Say “sentence diagramming” to people of a certain age, and you get reactions ranging from, “Oh, I was really good at that in eighth grade,” to “Mrs. Green made us diagram The Rime of the Ancient ...

Last week we talked about participles, which are verbs that work like adjectives. Gerunds are also based on verbs, but they work like nouns. Gerunds have only one form, and it looks exactly like the ...

Oh, dear. It had to happen sooner or later: a direct clash with Chronicle editorial authority over a point of 19th-century prescriptive grammar. My Our esteemed editor, Heidi Landecker, who has saved ...

“Rebel With a Clause” celebrates the improbable cross-country journey of a woman who gently imparts grammar rules to strangers. Ellen Jovin, wearing a “Grammar Is Groovy” T-shirt, is the star of ...

The dictionary definition of a participle is; ‘a verb ending in –‘ing’ (present) or –‘ed’, -‘en’, -d, -t, -n, or -ne (past) that functions as an adjective, modifying a noun or pronoun. A participial ...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned here a CNN article “about the president making an unannounced stop.” Two readers emailed with the same question. Here’s Bill in Niskayuna, N.Y.: “I was taught that a noun ...

The dictionary definition of a participle is; ‘a verb ending in –‘ing’ (present) or –‘ed’, -‘en’, -d, -t, -n, or -ne (past) that functions as an adjective, modifying a noun or pronoun. A participial ...