Introduction 1 Foolish Assumptions 1 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part 1: Building a Firm Foundation: The Parts of the Sentence 5 Chapter 1: Using the Right Words at the Right Time 7 What This Year''s Sentence Is Wearing: Understanding Grammar and Style 8 Distinguishing Between the Three Englishes 9 Wanna get something to eat? Friendspeak 10 Do you feel like getting a sandwich? Conversational English 11 Will you accompany me to the dining room? Formal English 12 Thumbing Your Way to Better Grammar 13 Probing the Limits of Grammar-Checking Software 14 What''s Your Problem? Solutions to Your Grammar Gremlins 15 Chapter 2: Verbs: The Heart of the Sentence 17 Expressing Meaning with Verbs 17 Meeting the Families: Linking and Action Verbs 18 Linking verbs: The Giant Equal Sign 19 Forms of "to be" 19 Synonyms of "to be" 20 Savoring sensory verbs 21 Completing linking-verb sentences correctly 22 Lights! Camera! Action verb! 24 Calling the Help Line for Verbs 25 Timing is everything: Creating a time frame with helping verbs 25 Don''t ask! Questions and negative statements 25 Adding shades of meaning with helping verbs 27 Pop the Question: Locating the Verb 29 Chapter 3: Who''s Doing What? How to Find the Subject 33 Who''s Driving the Truck? Why the Subject Is Important 33 Teaming up: Subject and verb pairs 34 Compound subjects and verbs: Two for the price of one 34 Pop the Question: Locating the Subject-Verb Pairs 35 What''s a Nice Subject Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Unusual Word Order 37 Find That Subject! Detecting You-Understood 39 Searching for the Subject in Questions 40 Don''t Get Faked Out: Avoiding Fake Verbs and Subjects 40 Finding fake verbs 41 Watching out for "here" and "there" and other fake subjects 41 Choosing the correct verb for "here" and "there" sentences 42 Subjects Aren''t Just a Singular Sensation: Forming the Plural of Nouns 42 Regular plurals 43 The -IES and -YS have it 43 No knifes here: Irregular plurals 44 The brother-in-law rule: Hyphenated plurals 45 Chapter 4: When All Is Said and Done: Complete Sentences 47 Completing Sentences: The Essential Subjects and Verbs 48 Complete Thoughts, Complete Sentences 50 Joining Forces: Combining Sentences Correctly 53 Connecting with coordinate conjunctions 53 Attaching thoughts: Semicolons 55 Boss and Employee: Joining Ideas of Unequal Ranks 55 Choosing Subordinate Conjunctions 56 Using Pronouns to Combine Sentences 58 Understanding Fragments 59 Placing fragments in the right context 60 Steering clear of inappropriate fragments 61 Reaching the End of the Line: Endmarks 62 Chapter 5: Handling Complements 65 Getting a Piece of the Action: Complements for Action Verbs 66 Receiving the action: Direct objects 66 Rare, but sometimes there: Indirect objects 68 No bias here: Objective complements 69 Completing the Equation: Subject Complements 69 Pop the Question: Locating the Complement 71 Pop the Question: Finding the Indirect Object 72 Pronouns as Objects and Subject Complements 74 Part 2: Clearing Up Confusing Grammar Points 75 Chapter 6: Relax! Understanding Verb Tense 77 Simplifying Matters: The Simple Tenses 78 Present tense 78 Past tense 79 Future tense 80 Using the Simple Tenses Correctly 82 Present and present progressive 82 Past and past progressive 82 Future and future progressive 83 Not Picture Perfect: Understanding the Perfect Tenses 84 Present perfect and present perfect progressive 84 Past perfect and past perfect progressive 85 Future perfect and future perfect progressive 86 Using the Perfect Tenses Correctly 88 Case 1: Beginning in the past and continuing in the present 88 Case 2: Events at two different times in the past 89 Case 3: More than two past events, all at different times 90 Case 4: Two events in the future 92 Reporting Information: Verbs Tell the Story 93 Summarized speech 93 Eternal truths 95 The historical present 95 The Rebels: Dealing with Irregular Verbs 96 To be, to have, to do 96 Irregular past forms and participles 99 Chapter 7: Nodding Your Head: All About Agreement 103 Agreeing Not to Disagree 103 Making Subjects and Verbs Agree 104 The unchangeables 104 The changeables 105 Matching Subjects and Verbs in Some Tricky Situations 108 Compound subjects 108 Locating subjects and ignoring distractions 109 Reaching an Agreement with Pronouns 110 Choosing subject pronouns 111 Matching pronouns to their antecedents 112 Agreeing in Tricky Situations 114 Five puzzling pronouns 115 Each and every 116 Either and neither: Alone or with partners 116 Politics and other irregular subjects 118 The ones, the things, and the bodies 119 Who, which, and that 120 Dealing Sensitively with Pronoun Gender 121 Chapter 8: Pronouns and Their Cases 125 Me Like Tarzan: Choosing Subject Pronouns 125 Compounding interest: Pairs of subjects 126 Attracting appositives 128 Picking pronouns for comparisons 129 Using Pronouns as Direct and Indirect Objects 130 Are You Talking to I? Prepositions and Pronouns 131 Attaching Objects to Verbals 133 Knowing the Difference Between Who and Whom 134 Pronouns of Possession: No Exorcist Needed 136 Dealing with Pronouns and "-Ing" Nouns 137 Chapter 9: Small Words, Big Trouble: Prepositions 139 Proposing Relationships: Prepositions 139 The Objects of My Affection: Prepositional Phrases and Their Objects 140 Pop the question: Questions that identify the objects of the prepositions 142 Why pay attention to prepositions? 143 A Good Part of Speech to End a Sentence With? 144 Chapter 10: Two Real Really Good Parts of Speech: Adjectives and Adverbs 147 Clarifying Meaning with Descriptions 147 Adding Adjectives 148 Adjectives describing nouns 149 Adjectives describing pronouns 149 Attaching adjectives to linking verbs 150 Articles: Not just for magazines 150 Pop the question: Identifying adjectives 151 Stalking the Common Adverb 153 Pop the question: Finding the adverb 153 Adverbs describing adjectives and other adverbs 155 Choosing Between Adjectives and Adverbs 156 Sorting out "good" and "well" 157 Dealing with "bad" and "badly" 158 Adjectives and adverbs that look the same 159 Creating Comparisons with Adjectives and Adverbs 160 Ending it with -er or giving it more to adjectives 160 Creating comparisons with adverbs 163 Breaking the Rules: Irregular Comparisons 164 Good, bad, well 164 Little, many, much 165 Part 3: Conventional Wisdom: Punctuation and Capitalization 167 Chapter 11: Punctuation Law That Should Be Repealed: Apostrophes 169 The Pen of My Aunt or My Aunt''s Pen? Using Apostrophes to Show Possession 170 Ownership for singles 170 Sharing the wealth: Plural possessives 171 Possession with Proper Nouns 174 Ownership with Hyphenated Words 175 Possessive Nouns That End in S 176 Common Apostrophe Errors with Pronouns 177 Shortened Words for Busy People: Contractions 179 You Coulda Made a Contraction Mistake 180 Chapter 12: Quotations: More Rules Than the Internal Revenue Service 183 And I Quote 184 Punctuating Quotations 185 Quotations with speaker tags 185 Quotations without speaker tags 189 Quotations with question marks 190 Quotations with exclamation points 191 Quotations with semicolons 192 Quotations inside quotations 192 Who Said That? Identifying Speaker Changes 194 Germ-Free Quotations: Using Sanitizing Quotation Marks 195 Punctuating Titles: When to Use Quotation Marks 196 Chapter 13: The Pause That Refreshes: Commas 199 Distinguishing Items: Commas in Series 200 Using "Comma Sense" to Add Information to Your Sentence 202 Separating a list of descriptions 202 Essential or extra? Commas tell the tale 204 Commas with appositive influence 207 You Talkin'' to Me? Direct Address 208 Using Commas in Addresses and Dates 209 Addressing addresses 209 Punctuating dates 211 Getting Started: The Introductory Comma 212 Words not connected to the meaning of the sentence 212 Phrases and clauses 212 Punctuating Independently 213 Chapter 14: Useful Little Marks: Dashes, Hyphens, and Colons 215 Inserting Information with Dashes 215 Long dashes 216 Short dashes 216 H-y-p-h-e-n-a-t-i-n-g Made Easy 217 Understanding the great divide 217 Using hyphens for compound words 218 Placing hyphens in numbers 219 Utilizing the well-placed hyphen 220 Creating a Stopping Point: Colons 220 Addressing a business letter or email 220 Introducing lists 221 Introducin.