Memorize these and recognize 27.5% of all Grammar clues.
| # | Answer | Count | Sample Clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | an adverb | 10 | In the sentence "Johnny is amazingly talented", amazingly is this part of speech |
| 2 | a preposition | 6 | It's acceptable to end a sentence with one of these parts of speech, as in "She knew what to look for." |
| 3 | an adjective | 6 | This part of speech comes from the Latin "to add to", which is its function |
| 4 | a conjunction | 5 | It's the part of speech omitted from the quote "Three cheers for the red, white blue" |
| 5 | a noun | 4 | It can be common, proper, collective or concrete |
| 6 | an interjection | 4 | Fraznat! I stubbed my toe on that statue of George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO from 1955 to 1979!: fraznat |
| 7 | ain't | 3 | Britannica notes that this word "can be used to mean am not, are not, is not, have not & has not" |
| 8 | verb | 3 | Remember |
| 9 | articles | 3 | In English exactly 3 words, with a total of 6 letters, represent this part of speech |
| 10 | a split infinitive | 3 | "I want to badly win Jeopardy!" is an example of this grammatical no-no |
| 11 | the pronoun | 3 | The antecedent is the word or phrase that this part of speech refers to |
| 12 | y'all | 2 | Merriam-Webster notes this "chiefly southern U.S." pronoun is "usually used in addressing two or more persons" |
| 13 | syntax | 2 | Sentence diagrams visually represent this, the way words are arranged & relate within sentences |
| 14 | subjunctive | 2 | In English, the 3 main verb moods are indicative, imperative & this |
| 15 | Perfect | 2 | Absolutes shouldn't be used in comparative forms, so the Constitution's "A More" this kind of "Union" is wrong |
| 16 | o'clock | 2 | This time-telling contraction lost its "F" centuries ago |
| 17 | interjections | 2 | From Latin for "thrown in between", these words are attention-getters |
| 18 | infinitives | 2 | In "Discovering English Grammar", Richard Veit says it's okay to sometimes split these |
| 19 | conjunctions | 2 | Parataxis is where you place clauses, you insert phrases, you add thoughts one after the other without using these |
| 20 | Clause | 2 | The "main" type of these can stand alone as a sentence; the "subordinate" type can't |
| 21 | cap'n | 2 | The apostrophe in this contracted rank takes the place of "tai" |
| 22 | a verb & an adjective | 2 | Complete |
| 23 | -ing | 2 | 3-letter ending of present participles & gerunds |
| 24 | 'Twas | 2 | It precedes "brillig" & "the night before" |
| 25 | 'tis | 2 | This contraction is in the alternate name of the patriotic song "America" |
| 26 | the predicate | 2 | P: The building blocks of a sentence are subject & this, what is said of the subject |
| 27 | the comma | 2 | One of the principal uses of this punctuation mark is to set off coordinate clauses |
| 28 | a subject | 2 | The sentence "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" has a plural compound one of these |
| 29 | a question mark | 2 | Also known as an interrogation mark, it ends an interrogative sentence |
| 30 | a sentence fragment | 2 | A Big Red "S.F." on a term paper stands for this, a sequence of words lacking subject, verb or both |
These appear 8+ times. Memorize these first.
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