Other Grammar RulesTolstoy dying words were “You must know

everything” and to that end we shall cover these vital but little known grammatical nuances.,.

There are plenty of grammar and punctuation rules that go unnoticed. Unless you’re a true expert, there’s going

to be something you don’t know. And when you don’t know something, it’s impossible to look up information

about it—if you don’t know what it’s called or what it does, how would you know how to search or even that

a search was necessary? Life is such a mystery sometimes.

Do the two entities in your subject share ownership of items or do they each own one of the item?

Bob’s and Kim’s cars are blue. Bob and Kim’s cars are blue. In the first case, Bob and Kim do not share ownership of their blue cars. They separately own

one or more blue cars. (Or, they each own one or more blue cars and share ownership of another. If such is the case, consider rewriting the sentence to make clear the specifics.)

In the second example, they share ownership of at least two blue cars. If the possession is shared by the compound subject, use an apostrophe with the second noun

to show that shared possession. If there is no joint ownership—or if they share ownership and independently own at least one

of the objects—each noun must use the possessive form. However… If the compound subject is made up of a noun and a personal pronoun, both the noun and

pronoun need to be made possessive. Todd’s and my house exploded last night. Otherwise, you’d have a construction such as Todd and my house exploded last night. This second sentence could be true, but it doesn’t have the same meaning as the first

example, which says that the house that the speaker and Todd co-own exploded. The second example says that the house owned by the speaker exploded and that Todd exploded as well.

Subjects can share a verb but not be compound subjects. That is, if they’re not joined by and but are instead joined by or, nor, or but, they are alternative subjects.

Typically, a compound subject requires a plural verb.

Susie and her sisters want to go to the beach.

Her sisters want to go to the beach.

Susie and her sister want to go to the beach.

But, Susie wants to go to the beach.

There is an exception when the compound subject operates as a single subject.

Tea and crumpets is a dream meal for my mother.

The oddity—The verb for subjects connected with or, nor, and but is plural or singular depending on the subject closest to the verb.

Either the man or his sons want to sell the property.

Neither the sons nor the father wants to sell the property.

Not the envelope but the stamps taste awful.

Not the stamps but the envelope tastes awful.

ALTERNATIVE SUBJECTS AND

VERB AGREEMENT.

Dialogue interrupted by thought or action or description

is something other than a dialogue tag—requires specific punctuation, something more than commas.

“Drop your weapon, chump”—my assailant sounded like every B-movie bad guy from the ’40s—”and turn around.”

“The beauty of it”—I was really pouring it on—”is that it works.”

“Truth is”—she reached for a tissue—”I truly loved my husband.”

Enclose the dialogue in quotation marks, without using commas or extra spaces and enclose the interruption (no capital letter) in a pair of em dashes, without spaces between the dashes and the words closest to them. The final punctuation mark, of course, comes before the closing quotation mark.

Digressions, parenthetical statements, commas, and parentheses.

If the parenthetical phrase (or sentence) comes at the end of a sentence, the terminal punctuation mark remains outside the parentheses.

Daisy’s kids wanted to go to the park (you remember how much they loved

Turner’s Point Park).

Expectations of finding the victim were slim since he’d been missing for more than five days (and the killer’d never left anyone alive for more than two).

If the parenthetical is a full sentence or paragraph and

not part of another sentence, of course the end punctuation mark is included within the parentheses.

It was true. (Yet, even if it hadn’t been, no one would have known.)