The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation - e-Reading

[Pages:177]The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

An Easy-to-Use Guide with Clear Rules, Real-World Examples, and Reproducible Quizzes

Tenth Edition

Jane Straus

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

An Easy-to-Use Guide with Clear Rules, Real-World Examples, and Reproducible Quizzes

Tenth Edition

Jane Straus

Copyright 2008 by Jane Straus. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741

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ISBN: 978?0?470?22268?3

Printed in the United States of America

TENTH EDITION

PB Printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgments

xiii

About the Author

xv

Foreword by Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl)

xvii

Introduction

xix

1 Grammar

1

Finding Subjects and Verbs

1

Finding verbs

Using verbs to find subjects

You as an understood subject

Multiple subjects and verbs in a sentence

Subject and Verb Agreement

2

Singular vs. plural verbs

With or and nor

With either and neither

With conjunctions such as and and but

With interrupting expressions

With pronouns as subjects such as each, everyone, and anybody

With portions such as percent, fraction, part, some, all, and none

With here and there

With sums of money

With who, that, and which

With collective nouns

Pronouns

6

Subject Case (Nominative): I, you, he, she, it, we, they

iii

iv

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

Object Case (Objective): me, you, him, her, it, us, them Correct use of pronouns by finding clauses Following than or as Possessive case: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs, its Its vs. it's Using possessive case with gerunds Reflexives: the self pronouns

Who vs. Whom

8

Whoever vs. Whomever

8

That vs. Which

9

Adjectives and Adverbs

10

Adjectives modifying nouns and pronouns

Adverbs modifying verbs, adjectives, and adverbs: Answering how, when, or where

When to add -ly

Sense verbs: taste, smell, look, and feel

Good vs. well

Comparisons such as ?er vs. ?est and more vs. most

This, that, these, and those

Than vs. then

Problems with Prepositions

13

Ending a sentence with a preposition

Avoiding extra prepositions

With dates

Of vs. have

Between vs. among

In vs. into

Like vs. as

Effective Writing

14

Concrete vs. vague language

Active vs. passive voice

Clumsy construction such as there is or it was

Double negatives

Similar grammatical form

Misplaced and dangling modifiers

Fragments

2 Confusing Words and Homonyms

16

Advice vs. advice

Affect vs. effect

Contents

v

Lay vs. lie

Their vs. there vs. they're

Hundreds more confusing words and homonyms

3 Punctuation

52

Spacing with Punctuation

52

Periods

52

With complete sentences

With indirect questions

With abbreviations at the end of a sentence

Ellipsis Marks

53

With omitted words or sentences

Spacing

Commas

54

To separate three or more items

To separate adjectives

With names

With dates

With city and state

With degrees and titles

To set off interrupting expressions

With weak and strong clauses

After phrases

With nonessential descriptions

With conjunctions

To avoid confusion

Comma splice

Run-on sentence

To introduce quoted material

To separate statements from questions

To separate contrasting parts of a sentence

With introductory words such as well and yes

With interrupters such as however and therefore

With introductory words such as namely, that is, for example, e.g., and i.e. when they are followed by a series of items

Semicolons

57

To join two sentences without a conjunction

With introductory words such as namely, that is, for example, e.g., and i.e.when they introduce a complete sentence

To avoid confusion where commas already exist

vi

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

With sentences that have multiple clauses

Colons

58

To attach lists to sentences

Spacing

With tabular formatting

With long quotations

After the salutation in a business letter

Question Marks

60

Exclamation Points

61

Quotation Marks

61

Placement with periods, commas, question marks, and semicolons

Use of single quotation marks

Use of sic

Parentheses

62

For clarification

For asides

To enclose numbers

With complete sentences

Apostrophes

63

Contractions

Possession

Singular possession

Plural possession

With names ending in s

With compound nouns such as mother-in-law's

To show joint possession

With possessive pronouns such as his, hers, and ours

To show plurals of numbers, letters, and abbreviations

With gerunds (-ing words)

Hyphens

65

Between words

With compound verbs

With compound adjectives

With -ly words

With compound adverbs

With compound numbers

With prefixes

With double vowels such as semi-invalid

With double e and double o such as preemptive and coordinate

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