Like the subject, the object is usually a noun (‘the piano’) or a noun phrase, (‘the big, black piano’). Verbs that take objects describe some kind of action rather than a state of being.

WHEN we were children and just beginning to learn English grammar, many of us were taken aback by the strange failure of some verbs to work in certain sentence constructions.For instance, perhaps ...

Of the many things we do- then end up breaking the myriad rules of grammar- is ignore the order of sentence construction as prescribed in the English language. This order demands that the subject ...