Chicago Style Workout 27: Grammar, Part 1

/ June 26, 2018

Stretch Yourself!

This month’s workout, “Grammar, Part 1,” is taken from CMOS 17, paragraphs 5.1–20. Advanced editors might tackle the questions cold; learners can study that section of the Manual before answering the questions.

Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online may click through to the linked sections of the Manual. (We also offer a 30-day free trial of CMOS Online.)

Note: Dictionaries and style guides sometimes disagree. These questions are designed to test knowledge of The Chicago Manual of Style, which prefers Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition. Other style guides may follow a different dictionary.

Chicago Style Workout 27: Grammar, Part 1

1. A common noun may become a proper noun.
a.
b.
2. Sometimes a proper noun may be used as if it were a common noun.
a.
b.
3. In English, all parts of speech have case, which denotes the relationship between a word and other words in a sentence. (Examples of case are nominative and objective.)
a.
b.
4. Most English nouns may refer to either sex.
a.
b.
5. Names of companies, institutions, and similar entities are generally treated as collective nouns—and hence plural in American English.
a.
b.
6. All nouns have distinct singular and plural forms.
a.
b.
7. A noun or pronoun that follows a be-verb and refers to the same thing as the subject is called a predicate nominative.
a.
b.
8. A noun serving as an object of the verb may sometimes come before the verb.
a.
b.
9. A noun serving as an object of the verb may also serve as subject of the following verb.
a.
b.
10. The genitive case has many other functions besides showing possession.
a.
b.

 

Photo: War Game Drill on Seattle [ca. 1910–1915], from the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress on Flickr.

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2 thoughts on “Chicago Style Workout 27: Grammar, Part 1”

  1. I take exception to the answer for 4. Most English nouns may refer to either sex: True. (“English nouns have no true gender, as that property is understood in many other languages. Most English nouns may refer to either sex.”) I said the answer was false because English nouns are genderless—therefore, there is no sex to which they can refer. To say that the answer is true is to say that there IS a gender, which is not the case . . .

  2. “He had me go to the store.” “Me” is the thematic and morphological object of “have,” and “me” is the thematic subject of the bare infinitive “go.” Case is not merely morphological; it is also syntactic and semantic (thematic). Infinitives often/usually have a subject in the oblique case: time for us to go, make them see, see her run, etc. Ir did you think, erroneously, infinitives can’t have subjects?

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