Grammatical Terms That We Should Have Learned in School

Mark Twain's thoughts about the Italian verb could also be applied to the homegrown variety:

Examination and inquiry showed me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded and straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed the hands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that had no permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always dodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble.
("Italian with Grammar," Harper's, August 1904)

Fair enough. Unlike other parts of speech, the verb is a shape-shifting time traveler (see tense) that often relies on a trained team of helpers (see auxiliaries). It can be a troublemaker, all right.

But it can't be ignored. In the world of grammar, the verb is the head honcho, the big kahuna, in short (as its Latin root verbum suggests), The Word. As Michael Maittaire observed in The English Grammar (1712), "It is the only Word, which gives motion and life to all the rest; without which there can be no sentences, and all other words are but like a rope of sand, without any sense at all."

Still, while it may be the grammatical top dog, the verb appears last in our alphabetical list of the Top 24 Grammatical Terms That We Should Have Learned in School. So if you're in the mood to brush up on your grammar, you might want to start at the end of the list and work your way back.

With a little practice, you may, like Mark Twain, "catch a Verb and tame it, . . . spot its eccentricities, . . . penetrate its disguises," and, in so doing, "learn its game and play the limit."

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