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The first published English grammar was a Pamphlet for Grammar of 1586, written by William Bullokar with the stated goal of demonstrating that English was just as rule-based as Latin. Bullokar's grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily's Latin grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (1534), used in English schools at that time, having been ...
For example, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language categorizes this use of that as an adverb. This analysis is supported by the fact that other pre-head modifiers of adjectives that "intensify" their meaning tend to be adverbs, such as awfully in awfully sorry and too in too bright. [18]: 445–447
The adverb well may be used in colloquial BrE only with the meaning "very" to modify adjectives. For example, "The film was well good." [37] In both British and American English, a person can make a decision; however, only in British English is the common variant take a decision also an option in a formal, serious, or official context. [38]
many figurative senses derived from baseball, e.g. off one's base (crazy), to get to first base (esp. in neg. constr., to get a first important result); more recently (slang), a metaphor for one of three different stages in making out (q.v.) – see baseball metaphors for sex; more s.v. home run
Example: She made me a pie. This clause pattern is a derivative of S+V+O, transforming the object of a preposition into an indirect object of the verb, as the example sentence in transformational grammar is actually "She made a pie for me". Subject + Verb (transitive) + Object + Object Complement Example: They made him happy.
Words with specific American meanings that have different meanings in British English and/or additional meanings common to both dialects (e.g., pants, crib) are to be found at List of words having different meanings in British and American English. When such words are herein used or referenced, they are marked with the flag [DM] (different ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) says of complex prepositions, In the first place, there is a good deal of inconsistency in the traditional account, as reflected in the practice of dictionaries, as to which combinations are analysed as complex prepositions and which as sequences of adverb + preposition.