WHEN we were children and just beginning to learn English grammar, many of us were taken aback by the strange failure of some verbs to work in certain sentence constructions. For instance, perhaps ...

AS we took up in this column last week, intransitive verbs like "gone" and "disappear" are of the kind that can't pass on their action to a direct object. This is why sentence constructions like "The ...

Both Zbyszek from Poland and Iqbal Ahmad from Pakistan write that they find it difficult to differentiate between transitive and intransitive verbs: 'Please explain the difference and give us some ...

The past week witnessed the frequent occurrence of the words ‘resign’ and its derivative ‘resignation’ in the print, electronic and social media, thanks to LK Advani who stunned the BJP with his ...

A verb is usually defined as a word or combination of words that either expresses an action or says something about the existence or condition of a noun or pronoun. This article will tease out ...

There are three basic kinds of verbs plus many subclasses. Here we cover only the three basic types. Initially, verbs are divided into main verbs and auxiliary verbs. Then auxiliary verbs are divided ...

A reader took issue with the title of my column two weeks ago. Inter alia, he wrote; “It is incorrect to say ‘Beware of’ . The correct usage is either “Be aware of” or just ‘Beware’. In response, I ...