GrammarTips.net - Weekly Tips on English Grammar

How Culture Influences Language

23 Dec 09
Language has been influenced by the people and the practices of those living within different cultures. Language would be defined as a means of understanding each other with either the written or the spoken word. Language is communication, either written or spoken which creates understanding between humans. Language consists of pre-set meanings for the written or spoken word. Language is a form of expression or communication between humans.

What is Dyslexia?

06 Dec 09
Dyslexia creates a problem in literacy and language skills, working memory, processing matters with speed, the automatic development of skills and other areas of writing, reading and absorbing matter. The individual is usually proficient in other fields, but would require special specific intervention attention regarding the area of the brain that affects the reading and writing skills.

Writing your essay plan

03 Feb 10
Planning is an important stage in the writing of an essay. You can plan onscreen using a word processor or you can plan with a pen and paper by creating lists and mind maps. There are a number of English writing software packages that offer to help you learn the skills required to write good essays. One of these skills will almost certainly be planning.

Top 5 Free Online Dictionaries

21 Jan 10
It is one of those unwritten rules of writing that should be set into stone: Never turn in anything without proofreading it first. Anyone, no matter how well you know a language, can misspell or need grammar correction assistance.

Improve your essay writing technique

06 Jan 10
Essay writing is a skill that has to be learnt. Writing an essay, especially if it needs to be done within a short time frame, can be a daunting prospect. Your essays should be your own ideas and a reflection of your own unique style. Remember that it is perfectly legitimate to use English writing software packages that offer to help you learn the skills of good essay writing, or online spell checkers, punctuation checkers and grammar checkers.

Writing a Letter of Acceptance

24 Dec 09
Generally, their purpose is to accept some sort of honor, a job offer, or other type of position. Like the letter of encouragement, a letter of acceptance is best kept short and to the point. It has a better effect on its recipient if it is handwritten, as opposed to printed on a computer printer.

Writing to attract a lover

10 Dec 09
If you are faced with the daunting task of creating an advert about yourself to place online, on a singles dating agency, or you have met someone online and you want to grab their attention, then you must make sure that any advert or any missives/emails you send are going to grab their attention.

Guide to researching your essay

03 Dec 09
An essay is a short literary composition. When writing essays you should provide evidence to support your ideas. There are books written on just about every conceivable subject which can be borrowed from your local library.

What are Grammar Checkers: How Can They Help You Write?

23 Nov 09
There are a large number of grammar checkers on the market, not even counting the ones that come with office productivity suites like MS Office. However, all grammar checkers can be placed neatly into two specific categories. They are either a part of a specific application, as mentioned above, or they are separate programs that interface with text fields of other programs.

Ambiguous / Ambivalent

17 Mar 09
Both ambiguous and ambivalent are adjectives.
Ambiguous = unclear, vague, unspecified, open to many interpretations
Ambivalent = torn between two sides; inability to make a choice due to the desire to do two conflicting things at the same time

Writing Better Emails

01 Nov 08
Whether your emails are for your family, friends, work or business, it is always possible to improve your writing and make your emails more interesting to read and of a better quality. Emails are often written very quickly and time isn’t taken to reflect on what you are trying to say or how you are saying it. Certainly, you can get away with not having perfect grammar or spelling, but if you take the time and trouble to make your emails free from errors, then they are much easier to read: so ensure that you pass them through an online grammar and spell checker.

What is hyperbole?

25 Oct 08
Hyperbole is a figure of speech that is a complete exaggeration and which denotes extremes. So to say, ‘I laughed so much I nearly died’ is an example of hyperbole. It denotes that something was very funny and that someone laughed a lot, but it is extremely unlikely that someone laughed so much that they almost died. However, the phrase gives us a sense of just how funny something was.

Is Written English the Same as Spoken English?

17 Oct 08
In theory, the answer to this question should be a resounding ‘Yes’. However, the reality is that there may well be differences between written and spoken English. As a language, spoken English is quite relaxed. This means that there may well be occasions where someone speaks and their English grammar is not quite correct. Often people say things like, ‘If I was a millionaire’ which does not sound too grammatically incorrect, but in written form it looks slightly odd. This is because ‘if’ is a ‘wishing word’ and, as such, needs the subjunctive tense to be used. So the correct written form of this sentence is, ‘If I were a millionaire….’.

What is a Split Infinitive?

10 Oct 08
An infinitive is split when the verb, which in English will have a ‘to’ accompanying it, is not placed next to the actual doing word. So we could say ‘I am going to wash my hair with a different shampoo.’ Here the infinitive is ‘to wash.’ However, if we split the infinitive then the sentence would read, ‘I am going to always wash my hair with a different shampoo.’ Here the word ‘to’ and the word ‘wash’ have been separated by the word ‘always’, which has effectively split the infinitive.

How to Proofread Your Work

08 Oct 08
Proofreading your work sounds terribly easy. All you have to do is to read through your work, identify any spelling mistakes and any grammatical errors or errors in punctuation, then correct the mistakes and change any words that do not seem to fit in and your written work is complete and correct.

Why is Syntax Important?

03 Oct 08
Syntax is the grammatical tool that deals with how sentences are put together and the relationship between words. It is a very methodical and logical sequence, ensuring that sentences are put together using subject, verb and object and that the words in the sentence all have agreement, so that the correct forms of words are used. Without syntax to structure the language, it would simply be a string of words that makes no sense.

What is a double negative?

30 Sep 08
A double negative is a sentence that contains two negatives (with a negative being a ‘not’ or a ‘no’ word). So the sentence, ‘I am not going to no party’ is a double negative and is an unfortunate use of language, since a double negative effectively cancels out the negative meaning of a sentence and gives it a positive meaning. So to say, ‘I am not going to no party’ actually means, ‘I am going to a party.’

What is a Tense in English Grammar?

25 Sep 08
A tense is a means of putting a sentence into a timeframe. So if something is happening now we use the present tense. If something was happening, but it is not clear if it has finished, or something else happened whilst this was going on, then we use the imperfect tense. If something happened in the past and is now over, then we use the past tense (sometimes referred to as the perfect tense). If something happened some time ago and then something else took place after that, we would use the pluperfect tense. The future tense is used to denote something which will happen.

Parenthesis in English

17 Sep 08
The word ‘parenthesis’ originates from the Greek: something placed in besides. Parenthesis is a phrase that will be qualifying, or in some way explanatory, which has been entered into a sentence with which it has no grammatical connection. To illustrate that this is the case, the phrase is enclosed in round brackets. The best way to demonstrate this is to use an example. ‘The boy arrived early, (he was always too scared of the consequences to arrive late) quickly took his place and hoped no one had noticed him.’ In this sentence, the parenthesis is obviously the phrase ‘he was always too scared of the consequences to arrive late’.

Using Grammar Worksheets

10 Sep 08
The use of grammar worksheets may not seem like the most exciting way to learn a language, but in fact this is one of the best ways you can learn the structure of English and all its little rules and regulations, which are often simple in theory but complex in reality. The use and worth of grammar is often ignored. Yet grammar forms the foundations upon which any language is based. It is the rock which supports the language and, as such, needs to be given careful consideration.