ShmoopTube

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Most likely, you already know a thing or two about nouns-- words used to represent people, [nouns defined]

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places, things, and ideas--like, you know, golfer, golf course, or golf club, or golf

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ball, or maybe even something that has nothing to do with golf whatsoever.

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You can tell where our heads are at.

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But once you through a few nouns into a single sentence, it turns out they're not all created [nouns fall into sentence]

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equal.

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Different nouns play different roles, especially the ones with top-notch agents. [noun talks to agents]

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Say we have a sentence with two nouns and an action verb.

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Something like, "The cat chased the dog." [example sentence given]

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What?

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It could happen.

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The noun performing the action verb is the subject, in this case, "cat."

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The noun that receives the action performed by the subject is the direct object, in this

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case, "dog." [components of sentence illustrated]

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In other words, the subject does the verb to the direct object.

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One easy way to find the direct object in any sentence is to play a quick game of grammatical

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Mad Libs. [Mad Libs game]

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But unlike the game little kids tend to play, this one won't involve every noun being filled

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in with the word "butt."

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For the first word, fill in the subject of the sentence.

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For the next word, fill in the sentence's action verb.

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Then, finish it off with whom or what.

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Fill in the blanks, and the answer to the question will be the direct object you're

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looking for.

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It might not make any small children laugh, but it serves our purposes quite nicely.

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We can see it in action with our example sentence. [sentence used in Mad Lib game]

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We know the subject is "the cat" and the action verb is "chased," so we end up with the question,

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"The cat chased whom or what?"

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As much as the dog might want the answer to be "a mouse" or "a bird," or "its dreams,"

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it's really just chasing "the dog." [dog is out of luck]

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Sorry there, Rover.

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The only time this method fails is when the sentence has no direct object.

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Take the sentence, "The car drove past."

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Yup, we've got a subject, "the car." [new sentence given]

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We've got an action verb, "drove."

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But no second noun, and therefore no direct object.

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If the lack of a direct object in that last sentence made you a bit sad, well, suck it

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up and hold in those tears. [kid cries over sentence]

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As they say, don't cry over spilled milk or missing direct objects.

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Because even though a sentence can exist without a direct object, a sentence can also have

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multiple direct objects.

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All right, let's change our first sentence to, "The cat chased the dog and the mouse." [multiple direct objects demonstrated]

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Now if we ask our Mad Lib question, "The cat chased whom or what?" we have two answers:

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"the dog and the mouse."

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So, we've got two direct objects.

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If the dog and the mouse could find the courage, well, maybe they could do some chasing of

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their own. [dog and mouse run from cat]

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But until that day comes, they're going to get plenty of exercise.

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