Punctuation and Capital Letters

Punctuation

There are 14 punctuation marks that are commonly used in English grammar. They are the period, question mark, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, colon, dash, hyphen, parentheses, brackets, braces, apostrophe, quotation marks, and ellipsis.

We will today learn about commonly used punctuations : period, question mark, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, colon, apostrophe and quotation marks

Sentence Endings

Three of the fourteen punctuation marks are appropriate for use as sentence endings. They are the period, question mark, and exclamation point.

Period or full stop (.) is placed at the end of declarative sentences, statements thought to be complete and after many abbreviations.

As a sentence ender: Naman and Vihan went to the market.
After an abbreviation: Her son, Chauhan Jr., was born on Jun. 8, 2008.

2. Question mark (?) is used to indicate a direct question when placed at the end of a sentence.

When did Naman go to school?

3. Exclamation point (!) is used when a person wants to express a sudden outcry or add emphasis.

Within dialogue: “Holy cow!” screamed Jane.
To emphasize a point: My mother-in-law’s rants make me furious!

Comma, Semicolon, and Colon

The comma, semicolon, and colon are often misused because they all can indicate a pause in a series.

4. Comma is used to show a separation of ideas or elements within the structure of a sentence. Additionally, it is used in numbers, dates, and letter writing after the salutation and closing.

Direct address: Thanks for all your help, Siri.
Separation of two complete sentences: We went to the movies, and then we went out to lunch.
Separating lists or elements within sentences: Naman wanted the black, green, and blue pants.

5. Semicolon (;) is used to connect independent clauses. It shows a closer relationship between the clauses than a period would show.

John was hurt; he knew she only said it to upset him.

6. Colon (:) has three main uses. The first is after a word introducing a quotation, an explanation, an example, or a series.

He was planning to study four subjects: politics, philosophy, sociology, and economics.

Apostrophe and Quotation Marks

7. Apostrophe (‘) is used to indicate the omission of a letter or letters from a word, the possessive case, or the plurals of lowercase letters. Examples of the apostrophe in use include:

Omission of letters from a word: I’ve seen that movie several times. She wasn’t the only one who knew the answer.
Possessive case: Sara’s dog bit the neighbor.
Plural for lowercase letters: Six people were told to mind their p’s and q’s.

8. Quotations marks (” “) are a pair of punctuation marks used primarily to mark the beginning and end of a passage attributed to another and repeated word for word. They are also used to indicate meanings and to indicate the unusual or dubious status of a word.

“Don’t go outside,” she said.

Single quotation marks (‘ ‘) are used most frequently for quotes within quotes.

Marie told the teacher, “I saw Marc at the playground, and he said to me ‘Bill started the fight,’ and I believed him.”

Capital Letters:

A capital letters is used:

To begin a sentence.
To begin a proper noun

We always begin a sentence with a capital letter.

̄All proper nouns begin with capital letters too.
̄The letter ‘I’ when written by itself is always a capital letter.

You and I are very good friends.

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Pronoun

What is a pronoun?

A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns refer to either a noun that has already been mentioned or to a noun that does not need to be named .

The most common pronouns are the personal pronouns, which refer to the person or people speaking or writing (first person), the person or people being spoken to (second person), or other people or things (third person).

There are a number of other types of pronouns. The interrogative pronouns—particularly what, which, who, whom, and whose—introduce questions for which a noun is the answer, as in “Which do you prefer?”

Possessive pronouns refer to things or people that belong to someone. The main possessive pronouns are mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.

The four demonstrative pronouns—this, that, these, and those—distinguish the person or thing being referred to from other people or things; they are identical to the demonstrative adjectives.

Relative pronouns introduce a subordinate clause, a part of a sentence that includes a subject and verb but does not form a sentence by itself. The main relative pronouns are that, which, who, whom, what, and whose.

Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject of a sentence or clause and are formed by adding -self or -selves to a personal pronoun or possessive adjective, as in myself, herself, ourselves, and itself.

Indefinite pronouns, such as everybody, either, none, and something, do not refer to a specific person or thing, and typically refer to an unidentified or unfamiliar person or thing.

The words it and there can also be used like pronouns when the rules of grammar require a subject but no noun is actually being referred to. Both are usually used at the beginning of a sentence or clause, as in “It was almost noon” and “There is some cake left.” These are sometimes referred to as expletives.

Example:

Ram is a post man. Ram carries letters.
To make the second sentence sound better we can change the word Ram to he.
Now: Ram is a postman. He carries letters.
The word he is a pronoun and that takes the place of Ram

Adjective : Describing Words

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What is an Adjective?
Adjective describes a noun hence they are called describing words.They tell us many things about a noun (shape, size, colour, age, number, taste). They tells us how it looks (shape, size and colour ), smells, sounds, feels or tastes. They also tell how many ( number and age )

tasty pizza

blue triangle

The words tasty and blue are describing words and tells us more about the noun.

They can be placed before nouns or after nouns to describe them.

It is a cute puppy.
The box is heavy.

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SINGULAR AND PLURAL NOUN : ONE AND MANY

Words which name only ONE person, place, animal or thing are called SINGULAR nouns.
Words which name MANY persons, places, animals or things are called PLURAL nouns.
Most singular nouns are made plural by simply putting an -s at the end

There are many plural noun rules

1 To make regular nouns plural, add ‑s to the end.

cat – cats

house – houses

2 If the singular noun ends in ‑s, -ss, -sh, -ch, -x, or -z, add ‑es to the end to make it plural.

truss – trusses

bus – buses

marsh – marshes

lunch – lunches

tax – taxes

blitz – blitzes

3 In some cases, singular nouns ending in -s or -z, require that you double the -s or -z prior to adding the -es for pluralization.

fez – fezzes

gas –gasses

4 If the noun ends with ‑f or ‑fe, the f is often changed to ‑ve before adding the -s to form the plural version.

wife – wives

wolf – wolves

Exceptions:

roof – roofs

belief – beliefs

chef – chefs

chief – chiefs

5 If a singular noun ends in ‑y and the letter before the -y is a consonant, change the ending to ‑ies to make the noun plural.

city – cities

puppy – puppies

6 If the singular noun ends in -y and the letter before the -y is a vowel, simply add an -s to make it plural.

ray – rays

boy – boys

7 If the singular noun ends in ‑o, add ‑es to make it plural.

potato – potatoes

tomato – tomatoes

Exceptions:

photo – photos

piano – pianos

halo – halos

8 If the singular noun ends in ‑us, the plural ending is frequently ‑i.

cactus – cacti

focus – foci

9 If the singular noun ends in ‑is, the plural ending is ‑es.

analysis – analyses

ellipsis – ellipses

10 If the singular noun ends in ‑on, the plural ending is ‑a.

phenomenon – phenomena

criterion – criteria

11 Some nouns don’t change at all when they’re pluralized.

sheep – sheep

series – series

species – species

deer –deer

Plural Noun Rules for Irregular Nouns

Irregular nouns follow no specific rules, so it’s best to memorize these or look up the proper pluralization in the dictionary.

child – children

goose – geese

man – men

woman – women

tooth – teeth

foot – feet

mouse – mice

person – people