[Jill Malcolm]

What’s in a name?

When I tutor live classes in writing, I have sometimes discovered that not everybody can identify nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. There is no shame in this. I believe it is because at some stage during the New Zealand education curriculum this was not taught in schools.

I thought it worthwhile to run through these basics so that when they are referred to everyone knows what they are.

• A noun is a naming word. The more precise they are the clearer the writing. Eg not building, but shack, high-rise, villa, shed, mansion etc.
• An adjective describes a noun, as in “a blue sky”. Make sure they go with the noun they describe.
• A verb is an action word and often the most interesting word in a sentence. It tells you whether something happened in the past, present or future and who is doing the action. Without a verb there is no sentence.
• An adverb adds to the verb as in ‘He walked quickly’. When you can, replace an adverb with a strong or more descriptive verb. Eg. He strode, trotted, scurried, tripped, marched etc.

[Contact NZIBS]

I am a strong believer in metaphors and its ability to evoke and inhance wonder and imagination !!!

[Robyn Welsh]

There is nothing wrong with revisiting the basics.  This is excellent.  If you feel like getting into conditional, subjunctive and the difference between ‘that’ and ‘which’ etc, then I’ll be really happy to revisit and refresh.  Sometimes things just sound right and I don’t really understand why; or a proofreader whips out the red pen and I learn something I probably learned years ago but which I’ve forgotten.