A Skeletal Introduction to English Grammarthey modify. These expressions would be grammatically complete without
the modifiers—though of course adding or removing modifiers affects the
meaning and consequently the referents of the modified expressions.
Exercise
Identify the modifier(s) in each of the following expressions. For ex-
ample, [an] [excellent] wine:
a. expensive tastes
b. barely awake
c. drive quickly
d. someone special
e. little lame baloonman (e.e. cummings)
words.
Words are the units from which phrases are constructed. In ordinary writ-
ten English they are generally separated from each other by spaces. All the
items separated by spaces in this paragraph are words.
Words can be created in a number of ways. Some, like cat, are internally
quite simple. Others are created by combining two or more words together
to create another word. For example, rainfall is composed of rain and fall; all
three are separate words. Words created in this way are called compounds
or compound words.
Exercise
The following are compound words. Note that some are spelled without
internal spaces, some with hyphens, and some with internal spaces,
separating their constituent words. Separate them into their component
words. For example, Peace Corps consists of Peace and Corps. (This is an
extremely easy exercise. It is designed to get you accustomed to think-
ing about the various spelling formats for compounds words.)
boy-friend, fishing rod, holding pattern, pickpocket, kill-joy, nose-
dive, make-believe, fast-food, software, now generation, put-down,
drawback, son-in-law, forget-me-not, carbon-date, color-code, test-
market, free-associate, double-book, overbook, overeducate, bad-
mouth, childproof, leadfree, fail-safe, ready-made, over-qualified. (L.
Bauer 1983 pp. 202-213).