indirect object identifies to or for whom or what the action of the verb is performed. The direct object and indirect object are different people or places or things. The direct objects in the sentences below are in boldface; the indirect objects are in italics.

• The instructor gave his students A's.
• Grandfather left Rosalita and Raoul all his money.
• Jo-Bob sold me her boat.

Incidentally, the word me (and similar object-form pronouns such as him, us, them) is not always an indirect object; it will also serve, sometimes, as a direct object.

• Bless me/her/us!
• Call me/him/them if you have questions.

In English, nouns and their accompanying modifiers (articles and adjectives) do not change form when they are used as objects or indirect objects, as they do in many other languages. "The radio is on the desk" and "I borrowed the radio" contain exactly the same word form used for quite different functions. This is not true of pronouns, however, which use different forms for different functions. (He [subject] loves his grandmother. His grandmother loves him [object].) (See, also, pronoun cases.)

Complements

Since this page is about the completers of thoughts, it is appropriate to include a brief description of complements. A complement (notice the spelling of the word) is any word or phrase that completes the sense of a subject, an object, or a verb. As you will see, the terminology describing predicates and complements can overlap and be a bit confusing. Students are probably wise to learn one set of terms, not both.

• A subject complement follows a linking verb; it is normally an adjective or a noun that renames or defines in some way the subject.
  • A glacier is a huge body of ice.
  • Glaciers are beautiful and potentially dangerous at the same time.
  • This glacier is not yet fully formed. (verb form acting as an adjective, a participle)

  Adjective complements are also called predicate adjectives; noun complements are also called predicate nouns or predicate nominatives. See predicates, above.

• An object complement follows and modifies or refers to a direct object. It can be a noun or adjective or any word acting as a noun or adjective.
  • The convention named Dogbreath Vice President to keep him happy. (The noun "Vice President" complements the direct object "Dogbreath"; the adjective "happy" complements the object "him.")
  • The clown got the children too excited. (The participle "excited" complements the object "children.")
• A verb complement is a direct or indirect object of a verb. (See above.)
  • Granny left Raoul all her money. (Both "money" [the direct object] and "Raoul" [the indirect object] are said to be the verb complements of this sentence.)

The Case of Like and As

Strictly speaking, the word like is a preposition, not a conjunction. It can, therefore, be used to introduce a prepositional phrase ("My brother is tall like my father"), but it should not be used to introduce a clause ("My brother can't play the piano like as he did before the accident" or "It looks like as if basketball is quickly overtaking baseball as America's national sport."). To introduce a clause, it's a good idea to use as, as though, or as if, instead.

• Like As I told you earlier, the lecture has been postponed.
• It looks like as if it's going to snow this afternoon.
• Johnson kept looking out the window like as though he had someone waiting for him.

In formal, academic text, it's a good idea to reserve the use of like for situations in which similarities are being pointed out:

• This community college is like a two-year liberal arts college.

However, when you are listing things that have similarities, such as is probably more suitable:

• The college has several highly regarded neighbors, like such as the Mark Twain House, St. Francis Hospital, the Connecticut Historical Society, and the UConn Law School.

Common Subordinating Conjunctions

after although as as if as long as as though because before even if even though	if if only in order that now that once rather than since so that than that	though till unless until when whenever where whereas wherever while

The Case of Then and Than

In some parts of the United States, we are told, then and than not only look alike, they sound alike. Like a teacher with twins in her classroom, you need to be able to distinguish between these two words; otherwise, they'll become mischievous. They are often used and they should be used for the right purposes.

Than is used to make comparisons. In the sentence "Piggy would rather be rescued then stay on the island," we have employed the wrong word because a comparison is being made between Piggy's two choices; we need than instead. In the sentence, "Other than Pincher Martin, Golding did not write another popular novel," the adverbial construction "other than" helps us make an implied comparison; this usage is perfectly acceptable in the United States but careful writers in the UK try to avoid it (Burchfield).

Generally, the only question about than arises when we have to decide whether the word is being used as a conjunction or as a preposition. If it's a preposition (and Merriam-Webster's dictionary provides for this usage), then the word that follows it should be in the object form.

• He's taller and somewhat more handsome than me.
• Just because you look like him doesn't mean you can play better than him.

Most careful writers, however, will insist that than be used as a conjunction; it's as if part of the clause introduced by than has been left out:

• He's taller and somewhat more handsome than I [am handsome].
• You can play better than he [can play].

In formal, academic text, you should probably use than as a conjunction and follow it with the subject form of a pronoun (where a pronoun is appropriate).

Then is a conjunction, but it is not one of the little conjunctions listed at the top of this page. We can use the FANBOYS conjunctions to connect two independent clauses; usually, they will be accompanied (preceded) by a comma. Too many students think that then works the same way: "Caesar invaded Gaul, then he turned his attention to England." You can tell the difference between then and a coordinating conjunction by trying to move the word around in the sentence. We can write "he then turned his attention to England"; "he turned his attention, then, to England"; he turned his attention to England then." The word can move around within the clause. Try that with a conjunction, and you will quickly see that the conjunction cannot move around. "Caesar invaded Gaul, and then he turned his attention to England." The word and is stuck exactly there and cannot move like then, which is more like an adverbial conjunction (or conjunctive adverb — see below) than a coordinating conjunction. Our original sentence in this paragraph — "Caesar invaded Gaul, then he turned his attention to England" — is a comma splice, a faulty sentence construction in which a comma tries to hold together two independent clauses all by itself: the comma needs a coordinating conjunction to help out, and the word then simply doesn't work that way.

Beginning a Sentence with And or But

A frequently asked question about conjunctions is whether and or but can be used at the beginning of a sentence. This is what R.W. Burchfield has to say about this use of and:

There is a persistent belief that it is improper to begin a sentence with And, but this prohibition has been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon times onwards. An initial And is a useful aid to writers as the narrative continues.

The same is true with the conjunction but. A sentence beginning with and or but will tend to draw attention to itself and its transitional function. Writers should examine such sentences with two questions in mind: (1) would the sentence and paragraph function just as well without the initial conjunction? (2) should the sentence in question be connected to the previous sentence? If the initial conjunction still seems appropriate, use it.

on NoUN

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea. Whatever exists, we assume, can be named, and that name is a noun. A proper noun, which names a specific person, place, or thing (Carlos, Queen Marguerite, Middle East, Jerusalem, Malaysia, Presbyterianism, God, Spanish, Buddhism, the Republican Party), is almost always capitalized. A proper noun used as an addressed person's name is called a noun of address. Common nouns name everything else, things that usually are not capitalized.

A group of related words can act as a single noun-like entity within a sentence. A Noun Clause contains a subject and verb and can do anything that a noun can do:

What he does for this town is a blessing.

A Noun Phrase, frequently a noun accompanied by modifiers, is a group of related words acting as a noun: the oil depletion allowance; the abnormal, hideously enlarged nose.

There is a separate section on word combinations that become Compound Nouns — such as daughter-in-law, half-moon, and stick-in-the-mud.

Categories of Nouns

Nouns can be classified further as count nouns, which name anything that can be counted (four books, two continents, a few dishes, a dozen buildings); mass nouns (or non-count nouns), which name something that can't be counted (water, air, energy, blood); and collective nouns, which can take a singular form but are composed of more than one individual person or items (jury, team, class, committee, herd). We should note that some words can be either a count noun or a non-count noun depending on how they're being used in a sentence:

1. He got into trouble. (non-count)
2. He had many troubles. (countable)
3. Experience (non-count) is the best teacher.
4. We had many exciting experiences (countable) in college.

Whether these words are count or non-count will determine whether they can be used with articles and determiners or not. (We would not write "He got into the troubles," but we could write about "The troubles of Ireland."

Some texts will include the category of abstract nouns, by which we mean the kind of word that is not tangible, such as warmth, justice, grief, and peace. Abstract nouns are sometimes troublesome for non-native writers because they can appear with determiners or without: "Peace settled over the countryside." "The skirmish disrupted the peace that had settled over the countryside." See the section on Plurals for additional help with collective nouns, words that can be singular or plural, depending on context.

Forms of Nouns

Nouns can be in the subjective, possessive, and objective case. The word case defines the role of the noun in the sentence. Is it a subject, an object, or does it show possession?

• The English professor [subject] is tall.
• He chose the English professor [object].
• The English professor's [possessive] car is green.

Nouns in the subject and object role are identical in form; nouns that show the possessive, however, take a different form. Usually an apostrophe is added followed by the letter s (except for plurals, which take the plural "-s" ending first, and then add the apostrophe). See the section on Possessives for help with possessive forms. There is also a table outlining the cases of nouns and pronouns.

Almost all nouns change form when they become plural, usually with the simple addition of an -s or -es. Unfortunately, it's not always that easy, and a separate section on Plurals offers advice on the formation of plural noun forms.

Assaying for Nouns*

Back in the gold rush days, every little town in the American Old West had an assayer's office, a place where wild-eyed prospectors could take their bags of ore for official testing, to make sure the shiny stuff they'd found was the real thing, not "fool's gold." We offer here some assay tests for nouns. There are two kinds of tests: formal and functional — what a word looks like (the endings it takes) and how a word behaves in a sentence.

• Formal Tests
  1. Does the word contain a noun-making morpheme? organization, misconception, weirdness, statehood, government, democracy, philistinism, realtor, tenacity, violinist
  2. Can the word take a plural-making morpheme? pencils, boxes
  3. Can the word take a possessive-making morpheme? today's, boys'
• Function Tests
  4. Without modifiers, can the word directly follow an article and create a grammatical unit (subject, object, etc.)? the state, an apple, a crate
  5. Can it fill the slot in the following sentence: "(The) _________ seem(s) all right." (or substitute other predicates such as unacceptable, short, dark, depending on the word's meaning)?

Positions of Adverbs

One of the hallmarks of adverbs is their ability to move around in a sentence. Adverbs of manner are particularly flexible in this regard.

• Solemnly the minister addressed her congregation.
• The minister solemnly addressed her congregation.
• The minister addressed her congregation solemnly.

The following adverbs of frequency appear in various points in these sentences:

• Before the main verb: I never get up before nine o'clock.
• Between the auxiliary verb and the main verb: I have rarely written to my brother without a good reason.
• Before the verb used to: I always used to see him at his summer home.

Indefinite adverbs of time can appear either before the verb or between the auxiliary and the main verb:

• He finally showed up for batting practice.
• She has recently retired.

Kinds of Adverbs

Adverbs of Manner
She moved slowly and spoke quietly.

Adverbs of Place
She has lived on the island all her life.
She still lives there now.

Adverbs of Frequency
She takes the boat to the mainland every day.
She often goes by herself.

Adverbs of Time
She tries to get back before dark.
It's starting to get dark now.
She finished her tea first.
She left early.

Adverbs of Purpose
She drives her boat slowly to avoid hitting the rocks.
She shops in several stores to get the best buys.

On ADVERBS

Adverbs are words that modify

• a verb (He drove slowly. — How did he drive?)
• an adjective (He drove a very fast car. — How fast was his car?)
• another adverb (She moved quite slowly down the aisle. — How slowly did she move?)

As we will see, adverbs often tell when, where, why, or under what conditions something happens or happened. Adverbs frequently end in -ly; however, many words and phrases not ending in -ly serve an adverbial function and an -ly ending is not a guarantee that a word is an adverb. The words lovely, lonely, motherly, friendly, neighborly, for instance, are adjectives:

• That lovely woman lives in a friendly neighborhood.

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb (modifying the verb of a sentence), it is called an Adverb Clause:

• When this class is over, we're going to the movies.

When a group of words not containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb, it is called an adverbial phrase. Prepositional phrases frequently have adverbial functions (telling place and time, modifying the verb):

• He went to the movies.
• She works on holidays.
• They lived in Canada during the war.

And Infinitive phrases can act as adverbs (usually telling why):

• She hurried to the mainland to see her brother.
• The senator ran to catch the bus.

But there are other kinds of adverbial phrases:

• He calls his mother as often as possible.

Adverbs can modify adjectives, but an adjective cannot modify an adverb. Thus we would say that "the students showed a really wonderful attitude" and that "the students showed a wonderfully casual attitude" and that "my professor is really tall, but not "He ran real fast."

Like adjectives, adverbs can have comparative and superlative forms to show degree.

• Walk faster if you want to keep up with me.
• The student who reads fastest will finish first.

We often use more and most, less and least to show degree with adverbs:

• With sneakers on, she could move more quickly among the patients.
• The flowers were the most beautifully arranged creations I've ever seen.
• She worked less confidently after her accident.
• That was the least skillfully done performance I've seen in years.

The as — as construction can be used to create adverbs that express sameness or equality: "He can't run as fast as his sister."

A handful of adverbs have two forms, one that ends in -ly and one that doesn't. In certain cases, the two forms have different meanings:

• He arrived late.
• Lately, he couldn't seem to be on time for anything.

In most cases, however, the form without the -ly ending should be reserved for casual situations:

• She certainly drives slow in that old Buick of hers.
• He did wrong by her.
• He spoke sharp, quick, and to the point.

Adverbs often function as intensifiers, conveying a greater or lesser emphasis to something. Intensifiers are said to have three different functions: they can emphasize, amplify, or downtone. Here are some examples:

• Emphasizers:
  • I really don't believe him.
  • He literally wrecked his mother's car.
  • She simply ignored me.
  • They're going to be late, for sure.
• Amplifiers:
  • The teacher completely rejected her proposal.
  • I absolutely refuse to attend any more faculty meetings.
  • They heartily endorsed the new restaurant.
  • I so wanted to go with them.
  • We know this city well.
• Downtoners:
  • I kind of like this college.
  • Joe sort of felt betrayed by his sister.
  • His mother mildly disapproved his actions.
  • We can improve on this to some extent.
  • The boss almost quit after that.
  • The school was all but ruined by the storm.

Adverbs (as well as adjectives) in their various degrees can be accompanied by premodifiers:

• She runs very fast.
• We're going to run out of material all the faster

More than / over ??

In the United States, we usually use "more than" in countable numerical expressions meaning "in excess of" or "over." In England, there is no such distinction. For instance, in the U.S., some editors would insist on "more than 40,000 traffic deaths in one year," whereas in the UK, "over 40,000 traffic deaths" would be acceptable. Even in the U.S., however, you will commonly hear "over" in numerical expressions of age, time, or height: "His sister is over forty; she's over six feet tall. We've been waiting well over two hours for her."

Taller than I / me ??

When making a comparison with "than" do we end with a subject form or object form, "taller than I/she" or "taller than me/her." The correct response is "taller than I/she." We are looking for the subject form: "He is taller than I am/she is tall." (Except we leave out the verb in the second clause, "am" or "is.") Some good writers, however, will argue that the word "than" should be allowed to function as a preposition. If we can say "He is tall like me/her," then (if "than" could be prepositional like like) we should be able to say, "He is taller than me/her." It's an interesting argument, but — for now, anyway — in formal, academic prose, use the subject form in such comparisons.

We also want to be careful in a sentence such as "I like him better than she/her." The "she" would mean that you like this person better than she likes him; the "her" would mean that you like this male person better than you like that female person. (To avoid ambiguity and the slippery use of than, we could write "I like him better than she does" or "I like him better than I like her.")

Less versus Fewer

When making a comparison between quantities we often have to make a choice between the words fewer and less. Generally, when we're talking about countable things, we use the word fewer; when we're talking about measurable quantities that we cannot count, we use the word less. "She had fewer chores, but she also had less energy." The managers at our local Stop & Shop seem to have mastered this: they've changed the signs at the so-called express lanes from "Twelve Items or Less" to "Twelve Items or Fewer." Whether that's an actual improvement, we'll leave up to you.

We do, however, definitely use less when referring to statistical or numerical expressions:

• It's less than twenty miles to Dallas.
• He's less than six feet tall.
• Your essay should be a thousand words or less.
• We spent less than forty dollars on our trip.
• The town spent less than four percent of its budget on snow removal.

In these situations, it's possible to regard the quantities as sums of countable measures.