English - Language

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Random list of specific nouns

carcasses

saxophone

billboards

pine trees

daffodils

lawn

sandals

ice cube

firefly

macaws

Random list of verbs

slice

dice

chop

whip

broil

marinate

simmer

bake

coat

steam

Making sentences :

1.The tall PINE TREES, clustered together in a tight circle, WHIPPED each other ferociously in the heavy winds.

2. The pirates’ MACAWS SLICED the air with their shrill shrieks of evil laughter.

3. The CARCASSES of recent road kill MARINATED in the hot sun, causing a sickening odor.

4. The spilled oil COATED even the EARTHWORMS buried deep in the sludge.

5. The offensive BILLBOARDS CHOPPED up the otherwise scenic view.

6. The SAXOPHONE music heated up the snooty socialites until their emotions were BROILING with excitement.

7. The ICE CUBES STEAMED the glass of freshly brewed tea.

8. My SANDALS, covered with multiple criss-crossing straps, DICED my feet into neat little shapes and sections.

9. Appearing to hang suspended in mid-air, the FIREFLIES SIMMERED in the hot muggy night.

10. Our unwatered LAWN BAKED to a burnt crust in just one month.

Parts of Speech. Old-fashioned grammars stated quite straightforwardly that there were eight parts of speech:

Verbs, which show action or states of being: go, talk, eradicate, be, exist, and so on.

Nouns, which can be people, places, or things: Napoleon, Pittsburgh, table, eagerness.

Pronouns, which “stand in for” a noun: he, she, it, they, that.

Adjectives, which modify a noun or pronoun: big, sleepy, stupid, dilatory.

Adverbs, which modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs: easily, obviously, very.

Prepositions, which indicate the relationship between various elements in a sentence: to, with, from.

Conjunctions, which link (conjoin) parts of a sentence: and, but, or, because, if, although.

Plurals. Plural means “more than one.” English handles these things more simply than many languages.

You already know the basic rules: most nouns take an s or es at the end; singular nouns ending in y usually end in ies in the plural.

Our adjectives don't change form at all. There are a handful of irregular nouns — child, children; woman, women — but native speakers learn the important ones early, and non-native speakers can find a list of them easily enough.

A few exceptions require special care. In some noun phrases, the “head noun” gets the plural, even if it's not at the end of the noun phrase: mothers in law, attorneys general, courts martial. (Such forms may be disappearing, but they're still preferred.)

Resist the urge to put an apostrophe before the s in a plural, whether in common or proper nouns.

Apostrophe.

The most common way to form a possessive in English is with apostrophe and s: “a hard day's night.” After a plural noun ending in s, put just an apostrophe: “two hours' work” (i.e., “the work of two hours”).

If a plural doesn't end in s — children, men, people — plain old apostrophe-s: “children's,” “men's,” “people's.” It's never “mens'” or “childrens'.”

There's also the opposite case: when a singular noun ends in s. That's a little trickier. Most style guides prefer s's: James's house. Plain old s-apostrophe (as in James' house) is common in journalism,

Note that, with the exception of the little-used one, the possessives of pronouns never get apostrophes: theirs, not their's; hers, not her's; its, not it's.

It's versus Its - There's no shortcut; all you can do is memorize the rule.

It's with an apostrophe means it is (or, a little less often and a little less formally, it has); its without an apostrophe means belonging to it. An analogue might provide a mnemonic: think of “he's” (“he is” gets an apostrophe) and “his” (“belonging to him” doesn't).

What about its', with the apostrophe after the s? — Never, never, never. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not in this language, you don't. Its, “belonging to it”; it's, it is. That's all.

A or An. Use an in place of a when it precedes a vowel sound, not just a vowel. That means it's “an honor” (the h is silent), but “a UFO” (because it's pronounced yoo eff oh).

Most of the confusion with a or an arises from acronyms and other abbreviations: some people think it's wrong to use an in front of an abbreviation like “MRI” because “an” can only go before vowels. Not so: the sound, not the letter, is what matters. Because you pronounce it “em ar eye,” it's “an MRI.”

One tricky case comes up from time to time: is it “a historic occasion” or “an historic occasion”? Some speakers favor the latter — more British than American speakers, but you'll find them in both places — using an on longish words (three or more syllables) beginning with h, where the first syllable isn't accented. They'd say, for instance, “a hístory textbook” (accent on the first syllable) but “an históric event.” (Likewise “a hábit” but “an habítual offender,” “a hýpothetical question” but “an hypóthesis.”) Still, most guides prefer a before any h that's sounded: “a historic occasion,” “a hysterical joke,” “a habitual offender” — but “an honor” and “an hour” because those h's aren't sounded.

Verbs. A verb is a part of speech that shows action or a state of being. Some examples: talk, worry, demonstrate, exist, calibrate, and be.

If you spot a verb “in the wild,” you can classify it according to a number of categories:

The person indicates who or what is doing the action, whether the speaker, the addressee, or someone or something else.

The number indicates how many people or things are doing the action, whether one or many.

The tense indicates the time of the action, which can be past, present, or future.

The voice indicates whether the subject of the clause is acting or being acted upon.

Active verbs can be either transitive or intransitive, that is, they may take a direct object or they may not.

The aspect indicates whether the action was completed, is continuing, starts and stops, and so on.

The mood indicates something like the way the action is viewed — whether it actually happened, or might have happened, or should happen, and so on; it can be indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative, and so on.

Adjectives and Adverbs. An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun: it answers which one, how many, or what kind.

Some examples: “the big one”; “seven books”; “a devoted student.” (Most adjectives can also go in the predicate position after the verb: “This one is big; “That student is devoted.”)

Adverbs, on the other hand, usually modify verbs, and answer in what manner, to what degree, when, how, how many times, and so forth. Some examples: “He ran quickly”; “I'll do it soon”; “We went twice.”

Sometimes adverbs modify not verbs but adjectives or other adverbs: “She finished very quickly” (very modifies the adverb quickly, which in turn modifies the verb finished); “The work was clearly inadequate” (clearly modifies the adjective inadequate, which in turn modifies work).

The easiest way to spot adverbs is to look for the telltale -ly suffix. Be careful, though; not all adverbs end in -ly, and not all -ly words are adverbs. Soon, twice, and never, for instance, are adverbs (they tell when or how often); friendly, ugly, and northerly are adjectives (they modify nouns).

Articles.English has two sorts of articles: the definite article (the), and indefinite articles (a and an). They function more or less as adjectives.

Capitalization. It's customary to capitalize:

The first word of a sentence;

The first word in a line of poetry;

The major words in the title of a work;

Proper nouns (names), including most adjectives derived from proper nouns (Spanish from Spain, Freudian from Freud);

Personal titles when they come before a name (Mr. Smith, Ms. Jones, Dr. X, Captain Beefheart, Reverend Gary Davis, Grand Vizier Lynch);

All (or most) letters in an abbreviation (NASA, MRI).

Conjunctions. Conjunctions — the word comes from conjoin, “put together” — are little words that connect various elements in a sentence. They come in two flavors. You're probably familiar with the coordinating conjunctions: the most common are and, but, or, and nor. Coordinating conjunctions connect two things of the same kind: two nouns(“cats and dogs”), two verbs (“kicks or screams”), two adjectives (“short and sweet”), two adverbs (“quickly but carefully”), or even two independent clauses (“Dylan writes better songs, but Britney Spears sells more records”).

Confused Pairs.

Affect and effect

Alternate and alternative

Among and between

Anxious and eager

As and like

Assure, ensure, and insure

Climactic and climatic

Continual and continuous

E.g. and i.e.

Everyday and every day

Farther and further

Flammable and Inflammable

Imply and infer

Incredible and incredulous

It's and its

Lead and led

Lend and loan

Loath and loathe

Loose and lose

Orient and orientate

Principal and principle

Than and then

Who and whom

Whose and who's

Contractions. Contractions (such as it's, they're, aren't, don't) aren't wrong, but they're less formal than the expanded forms (it is, they are, are not, do not). Whether you use them, then, depends on context — which is to say, on audience. My own inclination is to be less rather than more formal in most college-level writing, but you'll have to judge that for yourself.

Direct and Indirect Objects. A direct object is the thing (or person) acted on by a transitive verb. The indirect object is used most often for the recipient in verbs of giving. Examples are clearer than definitions.

“I took the paper” — the paper is the direct object, because the verb took acts on the paper; the paper is the thing that was taken. “I called her this morning” — her is the direct object, because the verb called acts on her; her is the person who was called.

“I gave him my suggestions” is a bit more complicated. Here him is an indirect object, because him isn't the thing that was given; I gave suggestions, and I gave them to him. Suggestions is the direct object, him the indirect object.

Prepositions. Prepositions are usually little words that indicate direction, position, location, and so forth. Some examples: to, with, from, at, in, near, by, beside, and above.

A quick-and-dirty rule of thumb: you can usually recognize a preposition by putting it before the word he. If your ear tells you he should be him, the word might be a preposition. Thus to plus he becomes to him, so to is a preposition. (This doesn't help with verbs of action; show + he becomes show him. Still, it might help in some doubtful cases.)

Pronoun. A pronoun takes the place of a noun: it stands for (Latin pro-) a noun. Pronouns include he, it, her, me, “Bob gave Terry a memo Bob wrote, and Terry read the memo,”becomes “Bob gave Terry a memo he wrote, and she read it.”

possessive pronouns, such as my, hers, and its, which mean of something or belonging to something; and relative pronouns, such as whose and which

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