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COBUILD: The source of authentic English
Our explanations, examples, and special features are all based
on our 4.5-billion-word database of the English language,
the Collins Corpus, which means you can trust COBUILD
to help you speak and write accurate and up-to-date English.
The corpus is updated every month and has been at the
heart of Collins COBUILD for more than 30 years.
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Fourth Edition
Managing Editor
Penny Hands
Corpus Research
Julie Moore
For the Publisher
MareeAirlie
Kerry Ferguson
Lisa Todd
Third Edition
Managing Editor American English
Penny Hands Consultant
Orin Hargraves
Senior Editor
Kate Wild Computing Support
Thomas Callan
Project Management
Gavin Gray For the Publisher
Lisa Sutherland Lucy Cooper
Kerry Ferguson
Contributors Elaine Higgleton
Sandra Anderson
Rosalind Combley
Lucy Hollingworth
Laura Wedgeworth
Founding Editor-in-Chief
John Sinclair
We would like to thank the following people for their contributions
to previous editions of the text:
MareeAirlie, Mona Baker, Maksymilian Baranowski, Michela Clari, Sue Crawley,
Abkarovits End re, Gwyneth Fox, Gill Francis, Bob Grossmith, Ann Hewings, Zoe James,
Yuan Kele, Lorna Knight, Ramesh Krishnamurthy, Paul Laurent.Alison Macaulay,
Elizabeth Manning, Francisco Gomes de Matos, Alyson McGee, Sue Ogden,
Wolf Paprotte, Liz Potter, Christina Rammell, Louise Ravel Ii, Maggie Seaton,
Keith Stuart. John Todd, Martin Warren
Contents
Introduction ix
Guide to the Usage xi
Pronunciation Guide xvi
Usage and Grammar section 1-599
Among the Usage notes are the following Grammar Finders:
Adjectives 9
Adverbs and adverbials 15
Auxiliary verbs 66
Broad negatives 95
Clauses 117
Comparative and superlative adjectives 124
Comparative and superlative adverbs 129
Complements 131
Conjunctions 137
The continuous form 142
Contractions 142
Determiners 163
Ellipsis 184
Future time 226
The imperative 261
Infinitives 265
-ingforms 267
Inversion 274
Modals 316
Modifiers 318
Noun modifiers 344
Nouns 345
Objects 353
The passive 378
The past 380
Past participles 381
Phrasal modals 385
Phrasal verbs 385
Possessive determiners 391
Prepositions 395
The present 397
The progressive form 402
Pronouns 404
Quantity 411
Questions 417
Question tags 420
Relative clauses 428
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- Contents
Reporting 435
Sentence connectors 464
The subjunctive 498
Subordinate clauses 499
That-clauses 518
Verb forms 546
Verbs 549
Wh-words 573
Topics section 601
Section A: Subject areas
Age 602
Meals 605
Money 607
Names and titles 609
Pieces and amounts 613
Places 614
Time 622
Transport 628
Section B: Communication skills
Addressing someone 629
Advising someone 632
Agreeing and disagreeing 634
Apologizing 637
Asking for repetition 639
Complimenting and congratulating someone 640
Criticizing someone 641
Emailing 642
Greetings and goodbyes 644
Intentions 646
Introducing yourself and other people 648
Invitations 650
Letter writing 652
Offers 655
Opinions 658
Permission 663
Reactions 665
Replies 669
Requests, orders, and instructions 671
Structuring your ideas 676
Suggestions 680
Talking on the phone 684
Thanking someone 686
Warning someone 689
Contents -
Language change and society
New words: innovation and creativity 692
The language of identity and gender 695
The language of mental health and disability 697
The language of social media 699
Reference section 703
Abbreviations 704
Capital letters 706
Days and dates 708
lrregularverbs 714
Measurements 717
Nationality words 723
Numbers and fractions 726
Plural forms of nouns 735
Punctuation 739
Spelling 747
Verb forms (formation of) 758
Glossary of grammatical terms 761
Index 773
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Introduction
Welcome to the new edition of Collins COBUILD English Usage, for students from
intermediate to advanced level, and for teachers of English. With the help of the
Collins Corpus, now totalling 4.5 billion words, we have been able to update and
revise this title so that it describes how people actually use English now.
What is ·usage'? Usage deals with the essential details of language, involving aspects
of grammar, meaning, idiom, and purpose. It looks at the way words a rearranged to
express a particular meaning orto do a particular job. Most of the statements in this
book are not generalizations, because usage deals with all the things that are not
covered bythegeneral rules.
However, there is no strict dividing line between grammar and usage. Forth is
reason, you will also find entries on the most important grammatical points in
English, integrated into the main usage section of the book. Extensive cross
referencing helps you to move easily between entry-types.
The book is divided into three main sections: Usage and Grammar, Topics, and a
Reference section. There is also a new section on Language change and society.
These last three sections are clearly marked in the shaded area at the side of each
page.
The Usage section
A large number of the entries in the Usage section consist of short notes on
individual words and phrases. Two words like although and though may be easily
confused; or one word may need to go with another, for example afford needs to
be preceded by can, could, or be able to.
Other entries are longer: they might deal with words that have a lot of meanings,
or they might focus on 'function words'; these are small words like and and that,
which serve to express grammatical relationships between parts of a sentence.
You can find out moreaboutanyofthegrammatical terms that are used in the
explanations by looking at the relevant Grammar Finder entry.
Using the evidence from our American corpus, we have also updated the coverage
of American English forth is new edition.
The Topics section
The Topics section is divided into two subsections. The first, Section A, covers
straightforward topics such as 'Meals', 'Places', and 'Transport'. The second,
Section B, advises on functional aspects of English such as 'Agreeing and disagreeing',
'Apologizing', 'Thanking·, and ·warning'. It also covers certain areas of written English
such as writing emails and letters.
Language change and society
This is a brand-new section where we report on the results of an extensive survey
carried out into changes in English usage over the past decade.
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