Appositives are nouns or noun phrases that rename the noun or noun phrase alongside them. The park bench provides solace, a moment of stillness in the stir of city life. Unlike a premodifying adjective, the appositive comes after the noun and propels the sentence forward – just as we do in speech, clarifying as we go along. Do you remember that guy, the one we saw in the cafe with the man bun and the neck tattoos? On the surface the appositive is just renaming the noun, but underneath it is refining, adding texture and telling a little story, like an elongated adjective.
