WHEN we were children and just beginning to learn English grammar, many of us were taken aback by the strange failure of some verbs to work in certain sentence constructions. For instance, perhaps ...

If an action concerns only one person or thing, you mention only the person or thing that carries out the action (the subject) and the action itself (the verb). Verbs which describe such actions are ...

Lie and lay. They’re the grammar stickler’s equivalent of a secret handshake. Use these words just so and you’re signaling to like-minded language lovers: I’m in, a member of the club, part of the ...

There are three basic kinds of verbs plus many subclasses. Here we cover only the three basic types. Initially, verbs are divided into main verbs and auxiliary verbs. Then auxiliary verbs are divided ...

When a sentence uses a transitive verb to describe an action, it’s necessary for the subject to take a direct object and to act on it: “The woman spurned her suitor last week.” ...

National Public Radio recently asked listeners to submit their top grammar peeves. As usually happens when people talk about grammar, control-freak impulses nearly steered the conversation off course, ...

Both Zbyszek from Poland and Iqbal Ahmad from Pakistan write that they find it difficult to differentiate between transitive and intransitive verbs: 'Please explain the difference and give us some ...

Ruth Walker writes:Have you ever seen people vote with their feet for a certain path across a stretch of green, on a campus, perhaps, or in a public park? Have you ever seen people vote with their ...