WHEN BAD GRAMMAR HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE

WHEN BAD GRAMMAR HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE

❑ The function of a noun is to name something: a person, a
place, an object, or an idea. “Basketball” and “relationship” are
nouns.
❑ The function of a pronoun is to stand in for a noun.
“Which” and “she” are pronouns.
❑ The function of a verb is to describe an action or a state of
being. “Run” and “is” are verbs.
❑ The function of an adjective is to modify the meaning of a
noun or pronoun. “Blue” and “cheery” are adjectives.
❑ The function of an adverb is to modify the meaning of a
noun, an adjective, or another adverb. “Swiftly” and “very” are
adverbs.
❑ The function of a preposition is to express the relationship
between a noun or a pronoun and certain other words in
the sentence. “Inside” and “under” are prepositions.
❑ The function of a conjunction is to join together words or
phrases. “And” and “but” are conjunctions.
❑ The function of an interjection is to express excitement
and emotion independently from the other words in the sentence.
“Hey” and “oh” are interjections.
This idea of function is critical when identifying the various
parts of speech, because many words have more than one
possible role. In other words, you can’t simply take our 500,000-
plus English words and divide them into eight categories for the
various parts of speech. It’s a little trickier than that. Some
nouns, for example, love to get dressed up and go parading
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Grammar Review
around as verbs and adjectives. Some adverbs and prepositions
have passports that allow them to cross each other’s borders.
And a lot of pronouns moonlight as adjectives. So the important
thing is not to think in terms of a permanent relationship between
a given word and a part of speech—only some of them believe
in “’til death do us part”—but instead to look at what role that
word is playing in the particular sentence in question.
Here’s an example of how one word, in this case, “love,”
can have several different functions:
As a noun: He wrote a book about love.
As a verb: I love eating out.
As an adjective: She read a love poem.
All right now, roll up your sleeves and let’s dig into each of
the eight parts of speech. We’ll start with nouns, pronouns, and
verbs, the parts that really do the heavy lifting within a senten