the grammar slammer

The Grammar Slammer (Grammar the fun, easy, visual way it should have been taught.)

Table of Contents

Nouns..........................................................3

Adjectives.....................................................4

Appositives...................................................5

Verbs...........................................................6

Adverbs........................................................7

2

Nouns refer to a person, place or thing. There are

two kinds of nouns: Proper Nouns and Common Nouns. A Common Noun refers to a general person, place or thing.

As we are referring to any old giant moth we use a common noun, "moth".

A Proper Noun refers to a specific person, place, or thing and is always capitalized.

Because we're talking about a specific giant moth, Mothra, here we use a proper noun.

3

Adjectives are words that are used to describe

a noun.

In this sentence we've used the adjective, "silver", to describe the

noun, "trout".

Here, we've used multiple adjectives to describe two different

nouns.

Adjectives are a great way to add detail to your writing, but remember, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Load up a sentence with too many adjectives and your readers will wish the giant owl had gotten you. For example,

• "The giant creaking wooden yellow sailing ship plunged through the rising foamy white crested green waves."

is obviously a bit much.

4

Appositives are nouns, or noun phrases, that

rename or describe the noun right beside it. For example,

Our bird of prey could simply have said, "The rodent prepared to defend itself." but instead chose to add another layer of detail to its sentence by describing the rodent as a field mouse.

Of course, we could just keep adding more details about the subject. In fact, there's lots of ways to add appositives to sentences:

• Out of nowhere Dillard, who had always been scared of the ocean, was brutally attacked by a swarm of horseshoe crabs.

• "A foot, which belonged to some blundering human, crashed into my head!" The horseshoe crab cried morosely.

5

Verbs are words that show actions. For example,

In this sentence the word that shows action is "flew".

But, while entertaining, that verb isn't particularly

interesting. To really make your writing pop you need

to look for vivid verbs.

In this sentence we've taken out the boring verb "flew"

and replaced it with a much more interesting and vivid

verb, "hurtled".

6

Adverbs are words or phrases that are used to

describe a verb.

In this entirely plausible sentence our verb (action word) is "flew".

Here, we've added the adverb "silently" to describe how the flotilla of zeppelins is flying.

7