Grammar Terms Beginning With Letter H

April 25th, 2010 in English Grammar, English Learning

Headline language
The special variety of language used in writing newspaper headlines.

Examples are:
President to visit India (The President is going to visit India.)
Senator denies misconduct (The Senator has denied misconduct.)

When writing newspaper headline we usually omit auxiliary verbs and articles.

Homograph
Any one of two or more words of different meaning which are spelled in the same way. Homographs may be pronounced the same or differently. Examples are: bear (an animal) and bear (the verb, as in I can’t bear this pain) which are pronounced identically. The homographs lead (a metal) and lead (the verb, as in The Captain will lead the team) are pronounced differently.

Homophone
One of two or more words of different meaning which are pronounced in the same way, regardless of whether they are spelled the same or differently. Examples are: bear (an animal), bear (the verb) and bare (naked) are homophones.

Hyphen
The hyphen is shorter than a dash. It has the following uses:

It must be used within a phrase of two or more words which modifies a following noun. Examples are: a ten-year-old boy, a salt-and-pepper beard etc.

The hyphen may be used in any compound word which may be hard to read without the punctuation mark. Note that in many cases a white space between the two words is an alternative.

Examples:
Land-owners OR Land owners
Mini-computer or mini computer

The hyphen must be used whenever a word is broken at the end of a line. Note that the hyphen is different from the dash, and it should never follow a colon.