Grammar and vocabulary

An abstract noun

HintHope, freedom and fear are real, yet nothing you could hold in your hand.

The whyConcrete nouns name what the senses can meet; this kind names ideas. Both behave the same way in a sentence, which is why they share the wider label.

An auxiliary verb

HintThe helper in 'I am running' and 'Do you know?' — it props up the main action word.

The why'Be', 'have' and 'do' are the common ones; 'can', 'might' and 'should' are the modal kind. Spotting them is how you tell 'was walking' from 'walked'.

noun

HintIt is the thing the sentence is about — swap in 'it' and the line still works.

The whyA word carries no class of its own until it is used: 'swimming' names an activity here, describes in 'swimming pool', and states an action in 'she is swimming'. Test the job, not the ending.

A subordinate clause

HintIt leans on the main part — 'because it was raining' leaves you waiting for the rest.

The whyIt carries extra information — a reason, a time, a condition — and needs a main clause to attach to. That pairing makes a complex sentence.

It's

HintThe mark stands in for a missing letter — the possessive form has no mark at all.

The whyThe apostrophe marks the dropped 'i' of 'is'. Belonging-to-it takes no apostrophe, just as 'his' and 'hers' take none.

After the s: weeks'

HintRead it as notice OF two of them — the period of time owns the notice, and that owner is plural.

The whyTime and measure phrases take a possessive apostrophe because the period owns what follows: 'a day's delay', 'three months' pay'. The mark sits after the owner exactly as it is spelled, so a plural already ending in s takes it last.

Inside the inverted commas

HintIt stays within the speech marks, tucked up against the last spoken word.

The whyThe punctuation belongs to the words that were actually spoken, so it is kept with them. The reporting clause then begins in lower case.

Morpheme

HintSmaller than a word, larger than a letter — the plural 's' counts as one all by itself.

The whyBreaking a long word into these blocks unlocks spelling and meaning together: 'trans' means across, 'port' means carry and 'able' makes an adjective, so 'transportable' decodes without a dictionary.

A comma splice

Hint'It was late, we went home' — the join is far too weak to hold two whole ideas.

The whyThree repairs work: a full stop, a joining word such as and or but, or a semicolon. The choice depends on how closely the ideas belong together.

The box of apples was heavy

HintAsk what the sentence is really about — the container, not the things inside it.

The whyThe verb agrees with the subject of the sentence, not with the nearest noun. Words sitting between the two are there to distract you.

The passive voice

HintThe thing that had the action done to it has been shoved to the front of the sentence.

The whyIt moves the doer to the end, or drops them entirely — which is why reports and apologies reach for it when nobody wants to say who is responsible.

Register

HintThe same idea can be dressed in a tracksuit or in a dinner jacket.

The whyIt is set by vocabulary, sentence length and contractions. A job application and a message to a friend say things at opposite ends of the scale.