Here we will look at a paragraph from Dombey and Son that illustrates how many ‘NON-ESSENTIAL CLAUSES’ (defined in the last post) Dickens tended to use. ✍️ By including such essential or non-essential clauses in your writing, you are discreetly REINFORCING or even INTRODUCING information that would otherwise ‘clutter’ your writing, and you are doing it in […]
Have you ever tried to write a sentence only to realise that you cannot seem to fit all the important points you wish to mention? We all understand that very long sentences are counterproductive; I am not recommending that you write those! But I have learnt that it is very effective sometimes to include some
In the previous post, we defined gerunds and participles in English grammar and discussed the differences between them. We also read two passages from Hard Times (1854) by Charles Dickens in order to find out which ones contain gerunds or participles. Do you have confidence in your ability to identify gerunds from present participles when
For many students, one tricky point in English grammar is understanding the distinction between gerunds and participles. How do you find them? Are they understandable? If not, that’s fine! I will offer a brief explanation and a couple of illustrations from Charles Dickens’ classic, Hard Times. Firstly, a participle is a word that derives from a verb and can end with