The 8 parts of speech: A refresher
Can you name the eight parts of speech?
I remember that there are nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions, but what’s the eighth?
Interjections. Oh, yes!
It’s been way too long since I’ve watched “Schoolhouse Rock”
As professional writers and editors, we sometimes focus so much on word choice, sentence structure and clear writing that we may forget the basics.
Here’s a review of the eight parts of speech:
1. Nouns
Common nouns refer to a person, place or thing.
Proper nouns refer to a specific person, place or thing. Proper nouns (Aunt Sheila, the Taj Mahal, King George) are capitalized.
Example: Maybe we should test the elevator pitch in an elevator?
2. Pronouns
Pronouns take the place of a noun (my, me, you, she, he, his, her).
Example: If she doesn’t show up, I will call her.
3. Verbs
Verbs are action words. They show action or state of being and indicate the time of that action or state—past, present or future.
Example: The plot thins.
4. Adjectives
Adjectives describe or modify nouns. They specify size, appearance, number, etc.
Example: Most of the house is fine.
5. Adverbs
Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. They specify how, when, where, and how much.
Example: I was soundly beaten the last time I played Scrabble.
6. Prepositions
Prepositions show how a noun or pronoun is related to another word in a sentence (into, behind, around, over).
Example: Avoid falling in love with your own words.
7. Conjunctions
Conjunctions join words, phrases or clauses (and, but, or, nor).
Example: It’s 6 p.m., and I’ve lost the ability to form words.
8. Interjections
Interjections are exclamations and are usually indicated by the use of the exclamation point (oh, well, wow, cheers, hooray).
Example: Alas! We’re waiting on the IT department to help.
So, PR Daily readers, did you remember the eight parts of speech?
This post was first published on Ragan Communication’s PR Daily.
