The complete idiot guide part 1 pdf

14 Perversity Rules 15 Let Me 'Splain It to You, Lucy 18 Personal Writing Inventory 20 Damage Control 23 Mission Possible 23 Part 2: Under the Grammar Hammer 25 3 Parts of Speech: Co

Contents

Parti: No Uncertain Terms I

1 Are You Grammarphobic? 3

How Can You Tell If You're Grammarphobic? 4

Word Power 5

War of the Words 5 The Force Be with You 6

Term Limits 7

What Is Grammar? 7 What Is Usage? 7 What Is Mechanics? 10

What Is Style? 10

A Civil Tongue: Standards for Effective Communication 11

2 (onan the Grammarian 13

Sweet Dreams Aren't Made of These 13

Puppy Love 14 Has It Come to This? 14

Perversity Rules 15

Let Me 'Splain It to You, Lucy 18

Personal Writing Inventory 20

Damage Control 23

Mission Possible 23

Part 2: Under the Grammar Hammer 25

3 Parts of Speech: Coming to Terms 27

Nouns: Prime-Time Players 27

Possess It! 29 Plural Nouns: Two's Company, Threes a Crowd 31

Too Much of a Good Thing? 31 Combo Platter 34

A Note on Nouns for Non-Native Speakers 35

Verbs: All the Right Moves 36

Action Verbs: Jumping Jack Flash 36

Chain Gang: Linking Verbs 31

v i i i The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style, Second Edition

Mothers Little Helper: Helping Verbs 31 Verb-O-Rama 31

Conjunctions: The Ties That Bind 39

All Tied Up 39 Fit to Be Tied 41

Prepositions: Good Things Come in Small Packages 42

Joined at the Hip 43

A Note on Prepositions for Non -Native Speakers 44

4 Terms of Endearment: More Parts of Speech U

Adjectives: Happy Little Clouds 47

Spice Up Your Sentences with Adjectives 48

A Note on Adjectives for Non-Native Speakers 49 Have Fun with Adjectives 49 And in This Corner 49

Adverbs: Who Ya Gonna Call? 50

Have Fun with Adverbs 51 Conjunctive Adverbs: An Adverb Disguised as a Conjunction 51

Hunt and Peck 52

Pronouns: Pinch Hitters 53

Face the Music 55

Interjections: Zap! Pow! Wow! 56

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Take a Shower 56

Seventh-Inning Stretch 51

5 Altered States: Verbs 59

Shape Shifters 60 Verb Tense: Nothing a Little Prozac Wouldn't Cure 60

I Feel Your Pain: Principal Parts of Verbs 61

A Class Act: Forming Past Tenses 61

Now Ihayhh Lay Me Down to Sleep 64 Party Pooper: Test Time 65

All Tensed Up: Using Verb Tense Correctly 66

Past Tense 61 Back to the Future 68

A Note on Verbs for Non-Native Speakers 68

It s All in the Timing 10

Person, Number, and Mood 71

Person 12 Number 12 Mood 12

Active and Passive Voice: A Mistake Has Been Made 73

Not So Fast 14

6 Woe Is I: Pronouns and Case 77

Why Can't a Pronoun Be More Like a Noun? 77

Head Case: The Three Cases 78

The Rules 79

Sorry, Wrong Number 83

Seventh-Inning Stretch 84

Who Versus Whom (or Should I Just Shoot Myself Now?) 85

This Hurts You More Than It Hurts Me 86

I Dare You 86 Seventh-Inning Stretch 81

7 Multiple-Vehicle Wrecks: Pronoun Reference 89

How's That Again? 90

It Just Proves There's Someone for Everyone 91

The Numbers Game 91

Tag, You're It 92

Location, Location, Location: Placement of Pronouns 93

A Match Made in Writer's Heaven 94

Possession and Pronouns 94

Its a Lock 94

It and They 95

It Mania 96 Who's on First? 91

8 How to Write and Speak Good: Adjectives Versus Adverbs 99

They Walk Alike, They Talk Alike: You Could Lose

Your Mind 100

Graphic Proof 100

Fm Ready for My Close-Up Now, Mr DeMille 101

Three Degrees of Separation 102

Size Does Matter 103

Good, Gooder, Goodest: Irregular Adjectives and Adverbs 104

Keep Your Balance 105

Other and Else 105

X The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style, Second Edition

Tough Sledding: Using Adjectives After Linking Verbs 106

The Badlands 106 Good News; Well News 106 Once More into the Breach, Dear Friends 107

A Note on Adjectives and Adverbs for Non-Native

Speakers 108 Don't Use No Double Negatives 108

Don't Be Making No Mistakes 109

9 Reaching an Agreement: Matching Sentence Parts III

Anyone Got a Match? 112

Singular Subjects and Verbs 112 Plural Subjects and Verbs 113 Seventh-Inning Stretch 114

Collective Nouns 115

Indefinite Pronouns 116

The Pause That Refreshes 118

Walk This Way 119

Hide and Seek 119 Playing the Numbers 120 Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match 120

Mix and Match 121

Agree to Disagree 122

Nose to the Grindstone 124

10 Dazed and Confused: Common Usage Dilemmas 125

Dangling Modifiers: Counterintelligence 126

Help Is on the Way 126 Man the Battle Stations 121

Misplaced Modifiers: Lost and Found 128

It Says What? 129 Quiz Show 130

Mixed Metaphors: A Dollar Late and a Day Short 131

Split Infinitives: To Boldly Go Where Everyone Else Goes 133

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly 134

Hopefully 134 Like/As 134 Ending with a Preposition 135

Contents x i

Usage and Abusaqe 137 Phrases: Prime-Time Players 139

Phrases of the Moon 139 Prepositional Phrases: The Big Daddy of Phrases 140

Offspring 1 : Adjectival Phrases 141

Offspring 2: Adverbial Phrases 142

Appositives: Something More for Your Money 142

Appositive Phrases 143 The Moment of Truth 144

Verbal Phrases: Talk Soup 145

Part and Participle 146 Gerund Phrases 141 Infinitive Phrases: The Final Frontier 148

Clauses: Kickin'It Up a Notch 151

Clauses: Phrases on Steroids 151

Independent Clauses: Top Dogs 152

Dependent Clauses: I Get by with a Little Help from

My Friends 153

I Know 'Em When I See 'Em 153

Subordinating Conjunctions Link 'Em Together 153

Looking for Love in All the Right Places 154

Adverb Clauses: Hot Shots 156

Follow the Leader 156 Shape Up Your Sentences 151

Adjective Clauses: Paint by Numbers 157

Relative Clauses: Its All Relative 158

Clauses Make the Sentence 159

Noun Clauses: What's in a Name? 159

Connect the Dots 160

Getting Down and Dirty 160

Sentence and Sensibility 165

I Know It When I See It: The Sentence 166

Seek and Ye Shall Find 166

Hidden Treasures 161

Sentence Structure: The Fab Four 167

Simple Sentences: Simple Isn k as Simple Does 168

Compound Sentences: Compound Interest 169

Complex Sentences: Not So Complex at All 169

x i i The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style, Second Edition

Compound-Complex Sentences: The Big Kahuna 110 The Choice Is Yours 110 Face the Music Ill

Sentence Functions: The Four Tops 172

Alley Oops 172

Fragments: Lost in Place 113 Run-Ons and Comma Splices: It Could Be a Stretch 114

Seventh-Inning Stretch 115

\k Coordination and Subordination: What to Say When the Cops Come 177

Coordination: All the Right Moves 178

Mix and Match 119 Dancing Cheek-to-Cheek 119

Don't String Me Along 180 Why Not Give It a Shot? 181

Subordination: What I Did for Love 182

Follow the Leader 183 Dice V Slice 184 Double Dare 184

Duke It Out: Coordination Versus Subordination 185

Parallel Structure: Trod the Straight and Narrow 186

Make It So 181 Time to Face Old Sparky 181

Parft: Tools of the Trade 191

15 The Writer's Tools: Round Up the Usual Suspects 193

Pencil Pusher 193 Using the Dictionary: You Could Look It Up 194

Who You Gonna Call? 195 Read the Labels 196 Shop Till You Drop 196 Specialized Dictionaries: Everyone s an Expert 198

Computer Spell Checkers: Marvels of Technology 199

Electronic Grammar Software: Help Is Only a Button

Away 200 The Thesaurus: War of the Words 201

Lets Go Shopping 202 Whiz-Bang Thesaurus Programs 202

Contents xiii

16 Punctuation: Commas Are Our Friends 203

Punctuation Matters 203

Show Me the Money 204

Period, Question Mark, Exclamation Mark: The End of

the Line 205

The Period: Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200 206

The Question Mark: Inquiring Minds Want to Know 206

Exclamation Marks: Gosh and Golly! 201

The Pause That Refreshes 201

The Comma: A Major Player 209

First Impressions Count 209

Sentence Interruptus 210

In Media Res 211 Dazed and Confused 211

Bean Counters 211

Constant Commas 212

The Semicolon: Love Child of the Comma and the Period 213

The Colon: What a Party Animal 213

Semi-Tough 214 Quotation Marks: Quote/Unquote 215

A Little Dabba Do Ya 216

Not Separated at Birth: The Dash and the Hyphen

(and Let's Add the Ellipsis for Fun) 217

The Dash: Long and Lean 211

The Hyphen: Short and Sweet 218

The Ellipsis: Dot, Dot, Dot 218

Parentheses and Brackets: Bosom Buddies 218

(Parentheses) 219 [Brackets] 219

Slash and Burn 219 Apostrophes 220

Once More, Dear Friends 221

17 Capitalization and Abbreviations: Go to the Head of the Class 223

Capitalization: A Capital Idea 223

Capital Punishment 224

Rules to Capitalize By 225

Capital Investment 228

Abbreviations: Good Things Come in Small Packages 229

xiv The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style, Second Edition

18 Guide to Spelling: (looked on Phonics 23}

Bee a Good Speller 234

If U Cn Reed This 235

Quick and Dirty Tricks of the Trade 235

Attaching Prefixes and Suffixes: Bits and Pieces 237

Attaching Prefixes: Front-End Collision 257 Attaching Suffixes: Rear-End Collision 231

Go for the Gusto 241

Contractions: Suck It In 241

Follow the Rules! Spelling Rules 242

ieeeeeeeeeeeee! 244

See and Say 244

Silent Letters 245 Tricky-Dickie Word Endings 245

Y/IUse 246

Spelling Demons 246

Ten Tough Spelling Words—and Ways to Make Them Tender 246

Part 5: Style: All the Write Stuff 2W

19 What Is Style, and How Do I Get Some? 2SI

Style: Write On! 251

The 3C's: Consistency, Coherence, Clarity 253

Consistency 253 Coherence 255 Clarity 251

I'll Have What's on His Plate 258

Lie Like a Rug 261

20 In Style 263

Audience: People Who Need People 263

Inquiring Minds Want to Know 264

I Share Your Tain 264 Who's Who 266 Culture Vulture 268

Model Behavior 269

Live and Learn 210 Make It Your Own 210

Contents x v

Four Play 270

Exposition: Writing That Explains 271

Narration: Writing That Tells a Story 272

Argumentation: Writing That Persuades 272

Description: Writing That Describes 275

21 Stylish Sentences 27S

Flexible Flyers 276

Vary Sentence Types 216

Vary Sentence Lengths 277

Add Questions and Commands 219

Focus on the Subject 219

Add Details 280 Use Vivid Verbs 283

Invert Word Order 283

Play with Pronouns 283

Between a Rock and a Hard Place 284

Punctuation and Style: Little Things Matter a Lot 284

22 Conciseness: The Department of Redundancy Department 287

Slash and Burn 287 Thrift, Thrift, Thrift 290

Eliminate Unneeded Words and Phrases 291

Revise Sentences That Begin with Expletives 294

Combine Sentences That Repeat Information 295

Don't Say the Same Thing Twice 296

Make Passive Sentences Active 291

23 Diction: Find the Right Word, Not Its First Cousin 299

Diction: Proper Words in Proper Places 300

Elevated Diction 301

Edited American English 301

Colloquial Language 301

Slang 301 Vernacular 302

Tone-on-Tone 302 Ten Distinctions Worth Making (or at Least Worth

Being Able to Make!) 303

Twenty-Five Headaches 305

¥mr You're On 301

Homophones: Give Piece a Chance 308

Grin and Bare Bear It 309

x v i The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style, Second Edition

Z*t Don't Go There: Words and Expressions to Avoid 311

Sexist Language: Political Roadkill 312

On Thin Ice 313 Nonsexist Language: Level the Playing Field 314

Top of Your Game 316

Spin Doctors 317

Jargon: u Phasers on Stun, Cap'n" 318 Bureaucratic Language: Piled Higher and Deeper 319

Inflated Language: Full of Hot Air 320 Euphemisms: Sleeping with the Fishes 320 Search and Destroy 321

The Cliché Expert 321

Gorgeous George 323

A Note on Words and Expressions to Avoid for Non-Native Speakers 324

Part 6: In Your Write Mind 32S

25 Business Writing: Write Angles 327

Letter Perfect 328

Form and Function 328 Kissing Cousins 330

Resumes and Cover Letters: Get on the Fast Track 330

Resumes 331 Shooting Yourself in the Foot 332

Chronological Resume 332 Skills Resume 333 Cover Letters 336

Bread-and-Butter Notes 338

Good News, Bad News 339

Good News 340 Bad News 340

26 Personal Writing: In Your Write Mind 3 t i

Friendly Letters: My Baby, She Wrote Me a Letter 346

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Vm Yours 346 Model Letter 341

B & B Revisited 348

I Feel Your Pain: Letters of Condolence 348