Grammar Essentials For Dummies

Chapter 10

Tackling Other Troublemakers

IN THIS CHAPTER

Pluralizing regular and irregular nouns

Avoiding preposition problems

Negating double negatives

In this chapter, I shine the light on a trio of troublemakers so they’ll never trip you up again. First, I show you how to create plural nouns. Regular nouns are easy to pluralize, but some nouns come with their own set of rules. Next, I introduce you to prepositions, explain how to use them, and put you on high alert for common problems writers encounter with them. Finally, I wrestle with double negatives so you won’t never put them in your writing no more. (That was a triple negative, in case you were wondering.)

Creating Noun Plurals

In Chapter 2, I introduce you to nouns, which are the subjects of most sentences. (Pronouns, which I examine in Chapter 3, can also serve as subjects.) Nouns are people, places, things, and ideas, and you can change most of them from singular to plural pretty easily. Garden-variety nouns form plurals by adding the letter s. Check out Table 10-1 for some examples.

TABLE 10-1 Creating Plurals with Regular Nouns

Singular	Plural
xylophone	xylophones
nerd	nerds
eyebrow	eyebrows

Singular nouns that end ...