Greetings from the Caribbean. Today I am snorkeling with my hubby and kiddo. Which works because when I saw the title of Chapter Seven from Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson, I was totally under water. What in the world is an appositive?

-Appositives add information to sentences by renaming nouns. The appositive should be next to the noun it is renaming. Appositives need commas or dashes to offset them from the sentence.

huh? So what is it? I think I need some examples.

Catherine the Great, my Russian grandma, is already awake. – Cari Best, Three Cheers for Catherine the Great!

ohhhhhh. I get it. Appositives relay information pertaining to the noun they apposite. Information is good.

Some further examples from Anderson, using his patented recombination method :

I watched her playing ladushky with Mimmo so he wouldn’t cry.

Ladushky is a clapping song.

The clapping song is Russian.

Combined into: I watched her playing ladushky, a Russian clapping song, with Mimmo so he wouldn’t cry.

The words become more active and the flow tighter by using the appositive. Per Anderson the description an appositive describes sharpens the image, amplifying it with new information and clarifying the meaning for the reader.

Examples from things I am currently reading….

Her mother, Nancy McIntyre, knew that Sand-e was selling herself to make enough money for that, but she couldn’t stop her. – Ann Rule, Green River, Running Red

The event grew larger still-five thousand participants the third year-and I continues to work as both director and participant. – Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!