Common grammar questions

This section deals with questions around grammar and word usage that challenge editors and writers. The answers are often more a matter of opinion than rules, and the context of the writing needs to be taken into account in the final decision about which form to use.

A or an

A or an are used before a noun, or an adjective and noun. The choice depends on the sound at the start of the next word. If it is a consonant sound, use a; if it is a vowel sound, use an. The spelling does not always show this, so try saying them out loud to figure out which to use:

Agreement of subject and verb

Within a clause, the subject and verb are expected to ‘agree’ in number: if the subject is singular, the verb should be singular; if the subject is plural, the verb should be plural:

Verbs used with pronouns that refer back to a previous noun should also agree with it:

Collective nouns can take singular or plural agreement. Generally:

• use a plural verb when treating a collective noun as a group of individuals

• use a singular verb when treating a collective noun as a single unit

• treat organisations as a single unit

Because and due to

Because is used as both a conjunction and a preposition to express causation:

Due to is sometimes used to replace because of as a compound preposition that expresses causation. However, traditional grammarians argue that due to should only be used as an adjective:

Unlike because, due cannot be used as a simple conjunction.

Between and among

Between implies a location in the middle of 2 other entities, whereas among implies that there are more than 2:

Among cannot replace between in the first example; among his knees is not acceptable. Between can replace among in the second example, although the meaning may be changed:

Among is about being in the middle of a largish set of things, whereas between can be used when there are 2 or more things. Even so, clarity may be improved by using between when there are exactly 2 things.

Commas and adjectives

Adjectives offer different perspectives on whatever they describe:

• evaluative – silly, splendid, unmanageable
• descriptive – blue, large, joyful
• categorial – Greek, wooden.

When more than 1 adjective is used to describe a noun, they usually appear in the following order: evaluative, descriptive, categorial.

If the adjectives bring these different perspectives, they do not need a comma between them:

However, if more than 1 adjective with a single perspective is used, they do need a comma:

One way to determine whether you need a comma is to test whether you could say the phrase with and between the adjectives. If you can, you need commas:

Dangling modifiers

Any opening phrase must connect with the following subject. If it does not, the meaning can be confusing or lost. You can fix this by clarifying the subject:

Ending sentences with a preposition

A preposition is a word that introduces a prepositional phrase, and often relates to space and time (e.g. above all expectations, by the way, from outer space, on the run, without a pause).

Early grammarians thought that ending a sentence with a preposition was a grammatical fault to be corrected: Who are you going to the movies with? needed to be rephrased as With whom are you going to the movies?

This is no longer the case. It is not an error to end a sentence with a preposition, but it can sound a little less formal, so check the context of your writing:

The prohibition against ending a sentence with a proposition arose from the use of phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs consist of more than 1 word – often a verb plus an adverb or a verb plus a preposition:

When a phrasal verb comes at the end of a sentence, the sentence ends with a word traditionally thought of as a preposition. (When used in this way, the word is referred to as a particle; it is no longer acting as a preposition.) It was thought that prepositions should only be found at the start of a prepositional phrase. Something seemed to be wrong with the sentence, so moving the preposition became a grammatical ‘rule’.

Today, grammarians recognise phrasal verbs, and agree that avoiding having a particle at the end of a sentence is unnecessary, and can lead to unnatural and pedantic constructions. An example is Winston Churchill’s famous quip: This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.

Fewer and less

Fewer and less are not interchangeable in formal writing.

Use fewer if you are talking about a countable noun (i.e. a specific thing that can be turned into a plural):

Use less if you are talking about a mass noun (i.e. an abstract noun or thing that cannot be counted and turned into a plural):

Future time

English lacks a future tense that is built into the verb the way -ed is for the past tense. It more than makes up for it with several alternative verb phrases to express future time:

Hopefully and similar sentence adverbs

Hopefully, technically, remarkably and so on are often used as sentence adverbs, as a comment on the whole sentence rather than modifying elements within it. Although some people think that such words should not be used to start sentences, there is no problem in doing so (see Stern 2004). Separate the adverb from the main clause or sentence by a comma:

Making comparisons

Comparisons with adjectives

Most 1-syllabled adjectives take the endings -er and -est to show degrees of comparison:

Some 2-syllabled adjectives use -er and -est, and some add more or most before the adjective instead:

• adjectives ending in -y mostly use -er and -est

• adjectives ending in -le use either construction

• other adjectives of 2 or more syllables usually use more/most

Comparisons with adverbs

Adverbs formed with -ly are compared using more and most. Adverbs with just 1 syllable use er/-est:

Providing the basis of a comparison

If you are making a comparison – saying that something is better, taller, cooler than another thing – ensure that the basis of comparison is either included in the sentence itself or can be deduced from the context. Otherwise, the reader is left saying ‘better than what?’ ‘taller than whom?’ etc:

Compared with or compared to

Compared with is used when comparing differences between things, whereas compared to is used to indicate a likeness between the two:

Nominalising verbs

Nouns, especially abstract nouns, are easily derived from verbs with suffixes such as -tion, -sion and -ment. Some of these are created by writers developing an argument, theme or policy, to encapsulate their key ideas. Nouns formed this way are called nominalisations:

These polysyllabic nouns are not usually questioned because their derivation is clear. But as abstract nouns they lack verbal force and agency, and make the language very impersonal. Writing loaded with nominalisations is hard going for readers, and counterproductive in terms of communicating with the public.

Of or have

Of is sometimes written by mistake instead of have, in phrases such as could of, should of, would of. It happens because the auxiliary verb have is often contracted in spoken English to ‘ve, which sounds the same as of. It should be corrected to have in formal writing, or otherwise written as ‘ve to represent nonstandard speech:

Sentence fragments

Software grammar checkers will sometimes report that one of your sentences is a ‘sentence fragment’. This simply means that your sentence does not have a verb. This may be acceptable in some types of writing, such as fictional dialogue or advertising copy, but not in formal writing. Rewrite the sentence to include a verb.

Since and because

Since can be used to refer to time:

It can also be used to refer to causality:

Some writers claim that using since as a causal connector is incorrect. But this is a modern objection, given that the causality sense dates back to the 16th century. Most style guides have no problem with it being used to express causality, except that it can create ambiguity unless the context makes it clearly causal:

A good option is to use because for causality because it is more emphatic than since, and unambiguous:

Splitting infinitives

The infinitive is the basic form of a verb that is found in the dictionary. It is usually preceded by to:

Splitting an infinitive means placing an adverb between the 2 parts of the infinitive:

The ‘rule’ against splitting an infinitive arose during the 19th century from a false analogy with Latin infinitives, which are single words and cannot be split (e.g. amare = to love).

Modern grammars and usage guides agree that splitting an infinitive is acceptable, especially if avoiding the split infinitive would make the sentence sound awkward or change its meaning. The split form sounds more natural because English adverbs often come directly in front of the verbs they modify.

Starting sentences with and, but, however or because

The idea that a sentence should not begin with coordinating conjunctions such as and and but has no grammatical foundation. The main issue is stylistic: they can become tiresome if used too often at the start of sentences.

Starting a sentence with because is no problem when it is the subordinator for a dependent clause that precedes the main clause:

The same goes for other subordinators such as conditional if, which often leads a sentence setting out the precondition for an argument.

However can be used at the beginning of a sentence (or later), as an indefinite adverb or conjunction. It is typically followed by an adjective or adverb:

However can also be used as a contrastive adverb at the start of a sentence, set off with a comma:

In formal writing, the 2 sentences can be combined, but the boundary should be marked with a semicolon, and a comma after however:

That and which

Choosing between that and which depends on whether the following clause is essential to the meaning of the sentence (i.e. a defining clause), or whether it simply adds extra information that would not change the meaning if it was removed (a nondefining clause).

Use that if the clause is essential; use which if it is not. A nondefining clause is offset with commas:

They as a singular pronoun

Because English does not have a gender-neutral singular personal pronoun (the equivalent of he or she), they, them and their can be used as singular pronouns to be inclusive of people who identify as nonbinary, and to avoid the use of awkward constructions such as he/she, him/her and his/her in gender-neutral writing.

Singular usage of they is not new (it has been common since at least the 14th century) and is consistent with spoken language:

If you wish to avoid using they as a singular pronoun, there are ways of rephrasing the sentence:

This and that

In conversation, the pronoun this (and plural form these) refers to people and things, situations and experiences that are close to the speaker physically or in time. That/those refer to things that are more distant:

Unique

Using comparatives (more, most) with unique was frowned upon in the past because of the assumption that the adjective had only 1 meaning: ‘having no like or equal’. By that definition, something unique could not be compared with anything. However, up-to-date dictionaries list alternative meanings for unique, including ‘outstanding’, ‘remarkable’ and ‘unusual’. All of those adjectives are ‘gradable’: they can express degrees of outstandingness (e.g. most outstanding). In this sense, something can be ‘most unique’.

But in such cases, why not use most outstanding or most remarkable and keep unique for things that really are unique?

Verbing nouns

English nouns can often be used as verbs. The word’s place in the phrase or clause, and its inflections, show its verb function. Many everyday verbs have been created and used this way for a long time, so are fully accepted:

New verbs formed in this way, especially longer ones, may not be so easily accepted:

If in doubt as to whether such verbal uses of nouns are well enough known to the general reader, check with a dictionary. Note that some verbed nouns have a technical usage (e.g. the patient was stretchered to hospital) and should be checked with a technical dictionary.

Who and whom

There are a few tricks to deciding when to use who and when to use whom. Who is used when writing about the subject of a clause, or formulating a question:

Whom is used when referring to the object of the verb in the clause:

      The sentence is about the trustworthiness of them (they), not we.

To reduce formality, sometimes we can simply omit it:

A good way to decide whether to use who or whom is to turn the sentence around and see whether you would use he, him or them in the relative clause. Who goes with the non-‘m’ words – he (or she), they; whom goes with the ‘m’ words – him (or her), them:

Always use whom after a preposition:

But it is also acceptable to omit the prepositional phrase entirely:

Greater acceptance of ending sentences with prepositions has reduced the use of whom: