Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson [89]
adverb. A word that qualifies (or describes) any word other than a noun. That may seem a loose definition, but, as Palmer says, the classification is “quite clearly a ‘ragbag’ or ‘dustbin,’ the category into which words that do not seem to belong elsewhere are placed.” In general, adverbs qualify verbs (badly played), adjectives (too loud), or other adverbs (very quickly). As with adjectives, they have the three forms of positive, comparative, and superlative (seen respectively in long, longer, longest). A common misconception is the belief that words that end in -ly are always adverbs. Kindly, sickly, masterly, and deadly, for example, are usually adjectives.
case. The term describes relationships or syntactic functions between parts of speech. A pronoun is in the nominative case (sometimes called the subjective) when it is the subject of a verb (“He is here”) and in the accusative (sometimes called the objective) when it is the object of a verb or preposition (“Give it to him”). Except for six pairs of pronouns (I/me, he/him, she/her, they/them, we/us, and who/whom) and the genitive (which see), English has shed all its case forms.
clause. A group of words that contains a true verb (i.e., a verb functioning as such) and subject. The sentence “The house, which was built in 1920, was white” contains two clauses: “The house was white” and “which was built in 1920.” The first, which would stand on its own, is called a main or principal or independent clause. The second, which would not stand on its own, is called a dependent or subordinate clause. Sometimes the subject is suppressed in main clauses, as here: “He got up and went downstairs.” Although “and went downstairs” would not stand on its own, it is a main clause because the subject has been suppressed. In effect the sentence is saying, “He got up and he went downstairs.” See also PHRASE.
complement. A word or group of words that completes a predicate construction—that is, that provides full sense to the meaning of the verb. In “He is a rascal,” rascal is the complement of the verb is.
conjunction. A word that links grammatical equivalents, as in “The President and Prime Minister conferred for two hours” (the conjunction and links two nouns) and “She came yesterday, but she didn’t stay long” (the conjunction but links two clauses).
genitive. A noun or pronoun is in the genitive case when it expresses possession (my house, his car, Sally’s job). Although some authorities make very small distinctions between genitives and possessives, many others do not. In this book, I have used the term possessives throughout.
gerund. A verb made to function as a noun, as with the italicized words here. “Seeing is believing”; “Cooking is an art”; “Walking is good exercise.” Gerunds always end in -ing.
infinitive. The term describes verbs that are in the infinite mood (that is, that do not have a subject). Put another way, it is a verb form that indicates the action of the verb without inflection to indicate person, number, or tense. There are two forms of infinitive: the full (to go, to see) and bare (go, see), often called simply “an infinitive without to.”
mood. Verbs have four moods:
1. The indicative, which is used to state facts or ask questions (I am going; What time is it?).
2. The imperative, which indicates commands (Come here; Leave me alone).
3. The infinite, which makes general statements and has no subject (To know her is to love her).
4. The subjunctive, which is principally used to indicate hypotheses or suppositions (If I were you . . . ). The uses of the subjunctive are discussed more fully in the body of the book.
noun is usually defined as a word that describes a person, place, thing, or quality. Such a definition, as many authorities have noted,