Last week, we started discussing the differences between a phrase, clause and a sentence. We defined a phrase as a group of words without a subject and a predicate, though standing together to form a ...

A relative clause can be used to give additional information about a noun. They are introduced by a relative pronoun like 'that', 'which', 'who', 'whose', 'where' and 'when'. For example: I won’t ...

If you ever want to clear a room, a single word will usually do the trick: grammar. For anyone who had a hypercritical English teacher or a particularly persnickety aunt — and that’s a lot of us — the ...

An independent clause is basically a complete sentence; it can stand on its own and make sense. An independent clause consists of a subject (e.g. “the dog”) and a verb (e.g. “barked”) creating a ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. Years ago, a copy editor working on a reporter’s story changed some of the “whiches” to “thats” when they were being ...

A relative clause can be used to give additional information about a noun. They are introduced by a relative pronoun like 'that', 'which', 'who', 'whose', 'where' and 'when'. For example: I won’t ...

Today’s topic is going to be a bit technical. Although it centres on three common grammatical elements, it involves some technicalities, the type we usually want to as much as possible play down in ...