Lesson Twenty-four

An appositive renames a noun in a sentence. There should be a comma before and after the appositive:

• Our teacher, Paul, made this website.
• This guitar, a Gibson, was made in Korea.
• Mayor Johnson, an opponent of the construction project, asked the city council to find alternatives.

Appositives are not suitable for every situation. They’re very common in newspaper articles, TV broadcasts, and formal writing, but appositives are not as common in conversational English. It depends on who you talk to.

In this video, your teacher explains what an appositive is:

In this exercise, you can practice writing appositives into sentences:

Example: Our favorite band is playing tonight. (add "The Mice")

 Our favorite band, The Mice, is playing tonight.

1. My neighbor died last week. (add "Joe Rollins")

 _______________________________________________________

2. The car was found by the side of the road. (add "a 2012 Chevy Malibu")

 _______________________________________________________

3. The man over there is the principal of the school. (add "Dr. Stevens.)

 _______________________________________________________

4. They planted their entire garden with Alcea. (add "also known as Hollyhocks.")

 _______________________________________________________

Answers:

1. My neighbor, Joe Rollins, died last week.

2. The car, a 2012 Chevy Malibu, was found by the side of the road.

3. The man over there, Dr. Stevens, is the principal of the school.

4. The planted their entire garden with Alcea, also known as Hollyhocks.