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Grasping Grammar

How to Write Properly and Improve Your Grades

Oliver Murphy

Grasping Grammar

By Oliver Murphy

Foreword

Everyone needs to know the rules of grammar if they want to write well: every student at school, every adult at work. But many in Ireland have never been taught these rules. The upshot is that they struggle for the rest of their lives, unsure of how to spell ‘weird’, where they might put an apostrophe, whether they should use a colon or a semicolon, if they should write ‘my partner and I’ or ‘my partner and me’. It’s not their fault; nobody ever taught them grammar thoroughly and properly.

This book has been written to change all that. It has fourteen manageable units, dealing with the rules of English grammar, starting with the basics and gradually moving into the more advanced rules – but nothing too complex. Like a maths book, it has quick exercises to make sure that the rules are understood and mastered.

Who should use this book? It could be used in schools – especially in first year (where the teacher might give one lesson per fortnight) or transition year (where it would make an excellent half-year module). But every student should cover this book at some stage in their school life. Otherwise, they will underachieve in their exams – and not just in English, but in every subject (especially if there is coursework or CBAs to be written). The Chief Advising Examiner for Leaving Cert English has written that if students get a lower grade than expected, it is probably due to “lapses in grammar, punctuation, spelling and syntax.”

This book could also be used by anyone who has to write emails, reports or documents at work. They can go through the 14 units systematically and test themselves on the exercises and Kahoots. It will make all the difference.

Throughout the book you will find QR codes. These include clips from the author, Kahoot! quizzes and much more. The aim is to make the process of learning grammar as interactive as possible.

The answers to all exercises are available on mcandrewbooks.com

Oliver Murphy BA HDE

July 2024

Unit 1: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives & Adverbs

Noun: A noun is a word such as car, mother, friend, school, music, which represents a thing, a person or an idea. The nouns in the following passage are in bold:

The male penguin leaves his partner and chick and walks several miles to the sea. He then hunts for food which he brings back to the pair who are waiting in the snow. They are freezing cold.

Verb: A verb is a word which tells what action is going on. The verbs in these sentences are in bold:

The car mounted the footpath and crashed into the railing. Fortunately, the driver and the passengers were uninjured because the car was travelling slowly.

Adjective: An adjective is a word (such as yellow, broken, empty, happy, enormous) which describes a noun. The adjectives in this passage are in bold:

The small boy stood up on the wooden bench and shouted to his attentive teammates, "We are not going to lose this horrible match. The weather is awful. The ref is unfair. The opposition are cheats. But we are brave and we are going to show them what we are made of."

Adverb: An adverb is a word (such as happily, unfortunately, bravely) which describes a verb. The adverbs in this passage are in bold: The teacher spoke quietly to the student, who continued shouting angrily in reply: "You've all treated me unfairly." The teacher, speaking softly, said, "You have been treated respectfully at all times, Sheila. There is no need for you to be behaving so badly."

You may be surprised to know that an adverb may also be used to describe an adjective. Here are some examples: Mr Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes. They are unbelievably tasty and very nice to look at. Yesterday I ate three of them.

Adverbs also describe other adverbs: She drove exceedingly quickly. He danced surprisingly beautifully.

How to make an adverb from the corresponding adjective…

To make an adverb from a corresponding adjective, you usually add -ly.

• So, calm becomes calmly, spiteful becomes spitefully and clinical becomes clinically

• However, with adjectives which end in -y, the y changes to i and then you add -ly. So, greedy becomes greedily. Exceptions are shy (shyly), coy (coyly) and spry (spryly).

• Adjectives which end in -able (or -ible) change to -ably (or -ibly). So, manageable becomes manageably and terrible becomes terribly.

• Finally, adjectives which end in -ic change to -ically. For example, the adjective basic corresponds to the adverb basically and the adjective erratic becomes the adverb erratically. But public becomes publicly.

PUTTING THE Qualifying adverbs in the right place

What is wrong with this sentence?

“I only eat turkey at Christmas.”

It means that the only thing you do at Christmas is to eat turkey – you don’t watch any movies, you don’t give presents, you don’t go out, you just spend the whole time eating turkey. What you meant to say was, “I eat turkey only at Christmas.” This means, as you intended, that the only time you eat turkey is at Christmas.

Here is another example: “Thank you very much for the seeds you sent me – every one of them nearly came up!”

Question 1: What does the sentence above actually mean?

It means that each seed started to grow but just failed to come into the sunlight. In other words, not a single seed became a flower.

Question 2: What should the writer have written?

“Thank you very much for the seeds you sent me – nearly every one of them came up!” [With the qualifying adverb ‘nearly’ beside that which it qualifies.]

Rule: put the qualifying adverb as near to the word it qualifies as possible.

Well, well, well…

The word ‘well’ can be a noun. It means a place from where you can draw water.

The word ‘well’ can be an adjective. It means ‘in good health’. Here’s an example:

“I was sick last week, but now I’m well.”

‘Well’ is the adverb corresponding to the adjective ‘good’.

Here’s an example: “Rhasidat Adeleke ran well for Ireland.”

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Do not use ‘well’ or ‘super’ as an adverb when you mean ‘very’.

Here’s an example:

Wrong: “I was feeling well tired.”

Wrong: “I was feeling super tired.”

Right: “I was feeling very tired.”

NOTE: The adverb corresponding to the adjective ‘fast’ is also ‘fast’.

For example:

Adjective: “My new bike is really fast.”

Adverb: “You’re driving too fast.”

Tips to be a better writer…

1. Avoid using an adjective to describe a verb. For example, don’t write, “You played brilliant,” but rather “You played brilliantly.”

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2. Don’t overuse the word ‘basically’. It means little or nothing. Basically, you could use is at the beginning of most sentences. Basically, it's a waste of a word. Basically, it's better to leave it out.

Exercise 1

1. In these sentences put a wavy line under the nouns, put a box around the verbs, underline line the adjectives with a single line and underline the adverbs with two lines. The first one is done for you.

Noun Verb Adjective Adverb

(i) The lion growled angrily at the terrified bird

(ii) The yellow sun glowed beautifully as it set behind the grey mountains.

(iii) The quick fox jumped lazily over the brown dog.

(iv) The fiddler played beautifully on the new violin.

(v) "Why are you such a terrible father?” the boy asked angrily.

2. Complete this table:

Adjective Adverb poor poorly merry merrily bad local casually meekly powerful jaunty happily masterfully gloomy justifiable majestic pathetically cheerily good sporadic fast true

3. In each case, choose the correct adjective/adverb which goes into the blank space, by circling the right one:

Which word goes in the blank space?

I did ___________ in my English exam; I got 100%. good/well

My brother was ________________ to the referee both during the match and afterwards. disrespectful/ disrespectfully

The government of the day did not manage the economy _______________. proper/ properly

We will have to play more _______________ in the second half. aggressive/ aggressively

This orange juice is _____________ smooth; I love it! real/really

Harry sang _______________ at Glastonbury. amazing/ amazingly

4. The adverb very can be rather limp. It is often better to omit it altogether. For example, it is often more direct to say “I am sorry” than “I am very sorry.”

In this exercise, suggest a better adverb instead of ‘very’ in each sentence. The first has been done for you.

Sentence with ‘very’

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Better word for ‘very’

The crowd became very angry. frighteningly I was very upset. His brother was very greedy. I found his language very offensive. She believed her fellow politicians were very weak. After that evening she felt very happy. The events of that day were very frightening.

5. Rewrite these sentences, putting the qualifying adverb (in red) in the right place:

I only go swimming in the summer.

I had an infestation of mice but now I have nearly got rid of all of them.

Hercule Poirot almost solved every murder!

My family only went on foreign holidays in the last three years. I have hardly spoken to any of my neighbours.

6. Improve the writing to mean what you say:

I let him know that I wouldn’t be going to America in a short letter. That family only goes to church at Christmas.

He only married women in their twenties.

I almost killed all the ants in the garden.

7. One of these is wrong. Which one? (Put a tick.)

An adverb describes a verb.

An adverb describes an adjective.

An adverb describes a noun.

An adverb describes another adverb.

8. The word in bold is either an adjective or an adverb. Put a tick under the right answer.

Adjective Adverb

I wish you a happy Christmas. I would happily live in Ireland for the rest of my life. She said she wanted a fast car without a roof. He said that she drives too fast.

I am very disappointed with their new album. The aged couple danced surprisingly well. The aged couple danced surprisingly well.

9. The word ‘well’ can be an adverb, an adjective and a noun. Write a sentence with the word ‘well’ as each of these:

Well as an adverb

Well as an adjective.

Well as a noun