day 54: compound verbs

by | Mar 1, 2011

Sometimes a sentence may have two verbs. This is called a compound verb.

If the subject of the sentence does two different things, it has a
compound verb. Examples:

Joshua wrote and edited.

  1. What did Joshua do?
  2. Two things:
    1. Wrote
    2. Edited
Kayla passed out medicines and took blood pressures.
  1. What did Kayla do?
  2. Two things:
    1. Passed out medicines (passed)
    2. Took blood pressures (took)
Sometimes a sentence can even have three or more verbs.
Verbs can be all throughout a sentence — in opener, the main part of
the   sentence, and clauses at the end.
For example, in the sentences provided below, notice all of the bold fonted action verbs.
  1. When Cami got to the church, she answered her emails, picked up her mail, and made phone calls but not before she ran into an old friend and chatted for a while.
  2. If the kids wanted to perform the drama, Kara knew that they must learn to listen carefully to instructions rather than playing around during class.

day 19: loan some cash; lend a hand?

by | Jan 21, 2011

It was so simple in my mind—banks loan money; friends lend a hand. Use loan for money and lend for everything else. Until I found out that, that is the British rules, not the US unwritten rules! Agggh….
US rules follow the loan is a noun and lend is a verb. Stuffy grammarians would not approve of my “loan money; lend a hand” philosophy.
So…if you are not concerned about impressing the grammarians of the world (especially US ones):
  1. Always loan money (or never do if you want to keep friends and family!)
  2. Always lend a hand…and anything else someone wants to borrow (but do not expect to get it back!)
If you are a stickler for US vs British grammar rules, and you are in the US:
  1. lOAn is a nOUn (two vowels each)
  2. lEnd is a vErb (one noun; e)
Regardless, always remember to lend a hand to those in need! Smile…

Pin It on Pinterest