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    The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation
    The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation
    The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation
    Ebook1,446 pages11 hours

    The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

    By Bryan A. Garner

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    • Grammar

    • Punctuation

    • English Language

    • Language

    • Writing Style

    • Academic Pursuits

    • Love Triangle

    • Self-Discovery

    • Betrayal

    • Knowledge Is Power

    • Empowerment

    • Power of Language

    • Academic Rivalry

    • Historical Context

    • Intellectual Curiosity

    • Writing

    • Parts of Speech

    • Communication

    • Sentence Structure

    • Linguistics

    About this ebook

    The authoritative guide to using the English language effectively, from “the greatest writer on grammar and usage that this country has ever produced” (David Yerkes, Columbia University).
     
    The author of The Chicago Manual of Style’s popular “Grammar and Usage” chapter, Bryan A. Garner is renowned for explaining the vagaries of English with absolute precision and utmost clarity. With The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, he has written the definitive guide for writers who want their prose to be both memorable and correct.

    Garner describes standard literary English—the forms that mark writers and speakers as educated users of the language. He also offers historical context for understanding the development of these forms. The section on grammar explains how the canonical parts of speech came to be identified, while the section on syntax covers the nuances of sentence patterns as well as both traditional sentence diagramming and transformational grammar. The usage section provides an unprecedented trove of empirical evidence in the form of Google Ngrams, diagrams that illustrate the changing prevalence of specific terms over decades and even centuries of English literature. Garner also treats punctuation and word formation, and concludes the book with an exhaustive glossary of grammatical terms and a bibliography of suggested further reading and references.

    The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation is a magisterial work, the culmination of Garner’s lifelong study of the English language. The result is a landmark resource that will offer clear guidelines to students, writers, and editors alike.
     
    “[A manual] for those of us laboring to produce expository prose: nonfiction books, journalistic articles, memorandums, business letters. The conservatism of his advice pushes you to consider audience and occasion, so that you will understand when to follow convention and when you can safely break it.”—John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMay 16, 2016
    ISBN9780226191294
    The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation
    Author

    Bryan A. Garner

    Bryan A. Garner, editor in chief of Black’s Law Dictionary, is the author of more than twenty books, including The Law of Judicial Precedent; Garner’s Modern English Usage; The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation; Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace and Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing; and The Rules of Golf in Plain English. Counting Black’s Law Dictionary and his other books, Garner is among the world’s most widely cited legal scholars and has been cited by every appellate court, state and federal, in the country. He writes a syndicated column for the American Bar Association, which reaches over one million lawyers per month. He cowrote two books with Justice Scalia: Making Your Case (2008) and Reading Law (2012).

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      The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation - Bryan A. Garner

      Bryan A. Garner is president of LawProse Inc. and Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of the grammar and usage chapter of The Chicago Manual of Style and editor in chief of Black’s Law Dictionary. His many books on language and law include Garner’s Modern English Usage and Legal Writing in Plain English, the latter from the University of Chicago Press.

      The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

      The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

      © 2016 by Bryan A. Garner

      All rights reserved. Published 2016.

      Printed in the United States of America

      25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16     1 2 3 4 5

      ISBN-13: 978-0-226-18885-0 (cloth)

      ISBN-13: 978-0-226-19129-4 (e-book)

      DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226191294.001.0001

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Garner, Bryan A., author.

      Title: The Chicago guide to grammar, usage, and punctuation / Bryan A. Garner.

      Other titles: Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing.

      Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2016. | ©2016 | Series: Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing | Includes bibliographical references.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2015047425 | ISBN 9780226188850 (cloth : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9780226191294 (e-book)

      Subjects: LCSH: English language—Grammar—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | English language—Grammar—Study and teaching (Higher)

      Classification: LCC PE1106 .G35 2016 | DDC 428.2—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047425

      This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

      The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation

      Bryan A. Garner

      The University of Chicago Press

      CHICAGO AND LONDON

      A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

      Kate L. Turabian

      Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers

      Kate L. Turabian

      Writing for Social Scientists

      Howard S. Becker

      The Craft of Translation

      John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, editors

      The Craft of Research

      Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams

      From Dissertation to Book

      William Germano

      Getting It Published

      William Germano

      From Notes to Narrative

      Kristen Ghodsee

      Writing Science in Plain English

      Anne E. Greene

      Storycraft

      Jack Hart

      How to Write a BA Thesis

      Charles Lipson

      Developmental Editing

      Scott Norton

      The Subversive Copy Editor

      Carol Fisher Saller

      Legal Writing in Plain English

      Bryan A. Garner

      To Karolyne

      Other Books Written or Edited by Bryan A. Garner

      Garner’s Modern English Usage (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016)

      Grammar and Usage, chap. 5 in The Chicago Manual of Style (Univ. of Chicago Press, 16th ed. 2010)

      HBR Guide to Better Business Writing (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)

      Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace and Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing (RosePen, 2013)

      Black’s Law Dictionary (Thomson Reuters, 10th ed. 2014)

      Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage (Oxford Univ. Press, 3rd ed. 2011)

      Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Legislation (RosePen, 2016)

      Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, with Justice Antonin Scalia (Thomson/West, 2012)

      Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, with Justice Antonin Scalia (Thomson/West, 2008)

      The Winning Brief (Oxford Univ. Press, 3rd ed. 2014)

      The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style (West, 3rd ed. 2013)

      Garner on Language and Writing, with preface by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (ABA, 2009)

      Legal Writing in Plain English (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2nd ed. 2013)

      The Elements of Legal Style, with preface by Charles Alan Wright (Oxford Univ. Press, 2nd ed. 2002)

      The Winning Oral Argument (West, 2009)

      Ethical Communications for Lawyers (LawProse, 2009)

      Securities Disclosure in Plain English (CCH, 1999)

      The Rules of Golf in Plain English, with Jeffrey Kuhn (Univ. of Chicago Press, 4th ed. 2016)

      A New Miscellany-at-Law, by Sir Robert Megarry (Hart, 2005)

      Texas, Our Texas: Remembrances of the University (Eakin Press, 1984)

      Basic Law Terms (West Group, 1999)

      Criminal Law Terms (West Group, 2000)

      Family Law Terms (West Group, 2001)

      Business Law Terms (West Group, 1999)

      Grammar is the cradle of all philosophy.

      John of Salisbury (ca. 1120–80)*

      English is not a subject. English is everything. For us who speak English, English is everything. English is what we say and what we think.

      L.A. G. Strong, English for Pleasure (1941)*

      Nobody who thinks or writes can be above grammar. It is like saying, I’m a creative genius, I’m above concepts—which is the attitude of modern artists. If you are above grammar, you are above concepts; and if you are above concepts, you are above thought. The fact is that then you are not above, but far below, thought. Therefore, make a religion of grammar.

      Ayn Rand, The Art of Nonfiction (1969)*

      I take the candid approach because it fits my teaching situation. My students understand very well what social status means, so I simply tell them, "If you speak this way, you go in the back door; if you speak this way, you go in the front door." I make it very clear that I neither built the house nor did I designate the doors. In this case, I am merely an agent showing off the real estate. I have the key to the front door, and once the student has the concept of usage levels I have given him the key. The back door is always ajar.

      V. Louise Higgins, Approaching Usage in the Classroom (1960)*

      Contents

      Introduction

      1. The field of grammar

      2. Who killed grammar?

      3. Why study grammar?

      4. Overview of the book

      I. The Traditional Parts of Speech

      5. How did we arrive at the canonical eight?

      Nouns

      Traditional Classifications

      6. Nouns generally

      7. Common nouns

      8. Proper nouns

      9. Count nouns

      10. Collective nouns

      11. Expressions of multitude

      12. Expressions of partition

      13. Mass nouns

      Properties of Nouns

      14. Generally

      15. Case

      16. Number

      17. Gender

      18. Person

      Plurals

      19. Generally

      20. Adding -s or -es

      21. Plurals of proper nouns

      22. Nouns ending in -f or -fe.

      23. Nouns ending in -o

      24. Nouns ending in -y

      25. Nouns ending in -ics

      26. Compound nouns

      27. Irregular plurals

      28. Borrowed plurals

      29. Plural form with singular sense

      30. Plural-form proper nouns

      31. Tricky anomalies

      Case

      32. Function

      33. Common case, nominative function

      34. Common case, objective function

      35. Genitive case

      36. The of-genitive

      37. Genitives of titles and names

      38. Joint and separate genitives

      Agent and Recipient Nouns

      39. Definitions; use

      40. Appositives: definition and use

      Conversions

      41. Nouns as adjectives

      42. Nouns as verbs

      43. Adverbial functions

      44. Other conversions

      Pronouns

      Definition and Uses

      45. Pronoun defined

      46. Antecedents of pronouns

      47. Clarity of antecedent

      48. Pronouns without antecedents

      49. Sentence meaning

      Properties of Pronouns

      50. Four properties

      51. Number and antecedent

      52. Exceptions regarding number of the antecedent

      53. Pronoun with multiple antecedents

      54. Some traditional singular pronouns

      55. Gender

      56. Case

      57. Pronouns in apposition

      58. Nominative case misused for objective

      Classes of Pronouns

      59. Seven classes

      Personal Pronouns

      60. Form

      61. Identification

      62. Changes in form

      63. Agreement generally

      64. Expressing gender

      65. Determining gender

      66. Special rules

      67. Case after linking verb

      68. Case after than or as–as

      69. Special uses

      70. The singular they

      Possessive Pronouns

      71. Uses and forms

      72. Possessive pronouns vs. contractions

      Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns

      73. Compound personal pronouns: -self forms

      74. Basic uses of reflexive and intensive pronouns

      Demonstrative Pronouns

      75. Definition

      Reciprocal Pronouns

      76. Generally

      77. Simple and phrasal pronouns

      Interrogative Pronouns

      78. Definition

      79. Referent of interrogative pronouns

      Relative Pronouns

      80. Definition

      81. Gender, number, and case with relative pronouns

      82. Positional nuances

      83. Antecedent

      84. Remote relative clauses

      85. Omitted antecedent

      86. Relative pronoun and the antecedent one

      87. Function of relative pronoun in clause

      88. Genitive forms

      89. Whose and of which

      90. Compound relative pronouns

      91. Who vs. whom

      Indefinite Pronouns

      92. Generally

      93. The indefinite pronoun one

      Adjectives

      Types of Adjectives

      94. Definition

      95. Qualitative adjectives

      96. Quantitative adjectives

      97. Demonstrative adjectives

      98. Possessive adjectives

      99. Interrogative adjectives

      100. Distributive adjectives

      101. Indefinite adjectives

      102. Pronominal adjectives

      103. Proper adjectives

      104. Compound adjectives

      105. Relative adjectives

      Articles as Limiting Adjectives

      106. Definition

      107. Definite article

      108. Definite articles and proper names

      109. Indefinite article

      110. Indefinite article in specific reference

      111. Choosing a or an

      112. Articles with coordinate nouns

      113. Effect on meaning

      114. Omitted article and zero article

      115. Article as pronoun substitute

      Dates as Adjectives

      116. Use and punctuation

      Position of Adjectives

      117. Basic rules

      118. After possessives

      119. Adjective modifying pronoun

      120. Predicate adjective

      121. Dangling participles

      122. Distinguishing an adjective from an adverb or participle

      Degrees of Adjectives

      123. Generally

      124. Comparative forms

      125. Superlative forms

      126. Forming comparatives and superlatives

      127. Equal and unequal comparisons

      128. Noncomparable adjectives

      Special Types of Adjectives

      129. Participial adjectives

      130. Coordinate adjectives

      131. Phrasal adjectives

      132. Exceptions for hyphenating phrasal adjectives

      Functional Variation

      133. Adjectives as nouns

      134. Adjectives as verbs

      135. Other parts of speech functioning as adjectives

      136. The weakening effect of injudicious adjectives

      Verbs

      Definitions

      137. Verbs generally

      138. Transitive and intransitive verbs

      139. Ergative verbs

      140. Dynamic and stative verbs

      141. Regular and irregular verbs

      142. Linking verbs

      143. Phrasal verbs

      144. Principal and auxiliary verbs

      145. Verb phrases

      146. Contractions

      Infinitives

      147. Definition

      148. Split infinitive

      149. Uses of infinitive

      150. Dangling infinitive

      Participles and Gerunds

      151. Participles generally

      152. Forming present participles

      153. Forming past participles

      154. Participial phrases

      155. Gerunds

      156. Gerund phrases

      157. Distinguishing between participles and gerunds

      158. Fused participles

      159. Dangling participles

      160. Dangling gerunds

      Properties of Verbs

      161. Five properties

      VOICE

      162. Active and passive voice

      163. Progressive conjugation and voice

      MOOD

      164. Generally

      165. Indicative mood

      166. Imperative mood

      167. Subjunctive mood

      168. Subjunctive vs. indicative mood

      169. Present subjunctive

      170. Past subjunctive

      171. Past-perfect subjunctive

      TENSE

      172. Generally

      173. Present tense

      174. Past indicative

      175. Future tense

      176. Present-perfect tense

      177. Past-perfect tense

      178. Future-perfect tense

      179. Progressive tenses

      180. Backshifting in reported speech

      TENSES ILLUSTRATED

      181. Conjugation of the regular verb to call

      182. Conjugation of the irregular verb to hide

      183. Conjugation of the verb to be

      PERSON

      184. Generally

      NUMBER

      185. Generally

      186. Agreement in person and number

      187. Disjunctive compound subjects

      188. Conjunctive compound subjects

      189. Some other nuances of number involving conjunctions

      190. Peculiar nouns that are plural in form but singular in sense

      191. Agreement of indefinite pronouns

      192. Relative pronouns as subjects

      193. There is; Here is

      194. False attraction to intervening matter

      195. False attraction to predicate noun

      196. Misleading connectives: as well as, along with, together with, etc.

      197. Agreement in first and second person

      Auxiliary Verbs

      198. Generally

      199. Modal auxiliaries

      200. Can and could

      201. May and might

      202. Must

      203. Ought

      204. Shall

      205. Should

      206. Will and would

      207. Dare and need

      208. Do

      209. Have

      Adverbs

      Definition and Formation

      210. Generally

      211. Sentence adverbs

      212. Adverbial suffixes

      213. Adverbs without suffixes

      214. Distinguished from adjectives

      Simple vs. Compound Adverbs

      215. Standard and flat adverbs

      216. Phrasal and compound adverbs

      Types of Adverbs

      217. Adverbs of manner

      218. Adverbs of time

      219. Adverbs of place

      220. Adverbs of degree

      221. Adverbs of reason

      222. Adverbs of consequence

      223. Adverbs of number

      224. Interrogative adverbs

      225. Exclamatory adverbs

      226. Affirmative and negative adverbs

      227. Relative adverbs

      228. Conjunctive adverbs

      Adverbial Degrees

      229. Generally

      230. Comparative forms

      231. Superlative forms

      232. Irregular adverbs

      233. Noncomparable adverbs

      Position of Adverbs

      234. Placement as affecting meaning

      235. Modifying words other than verbs

      236. Modifying intransitive verbs

      237. Adverbs and linking verbs

      238. Adverb within verb phrase

      239. Importance of placement

      240. Adverbial objective

      241. Adverbial clause

      242. Only

      Prepositions

      Definition and Types

      243. Generally

      244. Simple, compound

      245. Phrasal prepositions

      246. Participial prepositions

      Prepositional Phrases

      247. Generally

      248. Prepositional function

      249. Placement

      250. Refinements on placement

      251. Preposition-stranding

      252. Clashing prepositions

      253. Elliptical phrases

      254. Case of pronouns

      Other Prepositional Issues

      255. Functional variation

      256. Use and misuse of like

      Limiting Prepositional Phrases

      257. Avoiding overuse

      258. Cutting prepositional phrases

      259. Cutting unnecessary prepositions

      260. Replacing with adverbs

      261. Replacing with genitives

      262. Using active voice

      Conjunctions

      263. Definition and types

      264. Types of conjunctions: simple and compound

      265. Coordinating conjunctions

      266. Correlative conjunctions

      267. Copulative conjunctions

      268. Adversative conjunctions

      269. Disjunctive conjunctions

      270. Final conjunctions

      271. Subordinating conjunctions

      272. Special uses of subordinating conjunctions

      273. Adverbial conjunctions

      274. Expletive conjunctions

      275. Disguised conjunctions

      276. With used loosely as a conjunction

      277. Beginning a sentence with a conjunction

      278. Beginning a sentence with however

      279. Conjunctions and the number of a verb

      Interjections

      280. Definition

      281. Usage generally

      282. Functional variation

      283. Words that are exclusively interjections

      284. Punctuating interjections

      285. O and oh

      II. Syntax

      Sentences, Clauses, and Their Patterns

      286. Definition

      287. Statements

      288. Questions

      289. Some exceptional types of questions.

      290. Directives

      291. Exceptional directives

      292. Exclamations

      The Four Traditional Types of Sentence Structures

      293. Simple sentence

      294. Compound sentence

      295. Complex sentence

      296. Compound-complex sentence

      English Sentence Patterns

      297. Importance of word order

      298. The basic SVO pattern

      299. All seven patterns

      300. Variations on ordering the elements

      301. Constituent elements

      302. Identifying the subject

      303. Identifying the predicate

      304. Identifying the verb

      305. Identifying the object

      306. Identifying complements

      307. Inner and outer complements

      308. Identifying the adverbial element

      Clauses

      309. In general

      310. Relative clauses

      311. Appositive clauses

      312. Conditional clauses

      Ellipsis

      313. Generally

      314. Anaphoric and cataphoric ellipsis

      315. Whiz-deletions

      Negation

      316. Negation generally

      317. The word not

      318. The word no

      319. Using negating pronouns and adverbs

      320. Using neither and nor

      321. Words that are negative in meaning and function

      322. Affix negation

      323. Negative interrogative and imperative statements

      324. Double negatives

      325. Other forms of negation

      326. Any and some in negative statements

      Expletives

      327. Generally

      328. Expletive it

      329. Expletive "there"

      Parallelism

      330. Generally

      331. Prepositions

      332. Paired joining terms

      333. Auxiliary verbs

      334. Verbs and adverbs at the outset

      335. Longer elements

      Cleft Sentences

      336. Definition

      337. Types

      338. Uses

      Traditional Sentence Diagramming

      339. History and description

      340. Benefits of diagrams

      341. Using diagrams

      342. Criticisms

      343. How diagrams work

      344. Baseline

      345. Subject

      346. Predicate

      347. Direct object

      348. Objective complement

      349. Indirect object

      350. Subjective complement

      351. One-word modifiers

      352. Prepositional phrases

      353. Adjective clauses

      354. Adverbial clauses

      355. Noun clauses

      356. Infinitives

      357. Participles

      358. Gerunds

      359. Appositives

      360. Independent elements

      361. Conjunctions

      362. Diagramming compound sentences

      363. Diagramming complex sentences

      364. Diagramming compound-complex sentences

      Transformational Grammar

      Overview

      365. Definition

      366. Scope of section

      367. Terminology of transformational grammar

      368. Tools of transformational grammar

      369. Universal symbols in rules

      370. Tree diagrams

      Base Rules in Transformational Grammar

      371. Parts of speech

      372. Sentence basics

      Nouns and Noun Phrases

      373. Functions of noun phrases

      374. Simple noun phrases

      Determiners

      375. Types of determiners

      376. Numeric and nonnumeric determiners

      377. Multiple determiners

      378. Determiners in noun phrases

      379. Prearticles

      380. Noun phrases with determiner and prearticle

      Noun-Phrase Modifiers

      381. Modifiers

      382. Compound nouns

      383. Combined rules

      384. Number, person, and possession

      Verb Phrases

      385. Introduction

      386. Functions of verb phrase

      387. Principal verbs

      388. Auxiliaries

      389. Auxiliary verbs

      390. Have

      391. Multiple auxiliaries

      392. Be as a principal verb

      Different Types of Principal Verbs

      393. Generally

      394. Middle verbs

      395. Special subtypes

      Adverbials

      396. Adverbials with principal verbs

      397. Simple adverbs

      398. Functions of simple adverbs

      399. Prepositional phrase as adverbial

      400. Noun phrase as adverbial

      401. Adverbials of place, time, and manner

      402. Number and tense of verbs

      Transformations

      403. Deep and surface structure

      404. Transformational rules

      405. Surface transformation

      406. Simple-question transformation

      407. Imperative transformation

      408. Active- to passive-voice transformation and back again

      Spotting Ambiguities

      409. Identification

      410. Lexical ambiguity

      411. Surface-structure ambiguity

      412. Deep-structure ambiguity

      413. Active- and passive-voice diagrams

      III. Word Formation

      414. Generally

      415. Criteria for morphemes

      416. Free and bound morphemes

      417. Stems and affixes

      418. Inflectional and derivational suffixes

      419. Compounding

      420. Conversion

      421. Shortened forms

      422. Elongations

      423. Reduplicative forms

      424. Loan translations

      425. Acronyms and initialisms

      426. Neologisms

      IV. Word Usage

      Introduction

      427. Grammar vs. usage

      428. Standard Written English

      429. Dialect

      430. Focus on tradition

      Troublesome Words and Phrases

      431. Good usage vs. common usage

      432. Using big data to assess linguistic change

      433. Preventive grammar

      434. Glossary of troublesome expressions

      Bias-Free Language

      435. Maintaining credibility

      436. Gender bias

      437. Other biases

      438. Invisible gender-neutrality

      439. Techniques for achieving gender-neutrality

      440. Necessary gender-specific language

      441. Sex-specific labels as adjectives

      442. Gender-neutral singular pronouns

      443. Problematic suffixes

      444. Avoiding other biased language

      445. Unnecessary focus on personal characteristics

      446. Unnecessary emphasis on the trait, not the person

      447. Inappropriate labels

      Prepositional Idioms

      448. Idiomatic uses

      449. Shifts in idiom

      450. Words and the prepositions construed with them

      V. Punctuation

      451. Introduction

      The Comma

      Using Commas

      452. With a conjunction between independent clauses

      453. After a transitional or introductory phrase

      454. To set off a nonrestrictive phrase or clause

      455. To separate items in a series

      456. To separate parallel modifiers

      457. To distinguish indirect from direct speech

      458. To separate the parts of full dates and addresses

      459. To separate long numbers into three-digit chunks

      460. To set off a name, word, or phrase used as a vocative

      461. Before a direct question inside another sentence

      462. To set off etc., et al., and the like at the end of a series

      463. After the salutation in an informal letter

      Preventing Misused Commas

      464. Not to separate a subject and its verb

      465. Not to separate a verb and its object

      466. Not to set off a quotation that blends into the sentence

      467. Not to set off an adverb that needs emphasis

      468. Not to separate compound predicates

      469. Not to use alone to splice independent clauses

      470. Not to use after a sentence-starting conjunction

      471. Not to omit after an internal set-off word or phrase

      472. Not to set off restrictive matter

      473. Not around name suffixes such as Jr., III, Inc., and Ltd.

      474. Not to separate modifiers that aren’t parallel

      The Semicolon

      Using Semicolons

      475. To unite two short, closely connected sentences

      476. To separate items in a complex series

      477. In old style, to set off explanation or elaboration

      Preventing Misused Semicolons

      478. Not where a colon is needed, as after a formal salutation

      479. Not where a comma suffices, as in a simple list

      The Colon

      Using Colons

      480. To link matter and indicate explanation or elaboration

      481. To introduce an enumerated or otherwise itemized list

      482. To introduce a question

      483. Use a colon to introduce a question

      484. After the salutation in business correspondence

      485. To separate hours from minutes and in some citations

      486. Without capitalizing the following matter needlessly

      Preventing Misused Colons

      487. Not to introduce matter that blends into your sentence

      Parentheses

      Using Parentheses

      488. To set off inserted matter that you want to minimize

      489. To clarify appositives or attributions

      490. To introduce shorthand or familiar names

      491. Around numbers or letters when listing items in text

      492. To denote subparts in a citation

      493. Correctly in relation to terminal punctuation

      494. To enclose a brief aside

      Preventing Misused Parentheses

      495. Not before an opening parenthesis

      The Em-Dash (or Long Dash)

      Using Em-Dashes

      496. To set off matter inserted in midsentence

      497. To set off but emphasize parenthetical matter

      498. To tack on an important afterthought

      499. To introduce a specification or list

      500. To show hesitation, faltering, or interruption

      Preventing Misused Em-Dashes

      501. Not using more than two in a sentence

      502. Not after a comma, colon, semicolon, or terminal period

      The En-Dash (or Short Dash)

      Using En-Dashes

      503. In a range, to show tension, or to join equivalents

      Preventing Misused En-Dashes

      504. Not in place of a hyphen or em-dash

      505. Not with the wording it replaces

      The Hyphen

      Using Hyphens

      506. To join parts of a phrasal adjective

      507. To mark other phrasal-adjective and suffix connections

      508. In closely associated compounds according to usage

      509. When writing out fractions and two-word numbers

      510. To show hesitation, stammering, and the like

      511. In proper names when appropriate

      512. In some number groups or when spelling out a word

      513. With l- suffixes (e.g., -like) on words ending in -ll

      Preventing Misused Hyphens

      514. Not after a prefix unless an exception applies

      515. Not in place of an em-dash, even when doubled (--)

      516. Not with an -ly adverb and a participial adjective

      517. Not in a phrasal verb

      The Apostrophe

      Using Apostrophes

      518. To indicate the possessive case

      519. To mark a contraction or to signal dialectal speech

      520. To form plurals of letters, digits, and some abbreviations

      Preventing Misused Apostrophes

      521. Not to form other plurals, especially of names

      522. Not to omit obligatory apostrophes

      Quotation Marks

      Using Quotation Marks

      523. To quote matter of 50 or fewer words

      524. When using a term as a term or when defining a term

      525. When you mean so-called or but-not-really

      526. For titles of short-form works, according to a style guide

      527. To show internal quotation using single marks

      528. To signal matter used idiomatically, not literally

      529. Placed correctly in relation to other punctuation

      Preventing Misused Quotation Marks

      530. Not for a phrasal adjective

      531. Not to emphasize a word or note its informality

      The Question Mark

      Using Question Marks

      532. After a direct question

      Preventing Misused Question Marks

      533. Not after an indirect question

      The Exclamation Mark

      Using Exclamation Marks

      534. After exclamatory matter, especially when quoting others

      Preventing Misused Exclamation Marks

      535. Not to express your own surprise or amazement

      The Period

      Using Periods

      536. To end a typical sentence, not a question or exclamation

      537. To indicate an abbreviated name or title

      538. Placed properly with parentheses and brackets

      539. To show a decimal place in a numeral

      Preventing Misused Periods

      540. Not with an abbreviation at sentence end

      Brackets

      Using Brackets

      541. In a quotation, to enclose matter not in the original

      542. In parenthetical matter, to enclose another parenthetical

      543. To enclose the citation of a source, as in a footnote

      Preventing Misused Brackets

      544. Not in place of ellipsis dots when matter is deleted

      The Slash (Virgule)

      Using Slashes

      545. To separate alternatives (but never and/or)

      546. To separate numerical parts in a fraction

      547. Informally, to separate elements in a date

      548. Informally, as a shorthand signal for per

      549. To separate lines of poetry or of a song

      Preventing Misused Slashes

      550. Not when a hyphen or en-dash would suffice

      Bullets

      551. To mark listed items of a more or less equal ranking

      Ellipsis Dots

      Using Ellipsis Dots

      552. To show that an unfinished sentence trails off

      553. To signal rumination, musing, or hesitation

      554. To signal an omission of matter within a quotation

      555. With following period, to show omission at sentence end

      556. With preceding period, to show omission after sentence

      Preventing Misused Ellipsis Dots

      557. Omitting space or allowing a line break between dots

      558. Beginning a quotation with ellipsis dots

      Select Glossary

      Notes

      Sources for Inset Quotations

      Select Bibliography

      Acknowledgments

      Word Index

      General Index

      Pronunciation Guide

      Introduction

      1   The field of grammar.

      In its usual sense, grammar is the set of rules governing how words are put together in sentences to communicate ideas—or the study of these rules. Native speakers of a language learn them unconsciously. The rules govern most constructions in any given language. The small minority of constructions that lie outside these rules fall mostly into the category of idiom and customary usage.

      It [the doctrine of usage] asserts that Good use is the general, present-day practice of the best writers. One bone we could pick would be with that best. How are they the best writers except by using the words in the best ways? We settle that they are the best writers because we find them using their words successfully. We do not settle that theirs is the right, the good usage of the words because they use them so. Never was there a crazier case of putting the cart before the horse. It is as though we were to maintain that apples are healthy because wise people eat them, instead of recognizing that it is the other way about—that it is what the food will do for us which makes us eat it, not the fact that we eat it which makes it good food.

      —I. A. Richards

      The Philosophy of Rhetoric

      There are many schools of grammatical thought—and differing vocabularies for describing grammar. Grammatical theories have been in upheaval in recent years. Seemingly the more we learn, the less we know. As the illustrious editor in chief of the Oxford English Dictionary wrote in 1991: An entirely adequate description of English grammar is still a distant target and at present seemingly an unreachable one, the complications being what they are.¹ In fact, the more detailed the grammar (it can run to many large volumes), the less likely it is to be of any practical use to most writers and speakers.

      Grammar should be an attempt to describe the English language as it is actually used—beginning with the facts and not with ingrained biases about what should and should not be considered grammatical. But that’s not the whole story. Describe English, yes—but whose English? The traditional view of English grammar is that it should record the linguistic habits of refined speakers and writers: the best English, or standard literary English shorn of dialect and idioms that typify the language of uneducated speakers. It is the type of English, in other words, that marks its user as an educated speaker or writer. It can be found in the pages of reputable newsmagazines and nonfiction books (and much fiction, too, but less reliably so because of the utility of dialectal usage in dialogue and experimental usage within narrative).

      Not everyone aspires to the standard language—and as a result our culture becomes more varied and interesting. But anyone who does aspire to it will find that it can be cultivated, partly through wide reading of serious writing and partly through close study of its techniques. Although nobody speaks or writes standard literary English infallibly—just as nobody behaves or exercises judgment infallibly—good English exists as certainly as good behavior and good judgment do.

      2   Who killed grammar?

      During the 141 years from 1711 through 1851, grammars were among the most popular books published in English. There were hundreds of them. Seemingly every English-speaking household had, at a minimum, a Bible and a grammar. Lindley Murray, sometimes called the father of English grammar,² sold some 15 million copies of his English Grammar and other literary books from 1795 to 1840.³ In 1851, Goold Brown’s humongous Grammar of English Grammars appeared, occupying 1,102 pages on the subject.

      For the rest of the 19th century, the teaching of grammar was fairly stable. The top names in school grammars after 1850 were John Seely Hart,⁴ Allen Hayden Weld,⁵ Thomas N. Harvey,⁶ Simon Kerl,⁷ and William H. Maxwell.⁸ The dawn of the 20th century saw the rise of the first scholarly grammars and college grammars, still along the line of traditional grammars but somewhat more elaborate and standardized. Among the leading texts through the mid-20th century were those by Henry Sweet,⁹ George Lyman Kittredge and Frank Edgar Farley,¹⁰ Otto Jespersen,¹¹ Janet Rankin Aiken,¹² and George O. Curme.¹³

      A campaign against traditional grammar had started by the early 20th century. In 1910 a leading commentator wrote:

      What was the meaning of the reaction against the study of formal Grammar of the Lindley Murray type? The main count against it was that it failed of practical results; failed as a communicable art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety,—to quote the Murray definition. The endless formalities of rule and precept were found to be wasteful burdens of knowledge unrelated to practice.¹⁴

      What was not then known was that nothing better would replace traditional grammar—at least nothing better that might still be comprehensible to the educated public in general, and nothing related to the teaching of composition.

      By the early 20th century there was a drumbeat of dissatisfaction with the doctrine of grammatical correctness. Things like the parts of speech and sentence diagramming were criticized—mostly among expert linguists, not practical teachers. New schools of thought arose, each with its own nomenclature and classification system.¹⁵ That trend has only continued in the years since.

      Between charges that it was not being taught and should be taught and charges that it was being taught and should not be, grammar has had a very bad time of it for more than a quarter of a century.

      —Bertrand Evans

      Grammar and Writing

      Some saw growing standardization as outright dogmatism, and in 1927 Charles Carpenter Fries, in his Teaching of the English Language, urged the overthrow of the traditional view¹⁶ of correctness as determined by the rules of conventional school grammars. He wanted to jettison past methods: "For more than a century good English has been one of the major concerns of our educational system. . . . [Yet] we do not by any means agree as to what this good English is."¹⁷ Fries was an influential voice, and over time—with the backing of the National Council of Teachers of English—the grammatical putsch succeeded.

      By the mid-20th century, the structural linguists—also known as generative grammarians—rose with a wholly new way of describing the English language: transformational grammar. Unlike traditional grammar, this new discipline was not a didactic system to help students use good grammar—in fact, the linguists no longer believed in good grammar or in using grammar as a vehicle for teaching English composition. They came to believe that if a native speaker utters a sentence, it is necessarily appropriate to the speaker’s dialect. They sought to record linguistic structures and describe syntax dispassionately and scientifically—usually with no preference for Standard Written English over regional and class dialects.

      Transformational grammar was a descriptive method based on a theory first proposed by the linguist Noam Chomsky in 1957.¹⁸ Chomsky sought to describe how people produce and understand original sentences without formally learning rules for grammatical structures. According to his original theory, native speakers assimilate the natural rules of the language and internalize them. Transformational grammar attempts to describe those internal rules by first looking at a sentence’s structure and then deriving a formulalike rule or a tree diagram to show how a sentence or sentence part is formed. Sporadic, mostly unsuccessful attempts to teach grade-school children English using transformational grammar were made during the 1960s and early 1970s. Today it is taught mostly in colleges and graduate schools. Outside linguistics, transformational grammar is used mostly in computer-language-processing applications. It has an alien look and feel to traditionalists, but it can convey interesting insights into how the language works (see §§ 365–413).

      In the late 20th century, it was common for the high-school and college courses that still taught grammar to treat it on dual tracks: traditional grammar plus transformational grammar.

      Since then, no clear consensus has been reached, and the more advanced grammars have become so specialized and jargon-filled as to be incomprehensible to all but other specialists. In the mid-1980s, the literary critic Christopher Ricks observed that many modern grammarians express themselves in a manner as inviting as a tall wall bottled-spiked.¹⁹ About the same time, Robert W. Burchfield, then editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, said that this impenetrable grammatical gobbledygook had led to an unrelieved intellectual apartheid that left most educated speakers of English disastrously uninformed and uninstructed.²⁰

      Small wonder that the subject is hardly studied today—given that many of these moderns call themselves grammaticographers who study grammaticology.²¹ And small wonder that the grammatical heyday of the 18th and 19th centuries remains a dim memory on the literary landscape—an implausible past in which grammars were exceeded in sales only by the Bible.

      In 1952 a bewildered and frustrated Harry C. Warfel, professor of English at the University of Florida, wrote Who Killed Grammar?, in which he detailed the demise of the subject in American secondary schools and colleges—laying blame mostly at the feet of Fries.²² Together with other linguists, Fries had succeeded in divorcing grammatical learning from the pedagogy of English composition. The sad saga was updated and elaborated in an excellent 2003 book by David Mulroy: The War Against Grammar.²³

      In any event, grammar was never killed—even if it was wounded. It is very much alive, as evidenced by the interest you’re showing at this very moment. Your own learning about grammar will help hasten its recovery.

      3   Why study grammar?

      Perhaps the most important reason for learning about grammar is that language is basic to almost everything we do—and the more nearly you can master it, the more effectively you’ll think, speak, and write. You’ll be more aware of ideas and how they’re expressed. You’ll make finer distinctions. A knowledge of grammar is fundamental to critical thinking.

      We cannot know too much about the language we speak every day of our lives.

      —Simeon Potter

      Our Language

      You’ll also find that a knowledge of grammar and usage opens up doors for you. Without it, your opportunities in life would be limited. That’s true in any culture and with every language—and it’s true of English-speaking countries. If you’re an ambitious speaker of English, you’ll want to learn Standard Written English. You’ll find a richer appreciation of English literature, and you’ll benefit in ways both tangible and intangible—ways that you can’t possibly appreciate until you’ve gained the knowledge.

      An illustrative story: Many biographers of Abraham Lincoln have noted his early preoccupation with Samuel Kirkham’s English Grammar in Familiar Lectures (1820). When he first heard about the book, Lincoln walked six miles to get a copy.²⁴ He burned pine shavings in a blacksmith shop so that he could read it at night.²⁵ He committed whole sections of the book to memory, often wheedling friends into quizzing him.²⁶ He wanted to learn to speak well and write well. And so he did: he is widely considered the foremost orator and writer ever to have served as president of the United States.

      The title page of the very copy of Kirkham’s English Grammar used by Abraham Lincoln. Mounted inside the front cover is a promissory note for $30 witnessed by Abraham Lincoln as agent.

      Courtesy: Library of Congress

      Another story—a little less sublime: A professor acquaintance of mine had a college student who was determined to teach Greek philosophy. But the student couldn’t pass his first semester of Greek. The professor told the student what his problem was: he didn’t know the first thing about English grammar. (Other profs had said he just lacked innate ability.) After taking a couple of courses in English grammar, which he found challenging, the student tried again and succeeded with distinction. In fact, he went on to study medieval Latin as well. That competence, combined with his mastery of Greek, was decisive in getting him a good college teaching post the same year he earned his Ph.D. Today his academic career is flourishing. Both he and his advisers declare that English grammar paved the way.

      Your own path will be unlike those. It will assuredly be unique. But one thing is certain: in the long term, your acquiring Standard Written English will only help you reach your most ambitious goals. Wear it lightly. Be practical, not pedantic. Seek to be astute in the way you handle language. In addition to speaking well and writing well, learn to listen well. You’ll perceive more. And listen sympathetically.

      4   Overview of the book.

      As traditionally understood, grammar is both a science and an art. Often, it has focused—as part I of this book does—on parts of speech (or word classes). Each part of speech performs a particular function in a sentence or phrase. Traditional grammar has held that there are eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.²⁷ Some grammars have added a ninth: articles.²⁸ But as you’ll soon discover (see § 5), reckonings vary.

      The first 285 sections of this book deal with the traditional eight; each part of speech is discussed in some detail. The purpose here is to sketch some of the main lines of English grammar using mostly traditional grammatical terms.

      Part II deals with syntax: the rules governing the arrangement of words and phrases into sentences. Traditional grammarians classified sentences into four types according to their purposes (statements, questions, directives, and exclamations), as well as four structural types according to the structure of clauses (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex). More modern grammarians have isolated seven fundamental patterns into which English sentences can be classified by word order. Part II explains these ideas along with the basics of sentence diagramming and the newer sentence trees of transformational grammar.

      In part III we take up the subject of word formation, also known as morphology: the study of how small word-units known as morphemes compose words.

      The multifariously detailed questions of English usage occupy part IV. The customary forms and meanings of words and phrases are constantly and often imperceptibly shifting. Some speakers and writers push words in new directions, often unconsciously; others resist and reject these innovations, often (in the long run) to no avail. But undesirable linguistic changes needn’t—and shouldn’t—be immediately acquiesced in. The usage glossary here presented gives a snapshot of the language as it stands today: a compilation of editorial judgments that experienced copyeditors make routinely.

      More than that, though, part IV contains an unprecedented degree of empirical evidence in the form of Google ngrams, which reflect big data as applied to Standard Written English. These ngrams show the relative frequency in print of two or more competing forms. So let’s say that someone is arguing that *between him and I should be accepted as standard—there are such people.²⁹ And let’s say that our disputatious friend cites outlier instances in literature of *between him and I (it should be between him and me, of course—each pronoun being the object of a preposition). An ngram will show relative frequencies in massive amounts of literature—more than 5.2 million books from 1500 on—to assess the truth or falsity, or maybe just the plausibility, of the contention. It’s also possible to calculate ratios of use through time. Here’s what we find:

      1820 Ratio of Frequency in Printed Books: 93:1

      2008 Ratio of Frequency in Printed Books: 53:1

      Even a ratio of 3:1 would be enough to establish serious predominance—and perhaps enough to declare (depending on the usage involved) the less-frequent form nonstandard. But anything more than 20:1 is powerful, objective evidence that the traditionally stigmatized form is in no position to be declared Standard Written English. In fact, many of the instances of its appearance in the database are probably owing to discussions of its ungrammatical nature.

      Or consider a related construction—one I heard a television broadcaster use just as this book was being readied for publication—*Him and I are good friends. Because both pronouns are subjects of the plural verb are, they should both be in the subjective case. A few language commentators will hear such instances and opine that this phrasing has become standard. They may go so far as to say that English is gradually losing its declension of pronouns altogether—a highly indefensible position. Let’s see what the ngram tells us about instances of He and I are (educated usage) and *Him and I are (uneducated usage)—from 1500 to the present day:

      2008 Ratio of Frequency in Printed Books: 109:1

      The frequency ratio of 109:1 in printed books just from the latest year we can now use, 2008, provides powerful evidence that Standard Written English is hardly on the brink of a shift toward acceptance of the nonstandard form.

      This previously unavailable big-data tool allows us to gauge questions of English in a way never before possible, so that judgments about standard forms are based on something more than one person’s lifetime of reading and study, however reliable that may have been. Some 67 of these ngrams appear in part IV, where they are further explained. You may well find that they make part IV compulsively browsable.

      Part V consists of a full restatement of the principles of English punctuation. Each principle is illustrated with verbatim examples drawn from writers of high repute. No writer, of course, is infallible in either usage or punctuation, but these sentences illustrate sound instances of punctuation. And the illustrations’ great variety contributes piquancy to what is often a dry topic.

      The select glossary (see pp. 401–89) isn’t to be overlooked. Learners of any subject—your author included—benefit tremendously from treating it partly as an exercise in vocabulary-building. Learning the terminology of grammar represents a huge step toward mastering the subject as a whole. Hence I have gone into more detail in the glossary than many readers might have expected. Try browsing through it from time to time as you’re reading or consulting the book. You’ll find that the terminology is like good wine: once you get a taste for it, you’ll start picking up the nuances.

      Throughout the text are inset quotations in shaded boxes. You’ve already encountered some. These quotations are intended to enrich the discussions with insights from writers and commentators of the past—most of them linguists and grammarians whose statements reinforce the basic message of the book: that linguistic study can be both practical and enjoyable. For the precise sources of these quotations, see pp. 491–95.

      In most but not all ways, this book conforms to the recommendations found in The Chicago Manual of Style. I take a somewhat different stance, for example, on commas after years in month-day-year-style dates, recommending their omission when the date is used adjectivally (§ 458); on en-dashes, recommending them for expressing tension or pairing as well as for numerical ranges (§ 503); and on ellipsis dots, recommending a space before the first of four dots if the elision occurs in midsentence as opposed to after a sentence’s end (§ 555). Naturally, all the grammatical discussions and usage recommendations line up closely with chapter 5 of the Chicago Manual—given that I am the author of that chapter.

      Beware the naysayers who tell you that learning Standard Written English will stifle your creativity or cause you to write correct but bloodless prose. This common concern is a slight one at best. The truth is that without Standard Written English, it will be all but impossible to produce incredibly clear, beautiful, alive, urgent, crackling-with-voltage prose.³⁰ That’s not a bad description of what you might ultimately aim for—though the first step is straightforward and simple clarity.

      Pursue your interest in words and in writing well—together with their many settled conventions. You may find that you’ve changed the direction of your life. As one of my multilingual friends likes to say, fall in love with language, and it will love you back.

      I. The Traditional Parts of Speech

      5   How did we arrive at the canonical eight?

      The traditional grammarian’s approach to parts of speech is often attributed to an ancient of some renown: Dionysios Thrax, who lived in the second century B.C.¹ In Téknē Grammatiké (or The Grammatical Art), he listed eight parts of speech: noun, verb, participle, article, pronoun, preposition, adverb, conjunction. These categories were long accepted by Greek, by Roman, and later by European grammarians—and there were scores of them (hence only some highlights here).

      The Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus, who lived in the fourth century A.D., wrote Ars Grammatica—a book that gained great popularity into the Middle Ages. His eight parts of speech were slightly different from those of Dionysios:

      Both classified nouns and adjectives together—Dionysios because the two have the same kinds of inflectional endings in Greek, Donatus presumably because he was influenced by predecessors such as Dionysios. But Donatus dropped articles (Latin has none) and separated interjections from adverbs.

      A zoologist who divided animals into invertebrates, mammals, and beasts of burden would not get very far before running into trouble. Yet the traditional grammar is guilty of the same error when it defines three parts of speech on the basis of meaning (noun, verb, and interjection), four more on the basis of function (adjective, adverb, pronoun, conjunction), and one partly on function and partly on form (preposition). The result is that in such an expression as a dog’s life there can be endless futile argument about whether dog’s is a noun or an adjective.

      —W. Nelson Francis

      Revolution in Grammar

      The Donatus model was followed by other early influential grammarians, such as Priscian, who lived in the fifth century A.D.³ So influential was Priscian that he gave us the phrase to break Priscian’s head, meaning to use bad grammar. In Renaissance England, a schoolboy learning Latin might be scolded when he mistranslated a phrase from English into Latin, No, William, you’re breaking Priscian’s head!

      So influential was Latin grammar in England that English grammars were sparse until the 18th century. But Shakespeare’s main rival, Ben Jonson (1572–1637), wrote a grammar that was published in 1640,⁴ three years after his death. Jonson counted in our English speech . . . the same parts with the Latins⁵—that is, eight. His list was that of Donatus (though Jonson’s direct influence was Priscian). But then he added another: articles.⁶

      When English grammars began to proliferate in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was great variability in grammarians’ counts of parts of speech. In 1711, James Greenwood repeated Donatus’s fourth-century roster.⁷ Others of the time replicated it.⁸ Still other grammarians, however, counted only four—among these being John Entick,⁹ Thomas Dyche,¹⁰ Anne Fisher,¹¹ and James Harris.¹² Some had the number swell to nine (by adding articles, as Ben Jonson had done in 1640)¹³ or ten (by adding adjectives).¹⁴ There was simply no consensus.

      Not until 1761 did any grammarian settle on the eight that became the canonical parts of speech in English. He was the same man who discovered oxygen: Joseph Priestley (1733–1804). In his Rudiments of English Grammar, he listed these:

      • noun

      • adjective

      • pronoun

      • verb

      • adverb

      • preposition

      • conjunction

      • interjection¹⁵

      Even so, it took another 80 years or so for those eight to be firmly accepted—perhaps because the categories fluidly relate to form and function. That is, some words are called nouns because they usually function that way, but of course they can often function as adjectives and verbs as well. And any part of speech can function as an interjection. So it’s not a perfect taxonomy.

      The influential Robert Lowth counted nine in 1762 by adding articles;¹⁶ John Fell followed those nine in 1784;¹⁷ so did George Neville Ussher in 1785¹⁸ and the highly influential Lindley Murray in 1795.¹⁹ But more grammarians of that period counted ten by adding participles to the mix: Rowland Jones in 1771,²⁰ Ellin Devis in 1775,²¹ Ralph Harrison in 1777,²² Caleb Bingham in 1785,²³ E. Harrold in 1804,²⁴ Lady Eleanor Fenn in 1790,²⁵ John Hutchins in 1791,²⁶ Caleb Alexander in 1792,²⁷ Thomas Coar in 1796,²⁸ Duncan Mackintosh (with his two daughters) in 1797,²⁹ Daniel Staniford in 1797,³⁰ Jane Gardiner in 1799,³¹ David Gurney in 1801,³² Alexander Crombie in 1802,³³ and John Comly in 1803.³⁴ These grammarians were doubtless aware of one another’s work to one degree or another.

      Some Americans were mavericks. In 1782, Robert Ross wrote The American Grammar with the help of Aaron Burr (the president of Yale College and father to the future vice president and killer of Alexander Hamilton). They counted eight parts of speech in both English and Latin but then speculated: Since all Discourse must be about Things, their Properties, Actions, and Relations; were it not for long established Custom, we might divide Speech into four Parts, viz. Noun, Adnoun [i.e., adjective], Verb, and Participle.³⁵ Two years later, Noah Webster, more famous as a lexicographer than as a grammarian, counted six parts of speech.³⁶ But he was long-lived, and in his final grammar nearly 50 years later, he counted seven—the conventional eight minus interjections.³⁷ The most extreme examples were James Brown, who in his 1820 American Grammar counted thirty-three,³⁸ and William S. Balch, who in 1838 counted only two (nouns and verbs).³⁹

      This little survey only skims the surface. By 1801 there were 297 different listings of English parts of speech accounting for a total of 58 varieties.⁴⁰ By the 1840s, however, a consensus was gradually emerging for Priestley’s eight:

      • noun

      • pronoun

      • adjective

      • verb

      • adverb

      • preposition

      • conjunction

      • interjection⁴¹

      The variants gradually became outliers among mainstay school grammars.

      Even in recent years, though, the categories aren’t fully settled: modern grammarians have set the number at three,⁴² four,⁴³ six,⁴⁴ seven,⁴⁵ eight (the traditional number),⁴⁶ nine,⁴⁷ ten,⁴⁸ eleven,⁴⁹ twelve,⁵⁰ and nineteen.⁵¹ One says there is no definitive answer.⁵² In this way, parts of speech are rather like the biologist’s species and genera: they are human constructs that aren’t immutable.

      In the discussion that follows, we examine the canonical eight with full knowledge that the classifications aren’t airtight.

      Nouns

      Traditional Classifications

      6   Nouns generally.

      A noun is a word that names something, whether abstract (intangible) or concrete (tangible). It may be a common noun (the name of a generic class or type of person, place, thing, process, activity, or condition) or a proper noun (the name of a specific person, place, or thing—hence capitalized). A concrete noun may be a count noun (if what it names can be counted—as with horses or cars) or a mass noun (if what it names is uncountable or collective—as with information or salt). A noun-equivalent is a phrase or clause that serves the function of a noun in a sentence {to serve your country is honorable} {bring anyone you like}. Nouns and noun-equivalents are collectively called substantives or (especially throughout this book) noun elements.

      7   Common nouns.

      A common noun is the generic name of one item in a class or group {a chemical} {a river} {a pineapple}. It is not capitalized unless it begins a sentence or appears in a title. A common noun is usually used with a determiner—that is, an article or other word (e.g., some, few) that indicates the number and definiteness of the noun element {a loaf} {the day} {some person}. Common nouns are often analyzed into three subcategories: concrete nouns, abstract nouns, and collective nouns. A concrete noun is solid or real; it indicates something perceptible to the physical senses {a building} {the wind} {honey}. An abstract noun denotes something you cannot physically see, touch, taste, hear, or smell {joy} {expectation} {neurosis}. A collective noun—which can be viewed as a concrete noun but is often separately categorized—refers to a group or collection of people or things {a crowd of people} {a flock of birds} {a herd of rhinos}. See § 10.

      8   Proper nouns.

      A proper noun is the name of a specific person, place, or thing {John Doe} {Moscow} {the Hope Diamond}, or the title of a movie {Citizen Kane}, a play {Death of a Salesman}, a book {Oliver Twist}, a newspaper or magazine {The New Yorker}, a piece of music {U2’s All Because of You}, a painting {Mona Lisa}, a sculpture {The Kiss}, or any other publication, performance, or work of art. Proper nouns may be singular {Mary} {London} or plural {the Great Lakes} {the Twin Cities}. A proper noun is always capitalized, regardless of how it is used—unless someone is purposely flouting the rules {k.d. lang}. A common noun may become a proper noun {Old Hickory} {the Big Easy}, and sometimes a proper noun may be used figuratively and informally, as if it were a common noun {like Moriarty, he is a Napoleon of crime}. Proper nouns may be compounded when used as a unit to name something {the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel} {Saturday Evening Post}. Over time, some proper nouns (called eponyms) have developed common-noun counterparts, such as sandwich (from the Earl of Sandwich) and china (the porcelain, from the nation China). Articles and other determiners are used with proper nouns only when the last part of the noun is a common noun or the determiner provides emphasis {the Savoy Hotel} {Sam? I knew a Sam Hill once}.

      9   Count nouns.

      A count noun has singular and plural forms and expresses discrete, enumerable things {dictionary–dictionaries} {hoof–hooves} {newspaper–newspapers}. As the subject of a sentence, a singular count noun takes a singular verb {the jar is full}; a plural count noun takes a plural verb {the jars are full}.

      10   Collective nouns.

      A collective noun denotes an aggregate of individuals or things but is itself grammatically singular in form {group} {team} {flock} {herd}. For purposes of verb and pronoun agreement, however, collective nouns may be treated as either singular or plural, depending on whether the emphasis is on the constituent members acting as a unified whole {the committee meets on Tuesday to announce its decision} or, less commonly in American English (AmE), individually {the committee are debating their decision}. The general preference in AmE is to treat collective nouns as singular; the opposite is true in British English (BrE). But when collective nouns appear in expressions of multitude (see below), they are generally treated as plural.

      11   Expressions of multitude.

      In constructions such as a bunch of amateurs, a collective noun expresses multitude, rather than signifying a unified group. Grammarians call collective nouns functioning this way quantifying collectives. (But some of the most common expressions of multitude use quantifying determiners in place of collectives: number, lot, couple, and few don’t function like collective nouns in other contexts.) Such constructions place the quantifying collective or determiner between an indefinite article (a or an) and a postmodifying of-phrase using a plural or mass noun {a host of problems} {a group of doctors} {a set of stemware} {a lot of questions}.

      As with collective nouns generally, syntax with expressions of multitude is governed by meaning and not by strict grammar—a phenomenon known as synesis or notional concord. (See § 186.) So while lone collective nouns typically signify the group as a unit and hence are treated as singular, nouns of multitude are distributive: verbs and pronouns must agree in number with the noun following of, not the singular noun of multitude preceding it.

      If the noun following of is plural (as

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