Definition and Examples of Appositives in English

Definition and Examples of Appositives in English In English grammar, an appositive is a  noun, noun phrase, or series of nouns placed next to another word or phrase to identify or rename it. The word appositive comes from the Latin for to put near. Nonrestrictive appositives are usually set off by commas, parentheses, or dashes. An appositive may be introduced by a word or phrase such as namely, for example, or that is. Appositive Exercises Practice in Identifying AppositivesSentence Building with Appositives Examples of Appositives My father, a fat, funny man with beautiful eyes and a subversive wit, is trying to decide which of his eight children he will take with him to the county fair. (Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self. In Search of Our Mothers Gardens. Harcourt Brace, 1983)The hangman, a grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine.(George Orwell, A Hanging, 1931)The Otis Elevator Company, the world’s oldest and biggest elevator manufacturer, claims that its products carry the equivalent of the world’s population every five days. (Nick Paumgarten, Up and Then Down. The New Yorker, Apr. 21, 2008)Christmas Eve afternoon we scrape together a nickel and go to the butchers to buy Queenies traditional gift, a good gnawable beef bone. (Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory. Mademoiselle, December 1956)Television was left on, a running tap, from morning till night. (Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932)Though her cheeks were high-colored and her teeth strong and yellow, she looked like a mechanical woman, a machine with flashing, glassy circles for eyes. (Kate Simon, Bronx Primitive, 1982) I have had the great honor to have played with these great veteran ballplayers on my left- Murderers Row, our championship team of 1927. I have had the further honor of living with and playing with these men on my right- the Bronx Bombers, the Yankees of today. (Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, The Pride of the Yankees, 1942)The essence of loneliness is that one both remembers and hopes, though in vain, in the midst of ones dissolution. Plain nothingness compared to it is a comfort, a kind of hibernation, a tundra of arctic whiteness that negates feeling and want. (Alexander Theroux, in An Interview with Alexander Theroux. Review of Contemporary Fiction, Spring 1991)The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, Africas only nuclear power plant, was inaugurated in 1984 by the apartheid regime and is the major source of electricity for the Western Capes 4.5 million population. (Joshua Hammer, Inside Cape Town. Smithsonian, April 2008)The Spectator. Champagne for the brain. (ad slogan for The Spectator magazine) Xerox. The Document Company. (slogan of Xerox Corporation)The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call out there. (Truman Capote, In Cold Blood. Random House, 1966)They passed the last house, a small grey house set in the open field. Yellow gullies ran across the field, bald plateaus of snow-smeared sod between gully and gully. (Robert Penn Warren, Christmas Gift, 1938)Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of the cornflake and peanut butter, not to mention caramel-cereal coffee, Bromose, Nuttolene, and some seventy-five other gastronomically correct foods, paused to level his gaze on the heavyset women in front of him. (T. Coraghassen Boyle, The Road to Wellville. Viking, 1993)Dads shop was a messy disaster area, a labyrinth of lathes...My domain was the cramped, cold space known as the music room. It was also a messy disaster area, an obstacle course of musical instruments- piano, trumpet, baritone horn, valve trombone , various percussion doodads (bells!), and recorders. (Sarah Vowell, Shooting Dad.  Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World.  Simon Schuster, 2000) As I stood on the platform beneath another, fairly recent London civility- namely an electronic board announcing that the next train to Hainault would be arriving in four minutes- I turned my attention to the greatest of all civilities: the London Underground Map. What a piece of perfection it is, created in 1931 by a forgotten hero named Harry Beck, an out-of-work draftsman who realized that when you are underground it doesnt actually matter where you are. (Bill Bryson, Notes From a Small Island. Doubleday, 1995)The sky was sunless and grey, there was snow in the air, buoyant motes, play things that seethed and floated like the toy flakes inside a crystal. (Truman Capote, The Muses Are Heard)[N]othing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, letter I in Frankenstein, 1818)And then there was that feeling one gets in a ride to a cemetery trailing a body in a coffin- an impatie nce with the dead, a longing to be back home where one could get on with the illusion that not death but daily life is the permanent condition. (E.L. Doctorow, Homer Langley. Random House, 2009) Observations on Appositives The appositive is a substantive or nominal set off by commas from the word which it identifies. We say that the appositive is used in apposition with the other word. Ex: The king, my brother, has been murdered. Ex: we spotted Tom Hanks, the movie star, at the cafe yesterday.In the first example, the noun brother is used in apposition with the subject king. The appositive renames or describes the subject king by specifying which king the sentence is about. In the second example, the noun star is used in apposition with the proper noun Tom Hanks, a direct object. The appositive clarifies the proper name, telling us which Tom Hanks was seen. For all we know, the writer could have a cousin named Tom Hanks. Remember that the appositive and the noun to which it refers always share the same four properties- gender, number, person, and case- since they both name the same entity. (Michael Strumpf and Auriel Douglas, The Grammar Bible. Owl Books, 2004) Punctuating Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Appositives Bens brother Bob helped him build the house. If Ben has more than one brother, the name Bob would be necessary to identify which brother is being discussed- in other words, to restrict the meaning of the word brother. If Ben has only one brother, the name Bob would be additional information not essential to the meaning of the sentence; Bob would be a nonrestrictive appositive. Nonrestrictive appositives are always set off by punctuation. Since no punctuation surrounds the appositive Bob in this example, we know that Bob is a restrictive appositive (and that Ben has more than one brother). (Gary Lutz and Diane Stevenson, The Writers Digest Grammar Desk Reference. FW Publications, 2005)

Using Metaphors and Similes Effectively - Writing Tips

Using Metaphors and Similes Effectively - Writing Tips Similes and metaphors can be used to convey ideas as well as offer striking images. Consider the simile in the first sentence below and the extended metaphor in the second: Her mind was like a balloon with static cling, attracting random ideas as they floated by.(Jonathan Franzen, Purity. Farrar, Straus Giroux, 2015)I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.(Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories. New Directions, 1945) Metaphors and similes can not only make our writing more interesting but also help us think more carefully about our subjects. Put another way, metaphors and similes arent just fanciful expressions or pretty ornaments; they are ways of thinking. So how do we begin to create metaphors and similes? For one thing, we should be ready to play with language and ideas. A comparison like the following, for example, might appear in an early draft of an essay: Laura sang like an old cat. As we revise our draft, we might try adding more details to the comparison to make it more precise and interesting: When Laura sang, she sounded like a cat sliding down a chalkboard. Be alert to the ways in which other writers use similes and metaphors in their work. Then, as you revise your own paragraphs and essays, see if you can make your descriptions more vivid and your ideas clearer by creating original similes and metaphors. Practice Using Similes and Metaphors Heres an exercise that will give you some practice in creating figurative comparisons. For each of the statements below, make up a simile or a metaphor that helps to explain each statement and make it more vivid. If several ideas come to you, jot them all down. When youre done, compare your response to the first sentence with the sample comparisons at the end of the exercise. George has been working at the same automobile factory six days a week, ten hours a day, for the past twelve years.(Use a simile or a metaphor to show how worn out George was feeling.)Katie had been working all day in the summer sun.(Use a simile or a metaphor to show how hot and tired Katie was feeling.)This is Kim Sus first day at college, and she is in the middle of a chaotic morning registration session.(Use a simile or a metaphor to show either how confused Kim feels or how chaotic the entire session is.)Victor spent his entire summer vacation watching quiz shows and soap operas on television.(Use a simile or a metaphor to describe the state of Victors mind by the end of his vacation.)After all the troubles of the past few weeks, Sandy felt peaceful at last.(Use a simile or a metaphor to describe how peaceful or relieved Sandy was feeling.) Sample Responses to Sentence #1 a. George felt as worn out as the elbows on his work shirt.b. George felt as worn out as his deeply scuffed work boots.c. George felt worn out, like an old punching bag in a neighbors garage.d. George felt as worn out as the rusted Impala that carried him to work every day.e. George felt as worn out as an old joke that was never very funny in the first place.f. George felt worn out and uselessjust another broken fan belt, a burst radiator hose, a stripped wing nut, a discharged battery.