Wednesday January 16, 2008
Which is the odd one out?
By OH TEIK THEAM
LOOK at the words in each of the groups below and see if you can spot the odd one out:
1. apostrophe, interjection, pronoun, adverb
2. but, because, since, although
3. goat, lion, tiger, sheep
4. jeans, scissors, binoculars, shirts
5. duck, chicken, goose, turkey
6. car, boat, furniture, flower
7. begin, laugh, steal, throw
8. family, honesty, crowd, jury
9. speak, stop, snore, sink
Answers
1. Apostrophe. It is a punctuation mark used to indicate possession (John’s car), contractions (won’t), or the omission of letters (singin’) or numbers (16 Jan ‘98). The other three words are parts of speech.
2. But. It is a coordinating conjunction, whereas the other three words are subordinating conjunctions.
A coordinating conjunction is a conjunction placed between words, phrases, clauses or sentences of equal rank (but, or, yet, for, and, nor, so – these can be remembered mnemonically with BOY FANS).
A subordinating conjunction is a conjunction that joins a subordinate (dependent) clause to another clause. The list of subordinating conjunctions is long, but it includes because, since, although, if, while, so (= so that) and when.
3. Sheep. Unlike the other three nouns, “sheep” has the singular and the plural number alike.
4. Shirts. The singular number of “shirts” is “shirt”. The other three nouns exist only in the plural form.
5. Goose. It forms its plural by changing the inside vowel of the singular (= geese). The other three nouns take an “s” for the plural. (When “goose” has “gooses” as the plural form, the word means “a tailor’s smoothing iron with a gooseneck handle” or “a poke in the bottom to startle”.)
6. Furniture. It is an uncountable noun, whereas the other three words are countable nouns.
7. Laugh. It is a regular verb, whereas the other three words are irregular verbs.
A regular verb takes -ed for the past simple and past participle (laugh, laughed, laughed), or –d if the verb ends in –e (dance, danced, danced).
An irregular verb does not take the –ed ending for the past simple and past participle (begin, began, begun / steal, stole, stolen / throw, threw, thrown).
Some irregular verbs do not change (cut, cut, cut).
8. Honesty. It is an abstract noun, whereas the other three words are collective nouns.
9. Snore. It is used intransitively, whereas the other three verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively.
A transitive verb takes an object (and has a passive form): They speak the truth. / The driver stopped the bus. / The torpedo sank the ship.
An intransitive verb does not take an object (and does not have a passive form): He snored loudly. / She spoke softly. / The bus stopped suddenly. / The boat sank quickly.
Source:
RSS
