was and not the plural were is correct. If sentence A read: ‘The Prime Minister and several aides were entertained . . . ’ the use of were would be correct. See Singular and Plural Nouns, page 66.
4. A is correct. The apostrophes in shop’s, shirt’s and suit’s serve no grammatical purpose and are redundant. The apostrophe in Jim’s is correct because it tells us that the shirts and suits are possessed by Jim.
5. A is correct. Us is the objective form of the pronoun we and is used here to include the speaker and others – other firemen. We would be correct if the sentence were written We firemen are expected by the public to be at the scene of a fire within minutes.
6. Sentence B is correct because it calls for the adverbs really carefully to describe how Bert drove. See How adverbs work, page 128.
7. You share between two, or among three or more, so A is correct.
8. The ‘something weird’ in sentence A is the bizarre spectacle of an 80mph fog tearing down the motorway (Tearing down the motorway at 80mph, the fog)! Sentence A contains what is known as a dangling or unattached participle, but B is quite correct. See The Dangling, or Misplaced Participle, page 109.
9. Sentence B is clear and correct. If you study A closely you’ll see that it makes no sense. The only way that both would work in that position would be in a sentence such as The judge remained both unimpressed and bemused by the evidence and the argument.
10. A simple error but perhaps difficult to spot. In sentence A the colon after cried is followed by a capital A. A colon is not a full stop so what follows should not be capitalised. Sentence B is correct. See The Colon, page 168.
11. The word unique means ‘one of a kind’, so it follows that you cannot have something or someone that is most unique, quite unique or almost unique. Either it is or it isn’t. Sentence B is correct.
12. B is correct. The question mark does not precede a question, it follows one.
13. B is correct. To indicate the correct sense of lapsed time the past perfect tense of the verb drink is called for: had drunk.
14. B is correct. While both try and and try to are generally considered to be acceptable, the careful user will regard try and as idiomatic and prefer the grammatically correct try to in sentence B. See Prepositions, page 141.
15. A is correct, because every refers to each individual. So regardless of how many men, women and children there are, the singular verb is is called for.
16. B is correct. In this case, apply the he = who, him = whom rule (see discussion of who/whom in the section on Pronouns, page 82). As the Foreign Secretary (he, the subject) is fully recovered, and will speak (the object), who is appropriate.
17. B is correct. Here, the pronoun me is converted to a verb which can be used like a noun and which can be possessive, hence my calling. See Gerunds, page 110.
18. A is strictly correct. Although visitors is plural, a thousand visitors here is short for ‘to have a thousand visitors’. In other words the number of visitors has become a single unit (you could say, ‘to have a big crowd’) which requires a singular verb – is and not are. See Singular and Plural Nouns, page 66.
19. A is the unambiguous sentence because it makes clear that he talked to the captain and the manager – two people. B is unclear and could confuse, because he could have talked to the captain/manager – one person.
20. B is consistent and correct. The pronouns in sentence A lack concord: it begins with one’s but then moves on to you and your. It would be correct if it were written as ‘ . . . one must learn to mind one’s own business.’
Grammar Test Scorecard
Check your answers to the Grammar Test on pages 20-22 with the correct versions and explanations and enter the results on the scorecard below. Award the appropriate points for every correct answer.
Scores The total score for all correct is 50.
If you score in the 25-50 range, you are among those who take considerable care over their speech and writing. Because you’re aware of the pleasure and power that the effective use of the language can impart, you will almost certainly wish to continue to develop your knowledge of grammar and to renew acquaintance with its logic, its complexity, its beauty and its genius for contrariness.
If you score 20-25 you are certainly in the ‘above average’ category, which means that, grammatically speaking, you are halfway to becoming an extremely proficient writer and speaker.
For those of you who scored less than 20 – and please don’t feel you are alone or part of a sub-literate minority – what follows in this book should be of special interest and value to you. You will never regret taking a few hours to polish your native know-how (even if it is a bit sparse or rusty) of English and its workings.
Sentences or not?
Spot the 100% correct, genuine, copper-bottomed sentences from the fakes and pseudo-sentences.
1 The girl next door withauburn hair.
2 Michelangelo was a great artist.
3 A really heavy snowfall and freezing conditions.
4 Veronica and Mary, with Harriet and Judith.
(2 is the only proper sentence)
Every time we speak we use sentences. They are the easiest of all grammatical units to recognise, so it seems sensible to begin with them.
Easy to recognise, yes, but hard to define. In his Dictionary of Modern English Usage, H W Fowler gives ten definitions by various grammarians, including:
A group of words which makes sense.
A word or set of words followed by a pause and revealing an intelligible purpose.
A combination of words that contains at least one subject and one predicate.
A combination of words that completes a thought.
None of these, however, exactly fills the bill, although it is difficult not to agree with the Collins English Dictionary’s definition: ‘A sequence of words capable of standing
