Set off appositives with commas. An appositive
renames a noun. It can switch places with the noun. Do not put
commas around appositives that are only one word long.
Example: Mr. Nelson, my phy ed teacher, is on
a medical leave of absence.
My phy ed teacher, Mr.
Nelson, is on a medical leave of absence.
My brother bought a new car, a
Ford Focus.
My brother bought a Ford
Focus, a new car.
My brother Tom bought a new car.
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PART ONE: Write
7 good sentences that contain appositives. Set the appositives off with commas.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
PART TWO: Underline
or make bold the appositives in these passages.
We had lots of interesting family
members at our recent reunion in Denver, my home town. I saw Uncle George, a retired army
officer. My cousin Joe, an
assistant coach for the Minnesota Gophers, was there, too. Then, there was my grandmother, a
first generation immigrant from Germany. My brother, Thomas a. Nutt of Kansas
City, was there to do the
barbecuing.
My sister, Corrine Crabapple from
Denver, flew all the way up here just to taste that delicious potato salad that
my aunt, a teacher in Apple
Valley, makes. The state
park, a beautiful place in the mountains, made a perfect spot for our
reunion. We all had a great
time playing putter ball, a new game I learned at camp. The only bad part of the day happened
whn my nephew, a fourteen year old troublemaker, threw a water balloon at Aunt
Gertrude, a blind old spinster.