Paid. See pay.
Paragraph. A collection of sentences that is more or less fully focused on one subject, theme, or idea is called a “paragraph.”
Paragraphs are usually distinguished by some form of spacing: The first lines of paragraphs are often “indented” or moved in from the left margin a bit, as in this book. Typewritten or computer-written documents often show a space between paragraphs, particularly when their first lines are not indented.
Most grammar and style books call for cohesion or focus of paragraphs in a fairly strict way. Paragraphs should begin with “topic sentences” that state their subject or theme, followed by some prescribed number of sentences expanding on the theme. They should end with a summary or transitional sentence that somehow introduces the next paragraph or logical passage.
Such rules should be followed in general; they can prove useful. But paragraphs that observe such guidelines too closely become blandly alike and boring. Variants of paragraph structure and intent abound and can help you avoid too much or stultifying consistency of paragraph size or shape. When to follow the “rules” and when to deviate from them are matters of style and choice. There are, in fact, no rules for paragraphs, only suggestions. Just make sure that the sentences you gather into paragraphs are there for a reason that will be clear to your reader.
Consult style books and guides to writing for more details on variant paragraph structures, ways to build cohesive and sensible paragraphs, and other aspects of style.
Parallelism. Although there is no grammatical rule that demands balancing of elements in sentences—and, indeed, there are circumstances that call for imbalance (see emphasis)—writing is generally more intelligible and comfortable for readers when sentence and paragraph structures are parallel. This means you need to consider whether each element in your sentences roughly matches the others in weight, length, tone, and so on.
All these categories, as well as parallelism itself, are subjective and cannot be guided by definite rules. Rather, the use, abuse, and avoidance of parallelism are techniques that come with practice to those who write a great deal and that escape the sometimes writer too often. These factors of writing are parts of style, something we don’t all have or exercise in all circumstances.
But when style as well as substance comes into play, parallelism can be effective as a technique. Its basic requirement is that parts of sentences, paragraphs, or whole documents be more or less equivalent. So a sentence made up of three clauses will probably benefit by having all three clauses be of roughly the same length, in the same voice, tense, and mood, and made up of words that are similar in tone: “The soldiers marched into camp, the artillery set up their cannons, and the cavalry tethered their horses.”
The following version of this sentence is not wrong, but it shifts so much in the basic categories of parallelism that readers might lose track of what is happening or how they are supposed to perceive the action: “The soldiers march into camp, cannons were set up by the artillery, and the horses of the cavalry were rounded up and then hobbled and tied together in a loose group so that they wouldn’t run away or stampede.” Shifts in tone can have the same disorienting effect as changes in length, tense, or voice of clauses: “The soldiers toddled into camp, the artillery puzzled over their outdated and dilapidated cannons, and the cavalry looked to their horsies.”
Here are some general examples and points to watch for when you consider the level of parallelism in your writing:
1. Don’t overdo it. Parallelism is not required and can get tiresome and artificial if imposed too stringently. If your writing seems bland, it might be overly parallel and lacking in emphasis. Try an abrupt shift of length or mood to liven things up.
2. Effective parallelism does not mean that every sentence follows the subject, verb, object (subject complement) model. The most boring writing is often a string of such simple sentences in which the reader is left to guess how the unconnected thoughts might go together or which is more important than the others. Variety of structure within the general guidelines of parallelism can provide readers with important information about the relative weight of ideas, words, and so on. See order of words and related entries.
3. The use of devices like lists, numbers introducing paragraphs and separate ideas, and similar methods of drawing attention to a series inherently calls for some attention to parallelism. The things listed, numbered, or otherwise highlighted in this way should be more or less equal in importance. They might also be parallel in grammatical structure, word order, and so on to add force to your thoughts: “I saw dogs, cats, and rabbits.” It would not be wrong to write, “I saw dogs, felines, and little furry hopping animals with puffball tails and long ears,” but a reader might wonder whether you just don’t know the common names of the little furry animals or are being cute in naming or describing them. But do not perform contortions to make things too parallel: “I saw dogs, cats, and bandicoots.” This example of a series is not parallel, even though each animal has a one-word name given to it, because most readers won’t know what a bandicoot is. Better to say something like: “I saw dogs and cats. Another animal was the bandicoot, which is….”
4. Agreement of subject, verb, adjective, adverb, and so on is a stricter, more mandatory form of parallelism. Although sentences don’t have to agree across phrases, clauses, paragraphs, or beyond them in voice, mood, tense, and so on, you certainly should consider whether they would be more effective if such “agreement” were imposed.
5. One of the commonest violations of parallelism comes with unequal lengths of elements. The problem is that readers are often surprised or disconcerted to find long things following short ones or vice versa. The first phrase, clause, or paragraph tends to set expectations about length in particular. The combination of a short lead phrase or clause with longer following ones violates those expectations and can disrupt the comprehension and attentiveness of your reader.
Similarly, a lead paragraph that contains short, simple sentences should probably be followed by more paragraphs of about the same length and containing sentences of approximately the same size and type. Building across several paragraphs to longer (or shorter) sentences will certainly work, as will signaling a change by adding a subheading or some other device to alert readers to an impending shift in length. But unless you prepare readers for a length imbalance or are striving for emphatic effect by abruptly imbalancing lengths, your writing will probably profit from having elements of roughly the same length perform roughly the same function.
6. The principles outlined in guideline five—of preparing for or signaling changes in parallelism in length—can be applied to all other alterations in roughly equivalent structures, tones, and so on. Let your reader know you are moving from something set in the past tense to future tense action; make it clear that what follows is no longer active voice description but imperative mood suggestion or command; or raise a flag that what follows is subjunctive because it is speculative while what came before was passive because it was scientific and impersonal. Subheadings, explanatory sentences, section numbers, and many other devices can be used to make your intentions clear and give your readers a better chance to assimilate your new direction and tone.
7. Use your imagination. Parallelism is a device for writing well. It can be accomplished or played against in many ways. Think up a new trick your audience hasn’t seen before.
Parentheses. One set of punctuation marks commonly used to set off interjections or supplemental materials is parentheses: “The dogs (a Doberman, a beagle, and a boxer) bounded into the show ring.”
Parentheses are a rather strong way of separating elements of a sentence. Less forceful are commas, while dashes are as emphatic or more so than parentheses. All three could have been used in the example, with slightly different meanings resulting. In general, parentheses suggest the information they enclose is supplementary and not particularly germane to the overall sense being conveyed.
Parenthetical expressions work differently with punctuation, depending in part on the independence of the thought they enclose. If a full sentence is within parentheses, all its punctuation is also within the parentheses, including—and especially—the end punctuation, whether period, question mark, or any other ending mark: “(You better believe that!)”
When parentheses enclose phrases, clauses, or even whole sentences within other sentences, the parenthetical expressions are treated as words in themselves that end with the last parenthesis. All punctuation required by the sentence outside the parentheses falls just there—outside the parentheses: “The train (the 7:42 from Trenton, which is always late), slowly approaching the platform, made its way into the station.” In the example a comma follows the last parenthesis because it is needed to set off the following nonrestrictive phrase. Had the example required a semicolon to mark the end of an independent clause, say, or a colon to introduce a list, or a period to mark the end of the sentence, all these marks would have fallen properly outside the parentheses.
The same rule applies to any quotation marks if the parenthetical expression is being quoted. If the quote ends before or begins after the matter enclosed in parentheses, then the quotes would not enclose the parenthetical matter: “‘Hi (sort of),’ he said ironically.” But: “‘Hi,’ he said (ironically I thought).” In the first example the parenthetical phrase is part of the quoted speech and is within the parentheses. In the second example the parenthetical clause is within the double quotation marks of the example itself but not part of quoted speech and therefore outside the single quotes that mark it.
Parenthetical expressions within sentences may have any internal punctuation needed to make them grammatical and understandable. Thus the example about the train could have read: “The train (the 7:42 from Trenton, which is always late!), slowly approached. …” Similarly, the enclosed matter can include quotation marks independent of or related to what is being quoted in the main sentence: “‘Hi,’ he said (‘irony?’ I wondered).” Here the parenthetical phrase includes an internal quotation and question mark. If this sort of sentence leads to a pileup of punctuation around a parenthesis, it is best to revise rather than expect a reader to figure it all out: “‘Hi (or should it be’ Howdy?”), “he wondered.” The example can be followed, but why ask that much of a reader? See revision.
Capitalization rules also vary with the extent of material enclosed in parentheses: full sentences fully set off by parentheses begin with capital letters, but full sentences within other sentences and inside parentheses normally do not capitalize the first word: “She spoke so naturally (and she spoke with care and point!), so calmly, that I felt relieved. (False comfort, it later proved!)” Although there is an end punctuation mark shown for the sentence that is in parentheses but not capitalized, no end punctuation need be shown for such sentences set off within a sentence. The second sentence, fully enclosed in parentheses and not within a larger sentence, must have end punctuation within the parentheses and must be capitalized.
Parentheses need not come in pairs. They can be used singly to set off numbers in a list when the numbers begin a new line: “Here are the main points:
1) …
2) …”
If a numbered list is wholly within text and lines don’t begin with numbers, it is better to use both parentheses: “Here are the main points: (1) …, (2). …” Numbered lists like the first example are better without the first parenthesis because the number is more visible.
Should it become necessary to set off material within a parenthetical aside or addition to a sentence, do so in brackets’. “The substance (a carbonic compound [C-N] is volatile.” Another level of enclosure within brackets returns to parentheses. Unless you are writing high science, it is usually best to revise a sentence that gets so complex, moving main sentence and parenthetical additions to it into two or more subordinated statements without parentheses-brackets-parentheses alternations that become hard to follow.
Participle. Verbs have two forms called participles, past and present. Past participles are made by adding “ed” to most main verbs: “paint, painted” “walk, walked” and “kick, kicked.” There are, however, many irregular verbs whose past participles are not predictable from the main form and need to be checked in a reference source: “be, been” “do, done” and “write, written.”
Present participles are formed by adding “ing” to the main form: “be, being” “walk, walking” “do, doing.” See conjugation for more details on forming participles. Participles have a multitude of functions: adjectives, parts of other verb forms, and so on.
By themselves participles can modify nouns: “I saw a painted barn and a walking horse.” Here “painted” and “walking” are, respectively, past and present participial adjectives. In this adjectival function, participles work just as do other adjectives, requiring adverbs to modify them, linking together in compounds, and so on: “Standing on a hill surrounded by softly billowing clouds, I looked at a cheerfully painted, extravagantly decorated, and oddly structured barn.” See modifier and compound words.
Several tenses are formed by adding auxiliary or helping verbs to participles: “I was painting the barn after I had walked a mile.” See the entry on tenses and the related entries on specific tenses for more information on the formation, names, and functions of tenses made from participles; see also conjugation.
Parts of speech. The parts of speech—the grammatical elements that go into sentences—are listed below. Each one has its own entry explaining what it is, what rules are associated with it, and how it is properly and improperly used. The entries also include examples of good and bad usage, discussions of how to improve writing by using specific parts of speech or using them better, and references to other entries that are related to each part of speech.
Modifiers of nouns are called “adjectives.” They are words or groups of words that add qualities to nouns of all kinds, including noun phrases. Adjectives commonly come just before the nouns they refer to, but they can also appear removed from the noun, particularly when they stand in the predicate of a sentence with a linking verb: “The red barn is large.” Both “red” and “large” are adjectives modifying or related to “barn.”
Modifiers of verbs and adjectives are called “adverbs.” They are words or groups of words that add qualities to adjectives, adjectival phrases, verbs, and verb phrases of all kinds. They appear most often near the word they affect but can be located almost anywhere in a sentence. Many adverbs end in “-ly” but not all do: “I am very glad to hear that you almost finished the job today.” Both “very” and “almost” are adverbs, the first modifying an adjective (“glad”), and the second qualifying a verb (“finished”).
Linking words or groups of words are called “conjunctions.” They stand between or introduce elements of sentences in various ways. There are four different kinds of conjunctions (conjunctive adverbs and subordinating conjunctions, coordinating conjunctions, and correlative conjunctions), each with a somewhat different function.
Words or groups of words introduced into a sentence without such introductory or linking words as conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and the like are called “interjections.” Because such statements have no supporting words to join them to the rest of the sentence, they are often set off by punctuation of some sort to indicate their separateness from the rest of the sentence: “Indeed, the boat (always known to be leaky) was sinking.” Both “indeed” and the phrase in parentheses have been interjected into the example.
Words that name things or living things in a general way are called “nouns.” The word “noun” is a noun itself, as is “word” in this sentence (and “sentence” too). Nouns that name specific individual things or living beings are called “proper nouns” and are usually capitalized to distinguish them from common nouns: “Fritters was a cat, and Chris is sad that the pet died.” The proper nouns in the example are “Fritters” and “Chris,” while the common nouns are “cat” and “pet.” See capitalization.
Another type of word that links other words together in relationships is called a “preposition.” In the preceding sentence, “of and “in” are prepositions that “govern” nouns. Prepositions can also link pronouns, phrases, clauses, and other sets or kinds of words: “I found three errors in what you said.” The object of the preposition “in” in the example is the clause that follows it. Pronouns that are the object of prepositions often change form to show that they are in the objective case: “The librarian handed the book to her.”
Words that stand in place of nouns are called “pronouns.” There are eight kinds of pronouns, explained in further detail in the entries on pronouns and each individual variety of them: demonstrative, indefinite, intensifier, interrogative, personal pronoun, reciprocal pronoun, reflexive pronoun, and relative pronoun.
Words or groups of words that express actions, conditions, or the like are called verbs. In the previous sentence there are two verbs: “express” and “are.” By changing their form, verbs indicate the number and person of subjects acting or existing—how many people or things are involved, and whether they are you, me, or them. Verbs also show the time when things happened (tense), whether the action was or could be extended to an object (voice), and the speaker’s attitude, intent, or purpose (mood). Please see the various entries on all these aspects of verbs for more details and examples.
Passive. There are two voices in English, active and passive. The active voice defines sentences in which action is transmitted directly or implicitly to another thing or person, an object: “The artist paints pictures. The artist paints.” Both verbs are active, though with the second no object is stated directly.
When the sentence subject is the recipient of the action, and an agent of the action is stated directly in a prepositional phrase (or implied), the sentence is said to be in the passive voice: “The picture was painted by the artist. The picture was slashed.” Both verbs in these examples are passive.
A universal rule of usage and grammar books is that the passive should not be overused or should be avoided altogether. The thinking behind this rule is that passives are less forceful because action is indirect, because subject and agent are not as closely and clearly connected as in the “normar” sentence pattern (active: subject, verb, object), and because many passive sentences together create an impression of inaction or blandness. Such thinking is justified to some degree, although the “rule” itself should not be overused any more than passive voice should. There are places and moments for passive constructions—for emphasis, variety of word order, and intentional removal or obscuring of a sentence’s agent or subject.
Although passive is seen as less forceful inherently, the appearance of a passive sentence or group of passive sentences in an otherwise quite actively voiced document can call attention to the shift in voice and thereby to the message or point of the sentences constructed in the passive. Not much can be made of such emphasis, since the device used to stress something naturally is weak, less clear, and, in a word, passive.
Changing word order and gaining variety through occasional use of the passive can help a document full of simple, direct, active statements. Again, the change is not particularly forceful by nature, but it is there as a device. See order of words.
When it is not important to make clear who is acting or if there is a good reason to obscure the active agent in a sentence, the passive works well. That is why so much government documentation, political rhetoric, and advertising is couched in the passive. If no active party is evident, no one can be blamed, held to promises, or made accountable for claims. Advertising sometimes takes the simpler path of omitting the subject: “Improved!”
If any of these considerations lead you to use the passive, make sure during your editing, revision, and proofreading cycles to avoid too much passive voice. Also take care to observe all the rules and requirements of agreement and consistency. Longer passive constructions naturally make subject, verb, and agent somewhat remote from one another, thereby enhancing the possibility that you will lose sight of the number or person with which the verb must agree. This is particularly true if the verb and prepositional agent phrase are close together while the subject is fairly far away. Then writers tend to make the verb agree with the number and person of the agent rather than the true subject of the sentence. WRONG: “The apple, fallen from a tree that stood for eons in the farmer’s yard, were eaten by the hogs.” RIGHT: “The apple … was eaten by….”
Consistency should be maintained by making all clauses in a sentence either active or passive but not mixing voices in the same sentence. This is particularly true when a series of more than two clauses is joined together. WRONG: “The dog barks loudly, the cow stumbles toward the meadow, and the pig is herded toward the pen by the farmhand.”* RIGHT: “The dog … and the farmhand herds the pig toward the pen.”
Past tense. Verbs indicate the time of the actions or conditions they depict by changing forms. Actions or conditions that took place before now or in the time the speaker or writer assumes to be now are said to be in the past and are depicted by the past tense. Most verbs form their past tenses by adding “d” or “ed” to their main forms: “walk, walked” “type, typed” “cook, cooked.” But there are many verbs that change shape in the past and other forms irregularly. See the entry on irregular verbs and the individual entries for those verbs, which provide more details on how they are formed and used. Also see the entry on tenses for the more elaborately formed and less commonly used variants on the simple past tense.
Pay, paid, paid. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Percent. The word “percent” can also be represented by the symbol%. In most standard English writing that is not highly mathematical, scientific, or commercial, the word is spelled out instead of using the symbol. In tables and other places where space is limited, the symbol can appear rather than the word.
Period. The punctuation mark that ends most sentences is the period (.). Question marks and exclamation points can also end sentences, and any ending punctuation can be enclosed in quotes, parentheses, or brackets: “Here is an example.” The example could have been enclosed in parentheses or brackets as well as quotes, and (at least in theory) the sentence could have been construed as a question or command ending appropriately.
Periods are also used to mark the ends of most abbreviations: “The philosopher received the Ph.D. degree with honors.” Some styles reduce or eliminate periods after abbreviations: “The stockbroker arrived at 6 am, and went home at 7 pm.”
Ellipses are strings of periods used to indicate that words have been dropped from a statement, particularly a quoted passage: “The chairperson stated, The budget must be examined … and profits must rise.” Three ellipses points indicate words dropped within a sentence, and four appear at the end of a sentence to show continuation (unless the shortened passage ends with other punctuation: “What are the consequences of using the active voice, the passive voice, and …?”).
Periods never fall outside quotation marks as the final punctuation of a sentence. WRONG: “Here is an example”. Such punctuation is used only in British English and is not the right way to indicate that a quoted passage ends with other punctuation in the source even though you have chosen to end the statement at the point shown. If such specificity is necessary, you can indicate source ending punctuation with ellipses and brackets, still followed by period and quotes: “Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what you can do for your country […].’” If the ellipses and brackets were not used in this sentence, it would properly end as: “… your country.” The period is inside all quotes.
Periods can come outside brackets (as shown in the preceding examples) or parentheses when a full sentence is not set off parenthetically: “The poet wrote an ode (I can’t remember the title).” Even though the parenthetical expression is a whole sentence, it does not end in a period, while the full sentence ends after the parenthetical expression and therefore does show a period. Full sentences within parentheses and not contained within other sentences end with periods inside the parentheses: “(The ode is called To a Sparrow.)” Note that the period in this case is inside the single quote mark as well.
Person, Person is a grammatical category that indicates whether a noun or pronoun defines the stance of “I,” “you,” or “the other.” That is, first-person words refer to the self as a subject, object, or in other grammatical roles: “I speak clearly.” “It is given to me.” “She handed the book to me.” “We like it.” “It pleases him.” The pronouns “I, me,” and “me, us” in these examples are all first person, singular and plural. Second person is always indicated by “you” in all numbers and cases. All the other pronouns are the person of the other, third person: “It, it” “he, him” “she, her” and “they, them.”
Verbs and other pronouns must agree in number and person with the pronouns they modify, refer to, or portray action for. First-person plural subjects take first-person plural verbs, which may have different forms than, say, first-person singular or third-person plural verbs. See agreement, conjugation, irregular verbs, and number.
Consistency of person from clause to clause in a sentence helps a reader follow your thinking, while changes of person can confuse. WRONG: “We play in the fields, and I enjoy it.” The sentence is potentially confusing because the reader does not know how the others feel about play or the field, or why they were brought into the sentence in the first place if the point is “I’s” feelings. Better to write: “I played in the field with them, and I enjoyed it.” This sentence is still somewhat misleading in that the reader doesn’t know how “they” felt about things, but it seems clearer that the statement is focused on “I” and not “they.” Therefore the absence of information on “they’s” feelings is not so striking.
Personal pronoun. The following words are called personal pronouns because they indicate people: I, you, he, she, it, we, and they. Each of them has a separate entry that explains the rules and nuances of their use, gives examples of poor and good usage, and refers to other entries with important information. See also pronouns, case, number, and agreement.
Ph.D. The abbreviation for the academic doctoral degree is “Ph.D.” When names include the abbreviation (which follows the name and is set off by commas), they do not need any other honorific (such as Dr., Mr., Ms., etc.): “They honored Sally Fay, Ph.D., and her achievements in executive education. Ms. Fay could not accept the award in person.”
Phrase. Phrases are groups of words that do not have subjects, verbs, or objects or subject complements but stand in place of or add meaning to those elements of sentences.
Phrases can function as various parts of speech: adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs. In those functions phrases obey all the rules that apply to the parts of speech, though they may not change form or act in precisely the same way as one-word or simple parts of speech. That is, a verb may change form to agree in number or person with its subject, while a verbal phrase might not alter in any way or in the same way: “He is here, and they are here.” The verb changes (is conjugated) to reflect subjects different in person and number. But: “The photographer sees the sleeping gorilla and six sleeping cheetahs.” The verbal phrases “sleeping gorilla” and “six sleeping cheetahs” show no alteration in the adjectival form for singular or plural. See agreement and conjugation.
Phrases equal the noun, verb, preposition, participle, or other part of speech at their core plus any modifiers, auxiliaries, or supplemental words that are part of them: “To reach the farmer, the apparent victim, the car had driven to the red barn standing on the sloping hill above the house in the hollow.” The phrases (and their types and functions) in this artificially complex example are the following:
“To reach the farmer” (infinitive phrase adverbially modifying the verb phrase “had driven”)
“the apparent victim” (noun phrase standing in apposition to “the farmer”)
“had driven” (verb phrase as predicate)
“to the red barn” (prepositional phrase adverbially modifying the verb and containing the noun phrase “red barn”)
“standing on” (verbal/present participial phrase adjectivally modifying “barn”)
“on the sloping hill” (prepositional phrase adverbially modifying the verbal phrase “standing”)
“sloping” (verbal/present participial phrase adjectivally modifying “hill” and making up part of the noun phrase “sloping hill”)
“above the house” (prepositional phrase adjectivally modifying “hill”)
“in the hollow” (prepositional phrase adjectivally modifying “house”)
The position and function of phrases in sentences dictate their punctuation: Appositives are set off with commas; longer introductory phrases of any kind are followed by commas before the main clauses of sentences; nonrestrictive phrases are set off with commas.
The entries for each part of speech contain more information on how they work and the rules that apply to them and equally to phrases.
Plural. Nouns that represent more than one thing or person are said to be plural, as are the verbs and pronouns that agree with them: “Dogs chew their bones” (see agreement). All the words in the example are plural. From the example it is clear that nouns form their plurals by adding “s,” while verbs drop “s” in their third-person present tense forms: (“the dog chews,” but “the dogs chew”). Plural pronouns (like “their” in the example) usually have distinct forms for plurals. See collective pronouns, number, irregular verbs, and possessives.
P.M. The abbreviation “P.M.” stands for the Latin words “post meridiem” and means the time from noon to midnight: “I’ll meet you at 8 P.M.” The abbreviation is normally capitalized or appears as small capital letters where this is typographically possible. When you use “P.M.,” do not add “o’clock” or such phrases as “in the afternoon.” See also A.M.
Possessive. The inflected form of a noun or pronoun that indicates possession or ownership of something is called the “possessive”: “This is my house and Spot’s playground.” “My” and “Spot’s” are in the possessive (case). See inflection.
Pronouns form possessives in special ways. Indefinite pronouns follow the rules below, adding “‘s” in most cases. Personal pronouns have unique possessive forms. See the entries for individual pronouns for more details.
Most singular nouns add an apostrophe (’) and “s” to form a possessive: “The bird’s beak is long.” In the plural, nouns that end in “s” add only an apostrophe: “The birds’ beaks are long.” Plural nouns or collective nouns that do not end in “s” add both the apostrophe and “s”: “The children’s outing was Tuesday.” Singular nouns or names that end in “s” also add apostrophe and “s” to form the possessive: “Sophocles’s plays were of little interest in Jesus’s time.” Some styles form possessives for important or traditional names that end in “s” with just an apostrophe. Unless you are compelled to follow such a style, add “s.”
When more than two things or people possess something, you need to determine whether each one has an equal and separate share or whether the ownership is combined or joint. In the first instance, show individual ownership by more than one person or thing by making each word possessive: “Joan’s and John’s book is spellbinding.” For the latter instance, show joint or combined ownership by making only the last person or thing possessive: “Nixon and Agnew’s morals were suspect.”
If you are unsure how shared or distinct contributions to or ownership of something is, then it is probably better to assume separate possessives will be more accurate and not offend anyone by slighting his or her role. This is particularly true for husbands and wives, male-female teams, and parent-child ownerships. It is considered offensive to subsume the wife’s, female’s, or child’s role or ownership under that of the male or elder by putting only one name into the possessive. Be quite sure of your facts if you do write something like “Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s business.” It might well turn out that the Smiths would have preferred to see “Jane Smith’s and John Smith’s business,” which gives them equal billing. See sexist language.
Precede, proceed. Commonly confused, these similar words differ in meaning. “Precede” means come before; “proceed” means to continue or move in procession.
Predicate. Everything in a sentence that is not the subject is the “predicate”: verb, object, predicate adjective or noun (subject complement), and related words. “The door is open to the balcony, which overlooks the shining bay of Naples and the scattered islands that ring the harbor.”
In the example all the words from “is” to the end are parts of the predicate. With inversion or other orders of words possible and common in English, predicates don’t always follow subjects: “Is it true that time is up?” The predicate in the main sentence in this example equals everything but “it” in the subordinate clause beginning with “that,” the predicate equals “is up.”
Besides the simple agreement requirements between subject and predicate—that verbs, predicate adjectives and pronouns, and subject complements match the subject in number and person—it is important that subject and predicate match in a more general way. They need to refer to the same thing or same order of thing. WRONG: “The reason I woke up is John made noise.” A reason and a person are not really equivalent or of the same order. BETTER: “The reason I woke up is that John made noise.” A reason can be a clause explaining something, as in the example.
Mismatches between sentence elements happen most often with forms of “be” the linking verb and a common weak spot in sentences. Combining “be” with “when” “where,” or “because” is another weak writing move and often the sign of a predicate mismatch. WRONG: “Sleep is when it is quiet.” Not really; sleep doesn’t equal a time or condition of silence, though it might happen then. BETTER: “I sleep when it is quiet.” “Sleep comes to me when it is quiet.” “Sleep is best at times of quiet.” There are many more variants that are clearer than the “wrong” example.
Look for linking verbs and other signals in all your sentences, and revise with care to ensure that subject and predicate agree and match grammatically and in terms of general sense. See also phrases for more explanation of the parts of speech that go into subjects and predicates and revision and editing.
Predicate adjective. Adjectives that fall in predicates are called “predicate adjectives”: “The barn is red.” “Red” is an adjective modifying or referring to “the barn.” Such words are also called “subject complements.”
Predicate noun. Nouns and pronouns that appear in predicates and are the simple equivalent of the subject are called “predicate nouns”: “Jan is a student.” “Student” is a predicate noun in this example. Such words are also called subject complements.
There is no limit to the length or complexity of noun phrases or pronoun phrases that can constitute predicate nouns. However, they must agree grammatically and in general with their subjects, sharing number and person in most cases. Longer and more complex phrases should be checked to make sure that agreement has not been lost sight of.
Prefix. Sets of letters that are added to the beginnings of words to modify their meaning are called “prefixes.” The list that follows includes the most common prefixes and gives a sense of how their addition to a word changes its meaning. Note, however, that the same prefix can have different results with different words. For instance, “re” at the start of a word can indicate something is done again or once more (“revise”) or that the action is directed back to its source or origin (“reveal” or “return”).
Prefixes are usually spelled solid with the word to which they are attached: “recreate.” But when distinctions are possible between meanings of prefixed words that are otherwise spelled the same, a hyphen may be inserted: “recreation means leisure” but “re-creation means creating again.” Similarly, when prefixes are attached to capitalized or compound words, hyphens are used: “pre-civil War.” See capitalization.
Preposition. Prepositions are words that indicate a relationship between two or more things and/or people but not an action. They specify direction, scope, timing, and other aspects of action or condition by linking a noun to another noun, verb, or adverb.
The most common prepositions are the following: about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, as, at, below, before, behind, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, out, outside, over, past, since, through, toward, under, until, up, with, without.
Prepositions and the nouns and other words that they “govern” make prepositional phrases that function as adjectives or adverbs. In the following artificial example, the many prepositional phrases play various roles that are explained after the example: “Toward evening, the elephant walked into the clearing and trumpeted to the skies above us its disapproval of our presence in its realm.”
“Toward evening” is an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying “walked.” Although it comes before “elephant,” it does not modify it, since living beings cannot have the kind of time relationship indicated by the phrase except through some action. Therefore the phrase modifies the action despite the sentence’s word order (see modifier and order of words)
“into the clearing” is another adverbial phrase that deals with “walked” and indicates direction rather than time
“to the skies” is another adverb use of a prepositional phrase, here modifying “trumpeted”
“above us” modifies the noun “skies” in the phrase before it, and even though that phrase is adverbial, this one is adjectival (since a noun is the thing qualified)
“of our presence” is adjectival in function, modifying “disapproval”
“in its realm” is also adjectival, here relating to the noun in the preceding prepositional phrase, “presence.”
Note that prepositions govern the objective case, which means that pronouns that are the objects of prepositions change form to reflect their case: “I gave it to them.” The function of the prepositional phrase in the sentence does not change this rule—all objects of prepositions are in the objective case.
Prepositional phrases placed at the beginning of sentences can be set off with commas in the following circumstances: if they are nonrestrictive phrases (contribute less than essential information to the sentence like’ Toward evening’ in the example); if they are long (though just what is long is a matter of judgment); or if not setting them off would confuse the reader (often true when the prepositional phrases are fairly far away from what they modify). Putting prepositional phrases at the beginning of sentences is a useful way to emphasize something or vary style to sustain reader interest (see emphasis).
Like all sentence elements with varying roles and flexible positioning within a sentence, prepositional phrases can be put in the wrong place or in a place that confuses the reader. If, in the example, the phrase “toward evening” appeared as the last words in the sentence, it would be hard to know what was happening at that time or what was being modified by the phrases “our presence” or “its realm” (presuming the elephant had a daytime realm). Check all sentences that have prepositional phrases to see that they are placed and worded so that it is clear what they are referring to (see clarity).
When prepositions appear in names or titles that are capitalized, the prepositions should not be capitalized whatever their length or function, unless they are the first word in the title (On Golden Pond) or are the subject themselves of the title in some way (“The Grammar of To”). See capitalization.
Prepositional phrase. All the nouns or pronouns and the words modifying them that are “governed by” a preposition (follow it as its objects) constitute the prepositional phrase: “That meeting of executives was boring. The idea of them making decisions is ludicrous.” All the underlined words are the prepositional phrases in these examples.
The prepositional phrase can function adjectivally or adverbially, following the rules for each such role as if it were a single word adverb or adjective. See the entry on prepositions for more information on punctuation, order of words, and other aspects of using prepositions and the words they govern; see also modifier.
Present tense. Verbs change their forms to indicate the time of the actions or conditions they depict. Actions or conditions that take place now or are perceived by the writer or speaker to be happening now are in the “present tense.”
Verbs form their present tenses from the main form itself (in the first and second person) and the main form plus “S” or “es” (in the third person) in most cases: “walk, walks” “type, types” “echo, echoes.” See tenses for more elaborately formed and commonly used forms of the present tense.
Principal, principle. Do not confuse these words that sound alike (homonyms). “Principal” means mean or primary as either an adjective or noun: “‘The principal means of attaining success is hard work,’ said the school principal [main official].” In financial terms, “principal” is the main body of money in an investment. “Principle” means rule or belief: “The main principles of Buddhism are not commonly known in this country.”
Principle. See principal.
Proceed. See precede.
Pronoun. Words that “stand for” more specific nouns are called “pronouns.” The common pronouns come in many types: personal pronouns, demonstrative, intensifiers, interrogative, reciprocal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, and relative pronouns. There are entries for each of the important pronouns and for each of these types. Please consult those specific entries as well as the brief description of their functioning given below along with a list of the most common pronouns in each group.
PERSONAL. Personal pronouns are used in place of specific things or people. I, you, he, she, it, we, and they are all the personal pronouns.
DEMONSTRATIVE. These pronouns that indicate specific things or people and suggest their relationship to the speaker: this, these and that, those are the singulars and plurals of the demonstratives that suggest, respectively, closeness or immediacy versus remoteness.
INTENSIVE. Pronouns that add “self” (“selves” in plural) can be used to emphasize the nouns they precede (“I myself saw that.”). These forms are also reflexive pronouns. See emphasis.
INTERROGATIVE. These pronouns indicate questioning: what, which, and who.
RECIPROCAL. These pronouns, “each other” and “one another,” are used with plural antecedents to indicate separate actions or conditions of the antecedent: “I saw the monkeys groom each other.”
REFLEXIVE. Reflexives are formed like the intensive pronouns by adding “self” or “selves” (plural). These words stand alone (unlike the intensive) and indicate actions or conditions that go back to the sentence or clause subject: “The monkey groomed itself and its mate.”
RELATIVE. These pronouns (“that” “what,” “whatever,” “which,” “whichever,” “who,” and “whoever”) link dependent clauses to the main parts of sentences and indicate the relationship between such clauses and the sentence’s main thrust: “I saw the monkey that was grooming its partner, who was sitting nearby.” See also restrictive clauses and nonrestrictive clauses.
Proper noun. In grammar terms, names are “proper nouns”: “Bill told Marie that the Titanic had sunk with his copy of Tolstoy’s novel.” All the capitalized words in the example are proper nouns, or names of things or people (see capitalization). Proper nouns are almost always capitalized.
Prove, proved, proved. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.
Proved. See prove.
Punctuation. The marks in sentences that are not letters are “punctuation.” Punctuation marks tell how various parts of the sentence are related to one another and to other sentences. Each of the punctuation marks listed and briefly described here has an entry of its own giving further details about it and examples of how to use it.
ACCENTS. These marks appear above or below letters to indicate their pronunciation or other aspects of their function within a word. English has no accents in words that originated in the language itself, but it shows accents carried over from other languages: “The employee wrote a résumé.” “Résumé” is an English word now, and it usually carries the accents that it had in its French origins.
APOSTROPHE. Apostrophes (’) mark possessives and contractions: “The player’s dog doesn’t bite.”
ASTERISK. The asterisk (*) is more a typographical device to emphasize parts of lists, notes to a page, and the like rather than a punctuation mark strictly speaking: “Here are the important points:
COLON. The colon (:) stands before and sharply sets off lists and dependent or independent phrases or clauses. It appears in this book frequently before examples: “The important parts are as follows: punctuality, neatness, …”The colon also appears in time figures to separate hours and minutes: “See you at 2:45.”
COMMA. The comma (,) separates elements without much abruptness or distance; put another way, commas link things as much as they separate them and mark borders between things: “The photojournalist photographed lions, cheetahs, and elephants. The photographer took the photos in Africa, and developed them in Indiana, where the studio is.” The commas in the example link and mark borders between items in a list and then between two independent clauses, one of which has within it nouns in apposition (rephrased versions of the nouns next to which they stand) to the object of a preposition. Many other grammatical entities are similarly linked and delimited by commas.
Commas also appear in numbers greater than 999 that aren’t dates (“4,367”), in dates between days and years (“November 23, 1963”), and to set off honorific titles and direct quotations (“Jan Smith, Ph.D., said, That’s right.”).
DASH. The dash (—) is an abrupt or sharp divider of ideas or words that usually sets off something added or interjected into a sentence: “Everyone there—Bill, Mary, Inga—agreed.” See interjection.
ELLIPSIS. This punctuation mark (…) indicates the omission of some words (three periods) or sentences (four periods) from quoted speech or from any incomplete statement whether attributed to someone or not: “The speaker said, ‘The points to consider are sixteen in number: first….” “I decided that enough was enough….”
EXCLAMATION POINT. The exclamation point marks an emphatic, loud, or important statement: “You better believe it!” See emphasis.
HYPHEN. The hyphen (-) joins two words together to form a compound word: “The decision-making process took too long.” The hyphen also indicates that a word fragment at the end of a line should be joined to the rest of the word that appears at the beginning of the next line:
“Here is the example that will
show a hyphen appearing randomly
at the end of one line.”
PARENTHESES. Interjected words in a sentence can be marked in several ways, including by enclosure in parentheses: “Everyone there (Chris, Jan, Sandy) agreed.” Commas or dashes can often be used for the same purpose.
PERIOD. The period (.) marks the end of sentences that don’t end with question marks or exclamation points: “That is so.” Periods also indicate the ends of abbreviations: “Mr. Jones is here.”
QUESTION MARK. This punctuation ends a question: “Isn’t that so?”
QUOTATION MARKS. This punctuation surrounds a direct quote: “King said, ‘I have a dream.’ ” Single quotes appear to mark direct quotes within quoted speech, as in the example. Quotation marks around single words or phrases are also used to indicate that they are somehow in question or are being considered as entities or grammatical categories in themselves: “‘Dream’ is a noun.”
SEMICOLON. The semicolon (;) functions somewhat like the comma, but it is used to mark clearer distinctions between or among things or when the phrases or clauses it separates already contain commas: “We saw lions, tigers, and rhinos; and then we left the zoo and went to the movies.”
Put, put, put. An irregular verb in its main, past tense, and past participle forms.