Archive for 'English Grammar'
Pet Commands Posted by Gabriele on Jul 2, 2012
Sit. Stay. Good dog. In English dogs are often referred to as “man’s best friend.” It is very common for families in the United States (and Western culture in general) to have a pet dog. A pet is a domestic or tamed animal that lives with people. Pet dogs in the United States often live…
“Maybe” versus “May be” Posted by Gabriele on Jun 18, 2012
In a comment to a previous post I was asked to write about the difference between the words: “maybe” and “may be.” That is what I am going to do today! To begin with let’s talk about the different parts of speech that these two words represent: “maybe” (one word) is an adverb and “may…
Things that mothers say in English Posted by Gabriele on Jun 15, 2012
No matter where you live in the world I bet when you were growing up your mother used a form of the imperative tense with you. The imperative tense in English is used: 1) as a direct order, 2) to give instructions, 3) to make an invitation, 4) on signs, and 5) to give friendly…
“Use” versus “Usage” Posted by Gabriele on Jun 11, 2012
The words “use” and “usage” are often used in the same way by many English speakers (both native speakers and ESL learners). The meanings of these two words do overlap sometimes, but they are not true synonyms. The word “use” has many more meanings and applications than the word “usage.” Some people use the word…
How To Be Perfect Posted by Gabriele on Jun 8, 2012
Today we are going to look at the lines of an English poem and discuss ‘perfection.’ The lines of this poem come from the poet Ron Padgett. Mr. Padgett is a modern American poet born in the state of Oklahoma in 1942. He has been publishing volumes of poetry since the 1960’s and has published…
“Then” vs. “than” Posted by Gabriele on May 31, 2012
‘Then‘ and ‘than‘, these two words in English cause a lot of confusion for a lot of people, myself included! People often misuse them in writing (myself included!) and so I thought I would go over the difference between the two words today and see if I can’t come up with a good way for…
That versus Which Posted by heather on May 23, 2012
Have you ever struggled with knowing when to use that and when to use which? Well struggle no longer! Restrictive Clauses The first thing we need to discuss is something called a restrictive clause. A restrictive clause is a part of the sentence that you can’t get rid of because it specifically restricts the noun…