Pronouns make up a small subcategory of nouns. The distinguishing characteristic of pronouns is that they can be substituted for other nouns. For instance, if you’re telling a story about your sister Sarah, the story will begin to sound repetitive if you keep repeating “Sarah” over and over again.
Semicolons (;) are as basic as a period stacked on top of a comma. Does that mean you can use it like either one? Don’t get your hopes up. But don’t let this punctuation mark get you down, either. After all, that sly emoticon winky eye can’t be all bad. 😉
The most common use of the semicolon is to join two independent clauses without using a conjunction like and.
Deciding whether to put a comma before or after but in a sentence is hard for a lot of writers, but it doesn’t have to be for you!
You should put a comma before but only when but is connecting two independent clauses.
How do you know you have two independent clauses? First, look at the words before but: I would go for a walk.
Recently Grammarly asked its social media communities which writing mistakes were the worst kinds of errors. Our fans tend to find substantive grammatical trip-ups, like verb errors, far more frustrating than typographical errors and “stylistic” errors, such as homophone misspelling and preposition placement.
Embed code for infographic at end of post.
Introductory clauses are dependent clauses that are often found at the beginning of the sentence (although they can be moved to the end of the sentence, too, without confusing the meaning of the sentence). After a dependent introductory clause, we use a comma to separate the introductory clause from the independent clause. Consider the examples below:
Let there be no mistake—the comma wields a power far greater than its humble looks might suggest. “You will go you will return never in the battle you will perish” is the most famous example of it. This saying is usually attributed to the Oracle of Delphi, and it is supposed to be an answer to the question of whether or not to go to war. If you place a comma before “never,” the answer becomes a green light.
Should you place a comma before so when it joins two clauses in a sentence? The answer depends on whether the clause introduced by so is an independent or dependent clause. If so begins an independent clause, a comma should precede it, but if it begins a dependent clause, leave it out.
Let’s have a look at how commas are used before so in the middle of a sentence.
An independent clause is a clause that would convey a complete thought if it were to be set apart as a sentence on its own.
Correlative pairs of conjunctions include words like neither…nor, not…but, and both…and. For this punctuation rule, we can also consider sets of words like not only…but also. When pairs or sets of conjunctions are being used, they do not need to be separated from each other by a comma. However, a comma may be used between the conjunctions to accommodate another grammar rule (see Exceptions).
According to an oft-quoted 2002 article from The New York Times, 81 percent of Americans believe they have a book in them – and that they should write it.
In November, 41,940 participants in National Novel Writing Month did just that when they successfully wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. At the same time, because not all novelists-to-be have the time to write a solo-book, the Grammarly team organized a group of authors to collaborate on one novel.
What’s the difference between despite and in spite of?
The easy answer: none. Despite and in spite of, despite what you may have heard, work identically in a sentence.
In other words, these two prepositions, in spite of what you may have heard, are basically identical.
In most cases, both mean “notwithstanding,” “even though,” or “regardless of.”
Despite their similarities, keep these things in mind to make sure your usage gives no cause for complaint.
A subordinating conjunction is a word or phrase that links a dependent clause to an independent clause. This word or phrase indicates that a clause has informative value to add to the sentence’s main idea, signaling a cause-and-effect relationship or a shift in time and place between the two clauses.
Sound complicated? Let’s break it down.
A dependent clause, also known as a subordinate clause, is a clause with two specific qualities.
The rules governing verb tenses are dictated by logic; an action in the future obviously cannot happen before an action in the past. In writing, it’s a matter of looking at your clauses and sentences and determining when each action is happening relative to everything else. The past must come before the present, and the present before the future, etc. Pay particular attention to the verb sequence when you have a dependent clause before an independent clause, or a result clause before the if-clause.
