Let's face it, we all read something at some point and it essentially ends up meaning 'The thingy with the whatsit.' I defend my nerdom by coolly telling someone to look it up because Google is good for the soul, but I like having things together for quick references. Note: this is all the simple stuff without getting into the gory details. Those will get their own blog posts at a later date.
And without further ado...
- Nouns--as Linda Ronstadt proudly squawked in 'Different Drum,' nouns are people, places and things. Easy peasy.
- Substantives--words that function like nouns. In the sentence 'The French Revolution was instigated by the poor,' poor acts as the noun despite its typical status as an adjective.
- Pronouns--these guys substitute for another word or phrase, i.e. 'he' for 'Joe' or 'that D&D nerd' for 'Miss Modifier.' There are sub-types of pronouns, but that's a bit more depth than the cheat sheet likes.
- Adjectives--descriptors. Tall, shiny, pretty, blue, nine, (yes, numbers are descriptors).
- Verbs--actions. Walking, running, reading...much of the time, if you can attach an 'ing' to it, it's likely an action. States of being (in the statement I think, therefore I am, the bolded are verbs) are also verbs.
- Adverbs--the beasts Stephen King likes to whine about. They modify and (and sometimes change the meaning) of nouns, verbs, and phrases. Words that end in -ly are almost always adverbs.
- Articles--words that are used with nouns and help identify them. A special group of adjectives (I know it seems a bit odd, but it isn't if you give it some thought: articles describe nouns), they can be both definite (the) and indefinite (a/an).
- Prepositions--they come before nouns, pronouns, and substantives that show a spatial, temporal, or another type of relationship.
- Conjunctions--the glue that holds two clauses together. Words such as and, but, however fall into this catagory.
No comments:
Post a Comment