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    The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever!
    The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever!
    The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever!
    Ebook95 pages1 hour

    The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever!

    By Ruth Colman

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    About this ebook

    With excellent examples and easy-to-follow rules, this concise and practical guide covers the basics of English grammar and punctuation. Perfect for English speakers who weren't taught proper grammar in the classroom as well as for general readers who are uncertain about punctuation marks in certain situations, this handbook sheds light on the most common questions, including Where should commas go? When should a hyphen be used? and What is the difference between an adjective and an adverb?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNewSouth
    Release dateAug 1, 2011
    ISBN9781742240930
    The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever!

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    Book preview

    The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever! - Ruth Colman

    The briefest English grammar and

    punctuation guide ever!

    Ruth Colman grew up in a northern Sydney beach suburb and attended state schools. She did a colourful BA at the University of Sydney. She taught English at secondary schools for about ten years in Australia and South-east Asia, before getting sidetracked into editorial work.

    A UNSW Press book

    Published by

    University of New South Wales Press Ltd

    University of New South Wales

    Sydney NSW 2052

    AUSTRALIA

    www.unswpress.com.au

    © Ruth Colman 2005, 2010, 2011

    The briefest English grammar ever! First published by the

    author 2004. First published by UNSW Press 2005.

    Reprinted 2006, 2008.

    The briefest punctuation guide ever! First published by

    UNSW Press 2010.

    This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

    National Library of Australia

    Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

    Author: Colman, Ruth V.

    Title: The briefest English grammar and

    punctuation guide ever!/by Ruth Colman.

    ISBN: 978 1 74223 279 9 (pbk.)

    Subjects: English language – Grammar.

        English language – Punctuation.

    Dewey Number: 428.2

    Design Di Quick

    Print Everbest, China

    The

    briefest

    English

    grammar

    and

    punctuation

    guide

    ever!

    Ruth Colman

    PART 1

    Grammar

    Preface to the grammar

    guide

    When English speakers begin to learn other languages they often find themselves being taught via methods that assume they have a basic knowledge of English grammar.

    Some of us, however, have come through a school system that taught little or nothing of the way our language is structured. We recognise when things sound right or sound wrong but we cannot say why. We now want to study a second language, to read it or speak it or both, and we are non-plussed when the teacher says, In German the verb comes at the end of the clause, or That's the indirect object.

    I hope this small guide will fill a gap and give you the basics, whether you want to learn another language or not, and if you do, whether your aimed-for second language is Spanish, Anindilyakwa, New Testament Greek, Swahili or anything else.

    Don't forget that many languages don't have direct equivalents of all our classes of words or all our grammatical structures. Some systems of grammar are simpler than the English system, some are more complex, and some are simply different.

    Intro

    How do we identify and classify words and groups of words? Whatever the language, it's a matter of function.

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