The Elements of Style
Page 10
predicate The verb and its related words in a clause or sentence. The predicate expresses what the subject does, experiences, or is. Birds fly. The partygoers celebrated wildly for a long time.
preposition A word that relates its object (a noun, pronoun, or -ing verb form) to another word in the sentence. She is the leader of our group. We opened the door by picking the lock. She went out the window.
prepositional phrase A group of words consisting of a preposition, its object, and any of the object's modifiers. Georgia on my mind.
principal verb The predicating verb in a main clause or sentence.
pronominal possessive Possessive pronouns such as hers, its, and theirs.
proper noun The name of a particular person (Frank Sinatra), place (Boston), or thing (Moby Dick). Proper nouns are capitalized. Common nouns name classes of people (singers), places (cities), or things (books) and are not capitalized.
relative clause A clause introduced by a relative pronoun, such as who, which, that, or by a relative adverb, such as where, when, why.
relative pronoun A pronoun that connects a dependent clause to a main clause in a sentence: who, whom, whose, which, that, what, whoever, whomever, whichever, and whatever.
restrictive term, element, clause A phrase or clause that limits the essential meaning of the sentence element it modifies or identifies. Professional athletes who perform exceptionally should earn stratospheric salaries. Since there are no commas before and after the italicized clause, the italicized clause is restrictive and suggests that only those athletes who perform exceptionally are entitled to such salaries. If commas were added before who and after exceptionally, the clause would be nonrestrictive and would suggest that all professional athletes should receive stratospheric salaries.
sentence fragment A group of words that is not grammatically a complete sentence but is punctuated as one: Because it mattered greatly.
subject The noun or pronoun that indicates what a sentence is about, and which the principal verb of a sentence elaborates. The new Steven Spielberg movie is a box office hit.
subordinate clause A clause dependent on the main clause in a sentence. After we finish our work, we will go out for dinner.
syntax The order or arrangement of words in a sentence. Syntax may exhibit parallelism (I came, I saw, I conquered), inversion ( Whose woods these are I think I know), or other formal characteristics.
tense The time of a verb's action or state of being, such as past, present, or future. Saw, see, will see.
transition A word or group of words that aids coherence in writing by showing the connections between ideas. William Carlos Williams was influenced by the poetry of Walt Whitman. Moreover, Williams's emphasis on the present and the immediacy of the ordinary represented a rejection of the poetic stance and style of his contemporary T. S. Eliot. In addition, Williams's poetry ....
transitive verb A verb that requires a direct object to complete its meaning: They washed their new car. An intransitive verb does not require an object to complete its meaning: The audience laughed. Many verbs can be both: The wind blew furiously. My car blew a gasket.
verb A word or group of words that expresses the action or indicates the state of being of the subject. Verbs activate sentences.
verbal A verb form that functions in a sentence as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb rather than as a principal verb. Thinking can be fun. An embroidered handkerchief. (See also gerund, infinitive, and participle.)
voice The attribute of a verb that indicates whether its subject is active (Janet played the guitar) or passive (The guitar was played by Janet).
Glossary prepared by Robert DiYanni.
* * *
Copyright
Copyright © 2000,1979, Allyn & Bacon A Pearson Education Company Needham Heights, Massachusetts
ALLYN AND BACON
Boston London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore
Al rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Ember editions © 1959,1972 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
The Introduction originally appeared, in slightly different form, in The New Vorktr. and was copyrighted in 1957 by The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.
The Elements of Style, Revised Edition, by William Strunk Jr. and Edward V Tenney, copyright 1935 by Oliver Strunk.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Strunk, William, 1869-1946.
The elements of style / by William Strunk, Jr.; with revisions, an introduction, and a chapter on writing by E. B. White. — 4th ed.
p. cm. Includes index.
ISBN 0-205-30902-X (paperback). — ISBN 0-205-31342-6 (casebound) 1. English language—Rhetoric. 2. English language—Style. 3. Report writing. I. White, E. B. (Elwyn Brooks), 1899- . n. Tide.
PE14O8.S
O8'.O42—dc21 99-
CIP
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
* * *
Scan and Proof Notes:
[scanned and proofed by me. ]
[November 2003 Version 1.0]
[Note on scan -- Left in this text when refering to the actual text means the top, Right means the bottom:
The log was partially submerged. (Top and Left)
The log was partly submerged. (Bottom andRight)
This is consistant throughout the text.]
[No tables were done in this version as they do not work in many handhelds. Don't like, create your own or