A reader from Coimbatore has sent in this query: “Is it possible for a verb to function as an adjective? Please explain it with some examples.” An adjective is a word that describes (modifies) a noun.

Read each of the sentences below and indicate whether the highlighted -ing or -ed word is functioning as a verb (or part of a verb phrase) or as an adjective (participle). Indicate your choice by ...

Before 2006, I never gave much thought to nominalizations — noun forms like “beauty” and “the scheduling” that at heart are really adjectives like “beautiful” or verbs like “to schedule.” I was ...

Psychologists, who breathe statistics as a salamander breathes fire, love to count things. They count and classify words to determine what books children should read, what children’s classics should ...

‘The’ is the most commonly used word in English. ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ uses all 26 letters of the English alphabet and is called a pangram. Most average adult English speakers ...