Grammar

Nouns that end in consonant + y change to -ies for their plural form.

eg baby - babies, city - cities

Basic sentences with plural nouns are the same as any basic sentence

subject + verb + object

The babies like chocolate milk. The cities are growing fast. The families met by the river.

The possessive form for the noun puppy is puppy's.

Example: The puppy's name is Felix.

The correct term is 'you and I' - however - informally 'you and me' has also become acceptable.

It does depend on usage. You and I can sound formal, but is clearly wrong in some cases. 'John will bring lunch for you and me' is correct. You would never say 'Please bring my lunch to I', or 'John will bring lunch to I'. He will bring lunch to you; he will bring lunch to me. So, he will bring lunch to you and me. Think how funny the song would be if it went: 'He touched I... he put his hand near mine, and then... he toughed I.' Not.

On the other hand, 'We are a pair, you and I' is correct. You are a singer, I am a singer. We (you and I) are singers.

There is a word for affecting 'formal' language because it sounds correct even though it is wrong, but the word escapes me at the moment. The use of 'whom' is another example.

'Hypercorrection' is the term which describes the use of incorrect grammar or pronunciation in an attempt to sound more clever or classy than we actually believe ourselves to be. A common example of hypercorrection is usage by English-speakers of the French feminine given name, Françoise. The male version, François, is pronounced Fron'swarh; the female version, Françoise, is Fron'swarhze, but many generations of perfectly feminine French ladies have suffered the English referring to them as François in the fond hope of sounding sophisticated.

The popular meat paste, pâté de foie gras (literally ,paste of fat liver, pronounced pate de fwa gra), has led many English speakers to butcher the term coup de grâce, (literally, blow of mercy, describing a mortal blow generally assumed to be dealt by a sword and pronounced coup de gras) so that it becomes coup de gra: literally, blow of fat, a worrying image for sure.

Even our own late, legendary musician and philanthropist, Leonard Bernstein, isn't safe from the wannabe-educated yokels. For decades he's suffered the title 'Bernsteen', despite the poor bloke himself demanding to know why, when we don't refer to Albert Eensteen, must we - to his face, even - wilfully mispronounce his own surname.

A possessive noun is a noun that shows that something belongs to that noun. The standard method of showing possession is to add an apostrophe 's' to the end of the noun or, for some nouns that already ends with an 's', to add an apostrophe after the 's'. Examples:

The woman's coat

The children's pool

My uncles' names

George Washington's wife

Cape Cod's beach

The boys' locker

"Is there" is used when referring to a singular thing.

"Are there" is used when referring to a number of things. (or plural)

For example:

• Is there an appointment available on Tuesday?
• Are there any apples in the fruit bowl?

Examples of words ending in -tch with their corresponding parts of speech:

• batch = verb, noun
• blotch = verb, noun
• catch = verb, noun
• clutch = verb, noun, adjective
• crutch = noun
• ditch = verb, noun
• Dutch = noun, adjective
• dutch = adverb
• fetch = verb, noun
• glitch = verb, noun
• hatch = verb, noun
• hutch = noun
• itch = verb, noun
• latch = verb, noun
• match = verb, noun
• patch = verb, noun
• pitch = verb, noun
• scratch = verb, noun, adjective
• sketch = verb, noun
• stitch = verb, noun
• stretch = verb, noun, adjective
• switch = verb, noun
• thatch = verb, noun
• twitch = verb, noun
• watch = verb, noun
• witch = verb, noun

Technically, this is called "preposition stranding", and does not necessarily occur at the end of a sentence, but any time a preposition is separated from its object. But wherever it occurs, there is absolutely nothing gramatically wrong with preposition stranding in the English language. Indeed, what is considered gramatically incorrect is unnaturally altering a sentence to AVOID stranding a preposition.

Here is a very common English sentence that ends with a stranded preposition:

"What are you talking about?"

Were this sentence rearranged to "unstrand" the preposition, it would read:

"About what are you talking?"

But yet no one ever says it that way. Why not? Because it's simply not natural. Seriously, I defy anyone who thinks preposition stranding is incorrect to find that second, unnaturally-mangled sentence is ANY English-language work, spoken or written.