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English Grammar Workbook for "dummies" - Geraldine Woods

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English

Grammar

 

Workbook

 

FOR

 

DUMmIES

English

Grammar

 

Workbook

 

FOR

 

DUMmIES

by Geraldine Woods

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies®

Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

111 River St.

Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, 317-572-3447, fax 317-572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

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Library of Congress Control Number is available from the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7645-9932-3

ISBN-10: 0-7645-9932-1

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1B/SQ/QU/QW/IN

About the Author

Geraldine Woods began her education when teachers still supplied ink wells to their students. She credits her 35-year career as an English teacher to a set of ultra-strict nuns armed with thick grammar books. She lives in New York City, where with great difficulty she refrains from correcting signs containing messages such as “Bagel’s for sale.” She is the author of more than 40 books, including English Grammar For Dummies, Research Papers For Dummies, College Admission Essays For Dummies, and The SAT I Reasoning Test For Dummies.

Dedication

For the students who labor (and occasionally smile) in the grammar portion of my English classes.

Author’s Acknowledgments

I owe thanks to my colleagues at the Horace Mann School, who are always willing to discuss the finer points of grammar. I appreciate the work of Kristin DeMint, Sarah Faulkner, and Neil Johnson, editors whose attention and intelligence guided my writing. I also appreciate the efforts of Lisa Queen, my agent, and of Roxanne Cerda and Kathy Cox, Wiley acquisitions editors.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Composition Services

Project Editor: Kristin DeMint

Project Coordinator: Adrienne Martinez

Acquisitions Editor: Kathleen M. Cox

Layout and Graphics: Denny Hager,

Copy Editors: Sarah Faulkner, E. Neil Johnson

Stephanie D. Jumper, Lynsey Osborn,

Melanee Prendergast, Heather Ryan

Editorial Program Coordinator: Hanna K. Scott

Proofreaders: Leeann Harney, Jessica Kramer,

Technical Editor: Sue Williams, PhD

Henry Lazarek, Joe Niesen, Dwight Ramsey

Senior Editorial Manager: Jennifer Ehrlich

Indexer: Joan Griffitts

Editorial Assistant: Nadine Bell

Special Help

Cover Photos: © Getty Images

Michelle Hacker

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

 

 

 

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents at a Glance

 

Introduction.................................................................................

1

Part I: Laying Out the Concrete Slab: Grammar Basics....................

7

Chapter 1: Placing the Proper Verb in the Proper Place .........................................................................

9

Chapter 2: Matchmaker, Make Me a Match: Pairing Subjects and Verbs Correctly...........................

23

Chapter 3: Who Is She, and What Is It? The Lowdown on Pronouns...................................................

35

Chapter 4: Finishing What You Start: Writing Complete Sentences.....................................................

49

Part II: Mastering Mechanics ......................................................

65

Chapter 5: Exercising Comma Sense........................................................................................................

67

Chapter 6: Made You Look! Punctuation Marks That Demand Attention ...........................................

81

Chapter 7: One Small Mark, a Whole New Meaning: Apostrophes ......................................................

91

Chapter 8: “Let Me Speak!“ Quotation Marks .......................................................................................

101

Chapter 9: Hitting the Big Time: Capital Letters ..................................................................................

113

Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use .......

125

Chapter 10: The Case of It (And Other Pronouns) ...............................................................................

127

Chapter 11: Choosing the Best Pronoun for a Tricky Sentence .........................................................

141

Chapter 12: Traveling in Time: Tricky Verb-Tense Situations.............................................................

155

Chapter 13: Are You and Your Verbs in the Right Mood?....................................................................

167

Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions

 

and Comparisons ......................................................................

177

Chapter 14: Writing Good or Well: Adjectives and Adverbs ...............................................................

179

Chapter 15: Going on Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly........................................................

189

Chapter 16: For Better or Worse: Forming Comparisons....................................................................

205

Chapter 17: Apples and Oranges: Improper Comparisons .................................................................

215

Part V: Writing with Style.........................................................

227

Chapter 18: Practicing Parallel Structure..............................................................................................

229

Chapter 19: Spicing Up and Trimming Down Your Sentences ............................................................

243

Chapter 20: Steering Clear of Tricky Word Traps.................................................................................

255

Part VI: The Part of Tens...........................................................

267

Chapter 21: Ten Overcorrections ...........................................................................................................

269

Chapter 22: Ten Errors to Avoid at All Cost..........................................................................................

273

Appendix: Grabbing Grammar Goofs ..........................................

277

Index.......................................................................................

293