Before 2006, I never gave much thought to nominalizations — noun forms like “beauty” and “the scheduling” that at heart are really adjectives like “beautiful” or verbs like “to schedule.” I was ...

MODIFIERS give us information about a noun or pronoun in a sentence. They are important because they help to paint the true picture of the information we seek to convey to our reader or listener. The ...

Russ in New Jersey had a question about hyphens: In “northwestern California landmark” should “northwestern California” be hyphenated? “I’m not sure if it’s simply a matter of preference or if the ...

The usual way to modify a noun in English is to put an adjective before the noun: nice view, tasty treat, hot day. But every once in a while, we put the adjective after the noun. Often this is because ...

Prenominal adjectives precede the noun its modifies and it must occur in the same NP (see L222). Consider the italicized parts of the following two sentences: (1) The student is eager. (2) The eager ...

Hyphenate when used as a compound modifier: He was active duty before becoming a reserve Soldier. He was an active-duty Soldier before becoming a reserve Soldier. African American (noun) ...

Actor George Takei, who played the helmsman of the USS Enterprise on "Star Trek," recently posted the above image that depicts a strange example of a perfectly logical English sentence. It contains ...