Geraldine Woods is a grammarian and writer with more than 35 years' experience teaching and writing about English. She is the author of English Grammar For Dummies, SAT For Dummies, and Research Papers For Dummies.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

Unit 1: Exploring Grammar and Style 5

Chapter 1: Sampling the Ingredients of Grammar and Style 7

What This Year's Sentence Is Wearing: Understanding Grammar and Style 8

Getting to Know the Elements of Grammar and Style 9

Parts of speech 10

Parts of a sentence 11

Small but important: Punctuating, capitalizing, and spelling 15

Recognizing Your Grammar Profile 18

Chapter 2: Adapting Language to Every Situation 21

Grasping the Power and Limits of Standard English 21

Adjusting Language to Suit Your Audience 22

Wanna get something to eat? Friendspeak 22

Conversational English 24

Standard English 24

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 29

Whaddya Know? Chapter 2 Quiz 31

Answers to Chapter 2 Quiz 33

Unit 2: Exploring Parts of Speech 35

Chapter 3: People to See, Places to Go, Things to Remember: Recognizing Nouns 37

Identifying Nouns 38

Naming people with nouns 38

Naming places with nouns 39

Naming things with nouns 40

Naming ideas and emotions with nouns 41

Sorting Out Singular and Plural Nouns 42

Adding the letters S or ES to form plurals 42

Plurals that break the rules 44

Attaching "This," "These," and Other Words to Nouns 45

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 47

Whaddya Know? Chapter 3 Quiz 49

Answers to Chapter 3 Quiz 50

Chapter 4: Meeting the Pronoun Family 51

Working Hard: Pronouns and Their Jobs 51

Replacing nouns 52

Replacing pronouns 53

Doubling back with -self pronouns 53

Creating connections, asking questions 54

Tracing Pronoun Traits 55

Person and number 56

Gender and number 58

Case 59

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 61

Whaddya Know? Chapter 4 Quiz 63

Answers to Chapter 4 Quiz 64

Chapter 5: Existing and Acting with Verbs 65

Expressing Meaning with Verbs 66

Tense 66

Number 66

Mood 66

Voice 67

Meeting the Families: Linking and Action Verbs 67

Linking verbs: A giant equal sign 68

Forms of "be" 68

Synonyms of "be" 68

Savoring sensory verbs 69

Lights! Camera! Action verb! 70

Pop the Question: Locating the Verb 71

Calling the Help Line for Verbs 73

The big three 73

Timing is everything: Creating a time frame with helping verbs 77

Don't ask! Questions and negative statements 77

Adding shades of meaning with helping verbs 79

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 81

Whaddya Know? Chapter 5 Quiz 84

Answers to Chapter 5 Quiz 85

Chapter 6: Two Real Really Good Parts of Speech: Adjectives and Adverbs 87

Clarifying Meaning with Descriptions 88

Adding Adjectives 88

Adjectives describing nouns 89

Adjectives describing pronouns 89

Adjectives attached to linking verbs 90

Pop the question: Identifying adjectives 90

Articles: Not just for magazines 91

Stalking the Common Adverb 93

Pop the question: Finding the adverb 94

Adverbs describing adjectives and other adverbs 95

Choosing Between Adjectives and Adverbs 97

Sorting out "good" and "well" 98

Dealing with "bad" and "badly" 98

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 100

Whaddya Know? Chapter 6 Quiz 103

Answers to Chapter 6 Quiz 104

Chapter 7: Tiny but Mighty: Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections 105

Proposing Relationships: Prepositions 105

Prepositional phrases 106

Pop the question: Questions that identify the objects of the prepositions 108

Why pay attention to prepositions? 108

Connecting with Conjunctions 110

Improving flow and adding meaning with conjunctions 110

Pairing up conjunctions 112

Interjections Are Easy! 113

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 114

Whaddya Know? Chapter 7 Quiz 116

Answers to Chapter 7 Quiz 117

Unit 3: Basic Elements of a Sentence 119

Chapter 8: Who's Doing What? Identifying the Subject-Verb Pair 121

Baring the Bones of a Sentence: The Subject-Verb Pair 121

When One Is Not Enough: Compound Subjects and Verbs 122

Pop the Question: Locating the Subject-Verb Pairs 123

Popping the question for questions 124

Unusual word order 125

Not missing in action: Detecting you-understood 126

Don't Get Faked Out: Avoiding Fake Verbs and Subjects 128

Verbals 128

"Here" and "there" sentences 129

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 131

Whaddya Know? Chapter 8 Quiz 133

Answers to Chapter 8 Quiz 134

Chapter 9: Handling Complements 135

Getting a Piece of the Action: Complements for Action Verbs 135

Receiving the action: Direct objects 136

Rare, but sometimes there: Indirect objects 139

No bias here: Objective complements 141

Completing the Equation: Subject Complements 142

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 146

Whaddya Know? Chapter 9 Quiz 148

Answers to Chapter 9 Quiz 149

Chapter 10: When All Is Said and Done: Complete Sentences 151

Completing Sentences: The Essential Subjects and Verbs 151

Not flying solo: Verb forms ending in -ing 152

Past verb forms that can't stand alone 153

Do not "be" alone 155

Complete Thoughts, Complete Sentences 157

Reaching the End of the Line: End Marks 159

Connecting Ideas 161

Breaking Away from Sentence Fragments 166

Placing fragments in the right context 166

Steering clear of inappropriate fragments 167

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 169

Whaddya Know? Chapter 10 Quiz 172

Answers to Chapter 10 Quiz 173

Chapter 11: No Santas but Plenty of Clauses 175

Grasping the Basics of Clause and Effect 175

Sorting Subordinate and Independent Clauses 177

Defining the Three Legal Jobs for Subordinate Clauses 179

Describing nouns and pronouns 179

Describing verbs, adjectives, or adverbs 179

Acting as subjects, objects, or subject complements inside another clause 180

Untangling Subordinate and Independent Clauses 180

Deciding When to Untangle Clauses 182

When you're picking a pronoun 182

When you're deciding on the correct verb 182

When you're figuring out where to put commas 183

Choosing Content for Subordinate Clauses 183

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 185

Whaddya Know? Chapter 11 Quiz 187

Answers to Chapter 11 Quiz 188

Unit 4: Clearing Up Confusing Grammar Points 189

Chapter 12: Relax! Understanding Verb Tense, Voice, and Mood 191

It's All in the Timing: Tense 191

Simplifying matters: The simple tenses 191

Using the simple tenses correctly 194

Not picture-perfect: Understanding the perfect tenses 197

Employing the perfect tenses correctly 200

Speaking of the past and things that never change 204

Romeo lives! Writing about literature and art in present tense 206

The rebels: Dealing with irregular verbs 207

Giving Voice to Verbs 210

Getting Your Verbs in the Proper Mood 211

Stating the facts: Indicative 211

Commanding your attention: Imperative 211

Discovering the possibilities: Subjunctive 212

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 216

Whaddya Know? Chapter 12 Quiz 220

Answers to Chapter 12 Quiz 221

Chapter 13: Agreement: Choosing Singular or Plural Verbs and Pronouns 223

Agreeing Not to Disagree 223

Making Subjects and Verbs Agree: The Basics 224

Matching Subjects and Verbs in Some Tricky Situations 225

Compound subjects 225

Ignoring distracting descriptions 225

Each and every 227

Either and neither, alone or with partners 227

Five puzzling pronouns 229

The ones, the things, and the bodies 230

Agreeing with Relative Pronouns 231

Politics and Other Irregular Subjects 233

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 235

Whaddya Know? Chapter 13 Quiz 238

Answers to Chapter 13 Quiz 239

Chapter 14: Solving Pronoun Case 241

While We're on the Subject: Choosing Pronouns to Act as Subjects 241

Taking an Objective Viewpoint: Choosing Pronouns to Act as Objects 244

Dealing with direct and indirect objects 244

Are you talking to I? Prepositions and pronouns 244

Attaching objects to verbals 246

Knowing the Difference Between Who and Whom 247

Attracting Appositives 249

Picking Pronouns for Comparisons 250

Dealing with Pronouns and -ing Nouns 251

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations 253

Whaddya Know? Chapter 14 Quiz 255

Answers to Chapter 14 Quiz 256

Chapter 15: Getting Specific: The Power of Descriptions 257

Creating Comparisons with Adjectives and Adverbs 257

Ending it with -er or giving more to adjectives 258

Creating comparisons with adverbs 260

Breaking the rules: Irregular comparisons 261

Resolving incomplete and illogical comparisons 263

On Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly 268

Troubling singles 268

Misplaced descriptions 270

Just hanging out: Danglers 272

Avoiding confusing descriptions 274

Practice Questions Answers and Explanations...