Words and their uses change in many ways. Here are just a few of those ways:

Some words retain their original meanings but take on new slang meanings.
Some words take on an additional part of speech.
Some words take on new technological meanings while retaining their old meanings as well.
Some words just find new, weird ways of being used.
Words with Slang Meanings

These examples are not actually new, but are slang definitions of common words:

epic: The usual meaning is “heroic or unusually majestic,” but you might come home from a party and describe it as being “epic.”

crib: It is where a baby sleeps, but it also means “where I live,” as in “Come see my new crib; it’s epic!”

ride: It still means what you think it does, but it also refers to “my car,” and usually a nice one. “Check out my new ride.”

blast: While it still means an explosion, it also means a severely fun time. “That epic party was a blast!”

Words with New Parts of Speech

Some adjectives have been turned into nouns (mostly in advertising), and some nouns have been turned into verbs.

Use Nutella and you are “spreading the happy.” (Well, who wouldn’t agree with that one!) But what is “the happy”?

Buy makeup at Sephora and you are “celebrating your extraordinary.” Notice on this one that if you mistakenly use you’re instead of your, it all makes sense, and extraordinary is back to being an adjective!

Connect to the internet with AT&T and you are “rethinking possible.”

We used to have friends. Now we friend people, usually on social media. Many times we don’t even know these people.

A network used to be something we watched on television. Then it was something we belonged to. Now we actually have to get up and do it!

New Tech/Social Media Meanings

Many words have taken on additional meanings because of social media and technology.

Whenever someone talks about their data being stored in the cloud, I still look up at the sky and imagine a big cumulus cloud filled with “stuff.” But the cloud is just a big room filled with computers.

Bandwidth has always been a technical term, but now it applies to humans too, as “I don’t have enough bandwidth to remember all this information.”

Catfish isn’t just dinner anymore. It is making up a fake profile and pretending you are who you aren’t on social media.

I might take a swipe at you. Or I might just swipe my credit card through a machine, that is, if it doesn’t have a chip. And I don’t mean potato chip.

Remember when a troll was a little funny-looking doll with wild orange hair? Well, now you can be trolled by a troll who is posting things to you on social media to cause a reaction.

A tag gives you the price and washing instructions for your new purchase. It’s also a kids’ game. But now it is also a verb meaning to identify someone on social media.

Your car was blocking my driveway. But now I am blocking you on Facebook because I don’t like your opinions.

Footprints used to be simple, although they could be used as evidence in crimes. Now they are ecologically significant as well.

Your prominent nose used to play a big part in your profile. Now your profile tells more about you than your nose and chin.

We never used to want to catch anything viral. Now we all want to go viral.

If you get tired of all this newfangled language, all you have to do is unplug for a while. And I don’t mean the toaster.

And a Couple of Weird Things

We may have learned in elementary school not to begin a sentence with because. Of course, that isn’t even true. The teacher was just trying to prevent us from writing a sentence fragment (Because I said so.). Now, because has taken on a whole new weirdness: I am tired because homework. What???? Aren’t there some words left out there?

“It’s a thing” is now a thing. (I hear this particular “thing” comes from the television show The West Wing, which I never watched, so I don’t know.) Yup! Avocado toast is “a thing” now.

(P.S. The Oxford English Dictionary is updated quarterly, with over 1,000 words added each quarter. So if you don’t like the words, wait three months!)

Next week’s blog post will be the second part of this two-part series of weird ways with words. Check out some other posts about weird words: Wait on This I Could Care Less and Other Such Things and the Weird and Wonderful Words Series.

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I love words. Not just the meaning of words but their etymology: where they came from; how they evolved; how their meanings, sounds, and rhythms have changed with changing culture and social mores. Words tell us so much about how times and thinking have evolved. For example, think of all the words earlier generations used that are no longer acceptable or “politically correct.” And swear words—the worst words we can utter—lose their impact and soften over time. “By Our Lady” (absolutely obscene in the Middle Ages) became “bloody” (still quite risqué when I was 11 and caned for using it), now so mild as to be almost acceptable in front of children.

Every concept needs words to express it and without the words simply cannot exist. The Sami people of Lapland, the so-called “Eskimos of Europe,” have nearly ninety words for snow. They need these in order to survive. We get by with snow, sleet, slush and a few others, but they need to be able to tell each other when snow is safe to walk on or if it will swallow a sled and team in an instant. Will it allow fast passage? Or cling to the runners, dragging on progress and tiring the reindeer? (Try Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg.)

On the other hand, giving certain meanings to words can control the way we think. There are people in Africa who physically cannot tell the difference between certain shades of blue and green … because they use just one word to describe all those colours. This idea is explored in some detail in George Orwell’s 1984 when Big Brother changes the meaning of words on an almost daily basis in order to control the thinking, and therefore behaviour, of the people.

And if you think you are immune, here is a perfect example:

In Europe we have a bird, the European Robin, Erithacus rubecula. “Robin Redbreast”—usually depicted standing on a snow-covered log—adorns Christmas cards across the globe, even in countries that have never seen a living example of the creature.

Ask anybody, from the tiniest tot to a grown adult, to draw one or colour in an outline, and the first colour they will reach for is scarlet. Everybody knows the colour.

So red are the chest feathers of this bird that there are folk stories from across Europe telling how this colour arose, mainly involving the blood of Christ during the crucifixion.

When the Victorians introduced the world’s first national postal delivery system, the delivery boys’ uniforms included a crimson waistcoat and they were immediately nicknamed “Robins.”

In Latin rubecula indicates “red.”

But there is a problem because the breast of the European Robin is not red—it’s orange! Even people who see these birds on an almost-daily basis will insist this statement is incorrect, and the breast is red. Shown a photograph as proof, they may suggest there was something wrong with the development process, or the film, or the camera … anything except that they might have been misled, or have misled themselves, all these years. Okay, have you just Googled “European Robin”? Were you surprised that I am right? Proof of the power of words.

So how did this strange situation come about?

The problem is that the bird has existed alongside man for tens of thousands of years, but the word orange didn’t enter the English language until the sixteenth century. Until then there was “red” and variations of “red.” The nearest the language had to orange was “yellow-red” (geoluread—geh-olloo-reh-ahd—in Old English). But “Robin Geoluread-Breost” doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?

The word orange probably originated as the name of the fruit in Sanskrit or Tamil, arriving in Europe via the Arabic naranj (they’re all very similar to modern Spanish’s naranja). When the Europeans acquired the “yellow-red” fruit, they started using the name to describe the colour.

But wait a minute. How did naranj morph into orange? By a process called “rebracketing” or “wrong word division,” and it’s easy to see how “a naranj” became “an aranj” and finally “an orange.” This process was also seen when, for example, a napron became an apron, or in reverse when an eke name (literally an “also name”) became a nickname.

But orange presented another difficulty to the English language in that it is one of the few words for which there is not a perfect rhyme. But on that score I think we might also have struggled with geoluread too.

Jags Arthurson

Jags Arthurson is the pen name of a Brighton, UK writer. Jags has been a research chemist and company director. He has lived and worked in over 40 countries. His acclaimed first novel, the crime thriller Pagan Justice, is available on Amazon with all proceeds going to charity.

The post Seeing Red by Grammar Diva Arlene Miller appeared first on ESL Publishing.

A preposition is generally thought to be part of a prepositional phrase: preposition+article (usually)+noun or pronoun:

• in the doghouse
• above the clouds
• under the table
• to the mall
• between the houses
• outside the lines

  When you put what looks like a preposition after a verb, it becomes an adverb: She walked outside. Please come in.

In any case, a verb that contains more than one word is a phrasal verb. And many phrasal verbs are also nouns. However, when you make a phrasal verb into a noun, it usually becomes one word, and that is where many people mess up. I see phrasal verbs written as one word, when they should be two. It is the noun that is one word. It is not as common that I will see the noun written as two words. Here are some examples of phrasal verbs and the nouns they become:

• I need to set up the exhibit. I don’t like the setup of the room.
• I need to back up my computer. I need to perform a backup on my computer.
• Please take out the trash. Let’s get takeout for dinner.
• We will blow up these balloons. My boss and I had a huge blowup.
• Tomorrow we will break down the exhibit. She had a nervous breakdown. (Is that even a thing anymore?)
• Break up the peanut brittle into pieces for everyone. She and her boyfriend just had a breakup.
• I am going to break out my dancing shoes. My skin is having another of its breakouts.
• The candle will burn out shortly. I have burnout from my stressful job.
• Hand out these papers to the class. Did you get the handout to help you study for the quiz?
• We will kick off Back to School Week tomorrow. Can you come to the kickoff on Saturday?
• It is time to let down your defenses. When vacation ends, it is a real letdown.
• I need to make up my test today. You are wearing too much makeup.
• Did you pay back your loan yet. This is payback for how you treated me!
• You need to show off that new ring! You are such a showoff!
• I work out for an hour every day. I am really tired from my workout.
• Did you mix up the days for the parties? It was just an innocent mixup.

  One way to remember that the verb is two words and the noun one is simply by the old pause trick. We usually pause when saying the phrasal verb, but not when saying the noun.

The post Hand Out This Handout: Phrasal Verbs by Arlene Miller, Grammar Diva appeared first on ESL Publishing.

Here we go with Part 3 of commonly mispronounced words: L through R 

Here are Part 1 and Part 2 if you didn’t read them.

Liable –This word has three syllables and in legal terms means obligated. Libel has two syllables and is a defamatory statement.

Library –An oldie but goodie! It is a little hard to put in that first R, But it isn’t liberry.

Mauve– This is a purplish color and it does not rhyme with stove. The au is  pronounced like the o in odd and like the au in slaughter.

Meme– Invented by a British scientist in 1976, it rhymes with seem, and is not pronounced mee-mee, may-may or mem.

Mischievous – This is my pet peeve of mispronunciation. It is neither spelled nor pronounced as  mis-CHEE-vee-us. The word has three syllables. There is no I in the last syllable, and the accent is on the first syllable. So many people pronounce this incorrectly and tell me I am wrong when I tell them so. Rachel Maddow pronounced it wrong on her show this past week, and I almost blew a gasket.

Niche – It comes from the French. Some people (wrongly) go for a French sound and say ni-chay. Others go for a super Anglican pronunciation and say nitch. The preferred pronunciation is neesh in most dictionaries. However, nitch has become so common, it is preferred by other dictionaries.

Often – Pronouncing the t is officially a no-no, according to Merriam-Webster.

Nuclear  –Another oldie but goodie. At least four presidents (Bush, Clinton, Carter and Eisenhower) have messed it up and said nucular. Switching the adjacent sounds is a linguistic phenomenon called metathesis.

Prelude – The first syllable doesn’t sound like pray. The correct pronunciation is prel-yood.

Pronunciation– I think this is a weird one. The verb is to pronounce. However, when it becomes a noun, the o gets left out.

Regime – Doesn’t sound like RUH-geem. The correct pronunciation is RAY-geem.

Want to brush up on your grammar? Check out my books on amazon or goodreads.

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Motherhood: All love begins and ends there – Robert Browning, English poet, 1812–1889

Whether it’s Mother’s Day, Mothers Day, or Mothers’ Day (it appears to be Mother’s Day), welcome to our annual Mother’s Day post. Some facts about Mother’s Day: 1 Mother’s Day is celebrated on various days and in many parts of the world—most commonly in the months of March or May. For example, in Egypt, Mother’s Day is celebrated on March 21, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. 2 In the United States, the celebration of Mother’s Day began in the early 20th century. 3 In 1908, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother’s Day an official holiday. 4 By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other companies had started selling Mother’s Day cards. 5 By 1925, carnations had become associated with Mother’s Day, and the American War Mothers raised money by selling carnations. Wearing a colored carnation meant that a person’s mother was living. A white carnation indicated that a person’s mother was deceased. 6 In 2015, 26.4 was the average age in the United States for first-time mothers. 7 In its early days, people observed Mother’s Day by going to church and writing letters to their mothers. 8 More people purchase fresh flowers and plants for Mother’s Day than for any other holiday except Christmas and Chanukah. 9 In 2018, the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that U.S. consumers will spend $23.1 billion celebrating Mother’s Day. 10 Each shopper will spend an average of $180 on Mom. 11 Most consumers will give cards (77%) and flowers (69%) to their mothers or take her out to eat (55%) in 2018, but more money will be spent on jewelry ($4.6 billion) than any other category, according to the Retail Foundation. 12 According to the Insure.com 2017 Mother’s Day Index, the various tasks moms perform at home would be worth $67,619 (up from $65,523 in 2016) a year in the professional world.

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20 Interesting Facts About the History of Our Language

Here are 20 fascinating facts about the history of the English language. If you have heard me speak, you have probably already heard some of these (just a warning):

1. According to Global Language Monitor, the estimated number of words in the English language is 1,025,109.  There is some controversy over that exact figure, but it’s safe to say there are over a million.

2. There is actually something called the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. It was founded by Martha Brockenbrough,  who designated March 4 as National Grammar Day in 2008.

3. English is a hodgepodge of many languages: Latin, Greek, French, German, Dutch, and others.

4. Chaucer was the first writer who chose to write in English, although it is an English that might sound pretty foreign to us.

5. Shakespeare is probably the most famous person to write in English.  He added many words and idioms to the language including these:  it’s Greek to me, salad days, vanished into thin air, refuse to budge an inch, green-eyed jealousy, tongue-tied, fast and loose, tower of strength, in a pickle, knitted your brows, slept not a wink, laughed yourself into stitches, the long and short of if, foul play, without rhyme or reason, dead as a door nail, and laughing stock.

6. Shakespeare had one of the largest vocabularies of any English writer at about 30,000 words. Estimates of an educated person’s vocabulary today is half that, or 15,000.

7. The book generally regarded as the first English dictionary was published in 1604 with only 120 pages; it was called A Table Alphabetical, written by Robert Cawdray, a schoolmaster and clergyman containing “hard words for ladies or other unskillful persons.”

8. The first “real” dictionary was published in 1755 and was written by Samuel Johnson. A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson’s Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.

9. Webster published his first dictionary in 1806, having written some grammar and spelling books before that.
Gadsby, a book written by Ernest Vincent Wright, has over 50,000 words in it (about 250 pages), none of which contain the letter e! And you can get it on Amazon for about 7 bucks.

10. China has more English speakers than the United States.

11. A new word is added to the English language every two hours, and about 4000 new words are added to the dictionary every year.

12. Since 2001, English has been the official language of all international air travel, regardless of the nationality of the pilots.

13. In its earliest known written record, the English alphabet had 29 letters.

14. Samuel Johnson left the letter X out of his dictionary, claiming that X “begins no word in the English language.”

15. One-fourth of the world’s population speaks at least some English.

16. The United States doesn’t have an official language.

17. Engish  is the only major language that doesn’t have any organization guiding it. French has the Académie Française, Spanish has Real Academia Española, and German has Rat für Deutsche Rechtschreibung. These organizations are responsible for controlling the evolution of their respective language in terms of usage, vocabulary, and grammar.

18. English is the official language of 67 countries and the third most commonly spoken language in the world (the first and second are Mandarin Chinese and Spanish). The closest languages to English are Dutch and West Flemish.

19. Over 80% of the information stored on computers worldwide is in English.

The post Words That Have Power! appeared first on ESL Publishing.

Several weeks ago I posted aboutten words from A through E that are commonly mispronounced. This post continues with some words from F through J that are often mispronounced: 

foliage — The word has three syllables. Say FO-LI-UJ, not FOL-UJ. And certainly not FOIL-UJ.

forte — There are two words spelled this way. One comes from Italian and the other from French. The Italian word is a musical term meaning “loud”  and is pronounced with two syllables, FOR-TAY. The French word, an adjective meaning “strength” or “strong point,” is pronounced with one syllable: FORT.

federal— This word should really be pronounced with all its three syllables: FEDERAL, not FED-RAL.

frustrate— Yes, it is frustrating to hear people pronounce this word as if the R were silent. It is FRUSTRATE, not FUS-TRATE.

gala — This word is pronounced GAY-LUH, even if it might sound fancier to pronounce it GAH-LUH.

GIF  (graphics interchange format) — Those short social media videos are pronounced with a hard G, not JIF.

gyro– This one is not pronounced like gyroscope, This Greek treat is pronounced YEE-ROH and was added to the dictionary this year.

Halloween – This word derives from “Hallowed Evening,” or “holy evening.” It is not pronounced as HOLLO-WEEN, but rather HALLO-WEEN.

height – Not to be confused with width, which ends in a TH, height ends with only a T. It is HEIGHT, NOT HEIGHTH.

heinous— Meaning very bad, the word is pronounced HAY-NUS, not HEE-NUS or HEEN-I-US.

hummus— This yummy spread made out of chickpeas is pronounced HOOM-US. There is not HUMMING in it.

 jewelry – The word has three syllables and is pronounced the way it is spelled: JEW-EL-RY. It is not pronounced  JEW-EL-ER-Y, JEWL-RY, or JEW-LER-Y.

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To warm up, here is a “little” punctuation quiz.  Actually, I planned a punctuation quiz for a couple of weeks ago because I thought it was National Punctuation Day. I was a “little” confused; it was National Grammar Day. National Punctuation Day is in September.

Answers to this quiz will be at the end . . . after you scroll down a bit. Explanations will be provided next week.

1. Is this sentence correctly punctuated? I will be late for the meeting, please save me a seat.

2. This must be (James’/ James’s) book.

3. Is this sentence correctly punctuated? I am here, therefore, I am not there.

4. Punctuate this sentence: Did he ask, Are we there yet

5. Is this sentence correct? He said, “I heard the song ‘Forget You.”’

6. Is this sentence correct? Why or why not? “The Hobbit” is my favorite book.
7. This book is from the (1940’s/ 1940s).

8. Punctuate this sentence: Please bring two shirts, blue, black, and brown pants, and black and blue socks.

9. Punctuate this sentence: She said I can’t go because I have to stay in to read Romeo and Juliet.

10. Is this sentence correctly punctuated? My sister and her friends are coming to visit.

11. Punctuate this sentence: Bob was usually a quiet man however he screamed upon entering the room.

12. Punctuate this letter salutation: To whom it may concern

13. Is this sentence correctly punctuated?  It is a cold rainy day.

14. Is this sentence correctly punctuated? This book which is written by William Golding is my favorite.

15. Is this sentence correctly punctuated? The book that is on top of the coffee table is next on my reading list.

16. Is this sentence correctly punctuated?   I decided not to cook dinner and went to the movies instead.

17. Punctuate this sentence: I was born on August 10 1980 in Lincoln Nebraska.

18. Punctuate this sentence: The only four ingredients in this recipe are sugar vanilla eggs and flour.

19. Punctuate this sentence: I did not do very well on the test however so I failed the course.

20. Punctuate this sentence: Yes Elaine the party is at my house.

21. Punctuate this sentence: My address is 1487 Markham Place Boston Massachusetts 01987 please send my mail there not to my old address.

22. Is this sentence correctly punctuated? I want to see that movie, I heard it’s great, but I haven’t had the time.

23. Is this dialog correctly punctuated?

She screamed, “I have had enough of this . . .”

“Calm down,” he interrupted.

Answers:

1. I will be late for the meeting, please save me a seat. Not correct. Needs a semicolon or period instead of the comma; or you add a conjunction to the comma.
2. This must be James’s book.

3. I am here, therefore, I am not there. Incorrect. Comma after hereneeds to be a semicolon. (Or you could put a period after here, and initial cap therefore.)

4. Did he ask, “Are we there yet?”

5. He said, “I heard the song ‘Forget You.”’ Correct as is.

6. “The Hobbit” is my favorite book. No. The Hobbitshould be italicized rather than in quotation marks.

7. This book is from the 1940s.

8. Please bring two shirts; blue, black, and brown pants; and black and blue socks. Or you could rewrite it somehow.

9. She said, “I can’t go because I have to stay home to read Romeo and Juliet.”

10. My sister and her friends are coming to visit. Correct as is.

11. Bob was usually a quiet man; however, he screamed upon entering the room. You could also put a period after manand capitalize however.

12. To whom it may concern:

13. It is a cold, rainy day. No. You need a comma between coldand rainy.

14. This book, which is written by William Golding, is my favorite. No. The clause beginning with whichneeds to be set off with commas.

15. The book that is on top of the coffee table is next on my reading list. Correct as is. 

16. I decided not to cook dinner and went to the movies instead. Correct as is.

17. I was born on August 10, 1980, in Lincoln, Nebraska.

18. The only four ingredients in this recipe are sugar, vanilla, eggs, and flour. The comma after eggs(the Oxford comma) is optional, but I recommend using it. 

19. I did not do very well on the test, however, so I failed the course.

20. Yes, Elaine, the party is at my house.

21. My address is 1487 Markham Place, Boston, Massachusetts 01987; please send my mail there, not to my old address. You could also put a period after the zip code and initial cap please.

22. I want to see that movie, I heard it’s great, but I haven’t had the time. Not correct. You can use dashes or parentheses, but not commas to set off I heard it’s great.

23. Not correct. The ellipsis(…) is used for trailing off. The em dash(long dash) is used for interruption.

She screamed, “I have had enough of this—”

“Calm down,” he interrupted.

The post A Punctuation Quiz by The Grammar Diva, Arlene Miller appeared first on ESL Publishing.

There are two verb voices: active and passive. And it all depends on how you use the verb in a sentence.

If the subject of the verb is actually performing the action of the verb, we call it active voice:

• Jane drove the car to school.
• He threw the ball.
• The thief ran off with a bag of jewelry.

If the subject of the verb is not performing the action of the verb, we call it passive voice:

• Jane was driven to school. Jane is still the subject, but she didn’t do the driving, so we have passive voice. Sometimes the doer is mentioned in the sentence: Jane was driven to school by her brother. Brother still isn’t the subject; it is the object of the preposition by. Jane’s brother drove her to school is  in the active voice.
• The ball was thrown. Ball is the subject, but the ball didn’t do anything, so this is also an example of passive voice.
• The jewelry store was robbed. The store didn’t do anything, so this is another example of passive voice.

The general rule is to write using active voice most of the time. It is — well — more active, and that is a good thing. 

However, there are times when you either want or need to write in the passive voice:

• You don’t know who did it.
• You don’t care who did it.
• You neither know nor care who did it. 

The school was built in 1970. Passive voice because you probably don’t really care who built it. You may not know either.

She was awarded the title of Miss Apple Blossom. The important thing is that she was given the title. We probably don’t care who gave it to her. 

That song was first released in 1995. In this case we might really care who first sang that hit song, but we can’t remember. Of course, nowadays, you can find anything out by just “googling it.”

I remember once when I was a newspaper reporter (way back before the internet) that I once did not get the name of the perpetrator of some story. The only solution — if I really could not have found out with my tight deadline — was to write the lead in the passive voice.

We tend to speak and write in the passive voice when we are not emphasizing who did it — when the important thing is that it was done. Here are sentences that fare well in the passive, whether or not we know who did it.

• I was given an award for my math skills in 6th grade. (It is important that I got the award, not who gave it to me.)
• The cake was decorated incorrectly when I picked it up from the bakery. (We don’t really care who decorated it.)
• He was elected President in 1990. (It is obvious who elected the President, so we don’t need to say it.

On the other hand, it is possible that the doer in those sentences matters a lot — so much that you want to use active voice:

• President Clinton gave me an award for my math skills in 6th grade. (emphasizes who gave the award as the important thing)
• My cousin, who is the chief baker at the grocery store, put the wrong names on the wedding cake! (emphasizes who made the mistake)
• The new Liberty Party elected him President in 1990.(emphasizes that it was a new party that was instrumental in electing the President — we aren’t talking about the United States, of course!)

We do tend to instinctively use the voices in the best way. However, sometimes a writer will overuse the possessive, which usually makes the writing wordy:

TOO MUCH PASSIVE – She was given a huge birthday cake by her mother, who had spent all day baking and decorating. Then when the cake was gone she moved over to open the mountain of gifts that were given to her by her big family. A fun time was had by all! 

REWRITE – Her mother gave her a huge birthday cake after spending all day baking and decorating. After everyone was done eating cake, she opened the mountain of gifts her huge family had given her. A fun time was had by all OR Everyone had a fun time.

The post A Little Bit About Voice by Arlene Miller, Grammar Diva appeared first on ESL Publishing.

So….to celebrate National Grammar Day 2018, here is a fun quiz, the answers to which are grammar terms — so it’s not a quiz about the rules. The answer to each of the following 20 questions is something you might find in a glossary of grammar terms (so, hint, hint, don’t look at the glossary that is at the back of some of my books). You will find the answers if you scroll way, way down.

Here we go….

• A pronoun takes the place of a noun or another pronoun somewhere in the sentence. What is that noun or other pronoun called in relationship to the pronoun?
• A, an, and the are called what?
• There are two of them when referring to a quality of verbs: active and What is this quality that verbs possess?
• A group of words that contains a subject and a verb (and might or might not be a complete sentence) is called what?
• There is a special term for nouns like these: bunch, group, team, herd, class. What is that term?
• There are five of them in Latin and even more in German and other languages. English has three. They are nominative, objective, possessive. What are they?
• A verb that is being used as an adjective (and usually ends in -ing or -ed) is called a what?
• What are these called? in a box, out the door, above the tree, under the table
• I like pizza. Pizza is a noun. What function does it have in that sentence?
• Which tense is the verb in this sentence an example of? I have read that book twice.
• I am going to the movies is a simple sentence. What is this one called? I am going to the movies, and I am meeting my friends afterwards.
• If you want to connect two sentences that are closely related, and you don’t want to use a period or a conjunction, what punctuation might you use?
• What is this called? I think you will like that movie, I certainly did.
• The little line that is used for the minus sign and to indicate a range of numbers in an index is called what?
• A verb with an -ing ending is sometimes used as a noun. What is that called?

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