English grammar explained in plain language simple enough to be understood.
Today is Memorial Day. Today we take time to recognize and remember all military members who have died in service to our country. It’s a good time to also remember that we must capitalize the names of special holidays. Memorial… Read more356. Memorial Day
Parentheses ( ) are a type of punctuation. Parentheses always come as a pair – in twos. We put parentheses around words and information that are not of major importance. The words in a parentheses can be left out and… Read more172. Parentheses
The apostrophe (‘) has two basic uses. 1. In a contraction. When we push two words together to make one word, we contract the two words by taking out some letters. An apostrophe goes into the space where the letters… Read more403. The Apostrophe – Use it Correctly
Section A: Find the word or words in each sentence that should be capitalized.1. We celebrated memorial day last month.2. The kids like to dress up in costumes on halloween.3. We like to eat turkey and stuffing on thanksgiving day…. Read more360. Practice With Capitalization
A direct quotation is the quoting of someone else’s words. When you write someone else’s words into your own document, you must place quotation marks around those quoted words. Quotation marks always come in a set of two. Here is… Read more173. Quotation Marks in Direct Quotations
Books, plays, poems, stories, songs, and newspaper articles are some of the written works that have a title. Whenever we write a title, certain words in the title must be capitalized. Always capitalize the first and last word of the… Read more461. Capitalizing Words in a Title
The days of the week are names, so they must be capitalized. Every time you write a day of the week, be sure it begins with a capital letter. SundayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturday Last Friday, we went out for dinner.I have swim practice… Read more361. Capitalize Days of the Week
Names of important buildings are always capitalized. Hospital names are capitalized.Mayo ClinicNorthwest Community Hospital Retail stores are capitalized.TargetWalmart Restaurant names are capitalized.McDonaldsOlive Garden Important buildings are capitalized.United States CapitolThe White HouseThe Museum of Science and Industry Remember to capitalize the… Read more359. Capitalize Names of Buildings
When two nouns are connected to make one new word, we call that new word a compound noun or a compound word. Here are some examples of compound words:dog and house = doghousecamp and fire = campfirenews and paper =… Read more266. Compound Nouns
This week’s topic is italics – a request from one of our regular readers. You can type in italics by clicking on the slanted I at the top of your word processing page. Here are three of the many uses… Read more186. Italics: Book Titles, Newspapers, Magazines