For a leading sentence before a list of items to be presented in a slide deck what is correct?
Following items....
or
The following items...
Use of word "following" is definitively identifying the items being referred so do we still need to use "the"?
- Many of them, including me, have similar thoughts about that.
- Many Koreans including myself weren't concerned about them at all.
I'm studying English and wondering how different they are.
Could you guys let me know?
Say you're quoting someone with a requirement for a punctuation, how do you follow with your own punctuation?
e.g.,
"Are you crazy?," she asked incredulously.
"Wow!," said the cat.
Both of these example seem awkward. Do I just leave out the comma?
Should i put definite article before "Houses" in "[The] houses on this street are very old"?
UPD:
I know this rule:
The definite article can be used with both singular and plural nouns, but it must only be used when you are describing a specific noun, or group of nouns.
Do "on this street" part specify "houses" enough to use definite article in this case?
Answer
English gives you options.
I can be walking down a street and suddenly realize that (the) houses on this street are old, and I can state my realization using either NP, that is with either
houses on this street are old
or
the houses on this street are old
neither is more correct than the other. the first utterance uses a bare plural noun phrase (houses on this street). this does not mean 'all houses on this street'. it expresses a generalization based on several instances: I have noticed that there are instances of houses on this street being old, and I state a generalization to that effect.
(again, I am not claiming that all houses on the street are old.)
the second utterance uses a plural definite noun phrase (the houses on this street). it refers to some undifferentiated set of houses on this street.
it does not have to mean 'all the houses' on the street, any more than does the mountains in I went to Austria. here's a picture of the mountains in Austria. it is highly unlikely that my one photo shows 'all the mountains' of Austria, nor that that was the meaning of my utterance.
.............
by the way, the resource you cite in your question is full of errors, but second language teachers have to start somewhere.
English nouns which don't denote people or animals with natural gender do not (apart from a few rare examples) use grammatical gender. So for example, "table" is always an "it" in English, whereas it could be masculine or feminine in another language.
So, is English missing out by not using genders in this way? If so, are there sentences which cannot be translated into English without losing some of their meaning?
Answer
Well, obviously you can't translate many things literally, as you would constantly end up with sentences such as "it gave it to it" in English, where in the source language with genders you have a perfectly clear "she gave it to him".
However, there are usually easy ways around this, the most obvious one being: kick out the pronouns and replace them with nouns. "The cat gave it to the kitten." If anything, you gain meaning by doing that (though you might waste quite a few syllables if you're translating a poem).
To me, this question sounds a lot like "How could one possibly translate from English to a language that doesn't have articles?" To which any professional translator should answer: "Without breaking a sweat".
[Disclaimer: I am a native speaker of two languages, one with genders but without articles, and one with genders and articles.]
Edit.
Here's an example I should have thought of right away. It is still not quite what you are looking for, but I'm getting closer step by step.
Imagine any TV show where several candidates compete for whatever the prize is. The host is about to announce who is going to proceed to the next round. He says, "I have good news for one of you", or "The last one to reach the final is...", or something to that extent. Now, in many languages with genders he could give a subtle hint by using either the female or the male form of "one" (un/une, einer/eine, один/одна, um/uma, etc.). In English, the equivalent would be something along the lines of "I have good news for a male candidate", or "The last one to reach the final is a female, and her name is...". Which, of course, wouldn't be anywhere as succinct, and not subtle at all. The closest you could get to that kind of hint in English would be "I have good news for you guys", or "The last one of you gals to reach the final is...", but that still doesn't quite cut it (even if we ignore for a moment that guys does not necessarily refer to males).
In fact, in order to avoid giving any hints accidentally, in those languages it is quite common for the host to say "I have good news for one or one of you", or "The last one or one to reach the final is...", where the first one is the male form, and the second one is the female form. When translating that into English, you'd just drop one of the ones, so that one or one become one — which, of course, is more succinct without losing meaning, but the original expression is not really translatable "as is".
Edit 2.
Here's yet another example.
In German, a language with grammatical genders, there is quite a lot of confusion going on whenever you want to say that Angela Merkel is the first chancellor to do something. Normally, Angela Merkel is referred to as die Bundeskanzlerin, a female form of the noun der Bundeskanzler, or "female chancellor" for short. So, naturally, the first thing you try is "Angela Merkel ist die erste Bundeskanzlerin, die X macht" ("Angela Merkel is the first female chancellor to do X"). However, that sounds kind of pointless, because Merkel is the first female chancellor ever, so no matter what she does, she can't help being the first female chancellor to do it.
In order to avoid that pointlessness, journalists sometimes use the male form of chancellor: "Angela Merkel is der erste Bundeskanzler...". Grammatically, this is probably the most sensible thing to do. However, to many Germans this sounds strange, and even funny, much like saying "Angela Merkel is the first man to do X".
In order to avoid that confusion, some political commentators bring the adjective weiblich ("female") into the equation: "Angela Merkel ist der erste weibliche Kanzler, der X macht". However, this brings us right back to where we started ("Merkel is the first female chancellor to do X"), in addition to introducing yet another bit of humor, because the sentence now reads much like "Merkel is the first female man to do X".
As if that weren't enough already, some political commentators completely overdo it by using both the adjective "female" and the female noun, as in "Angela Merkel ist die erste weibliche Bundeskanzlerin, die..." ("Merkel is the first female female chancellor to..."). This, of course, is the most stupid thing they could possibly do, but it's also the funniest, since it sounds much like "Angela Merkel is the first female woman to do X".
I am fairly confident I could come up with lots of similar examples in other languages with grammatical genders (say, French or Russian). By not having genders, English completely avoids that type of confusion, but it also misses out on all the humor associated with it.
I am testing whether "A wants B to guess..." can be followed by both declarative and interrogative clauses. I am not a native speaker but "A wants B to guess that.." does not sound acceptable to me.
Do you think they are natural sentences in English?
[1a] Mary wants Sue to guess who John talked to.
(This should be perfectly natural, right?)
[1b] Mary wants Sue to guess that John talked to Prof. Smith.
(If this sounds natural, how do you interpret this sentence?)
As a contrast, compared with 1b, what do you think about
[1c] Mary wants to guess that John talked to Prof. Smith.
(Is 1b better than 1c?)
Thank you!
Which is correct, and why?
identifying you and your competitors’ relative market performance
or
identifying your and your competitors’ relative market performance
Each entity is in possession of “relative market performance”, so I think grammar dictates both be your, but it sounds godawful.
Answer
It has to be your and your. If you don’t like it, you can say something like ‘...identifying your competitors' relative market performance as well as your own.’
There are a number of questions e.g. What is the difference between “speaking” and “talking”? and “Speak to” vs. “Speak with” that deal with the slightly different connotations of the words "speak" and "talk". However, there also seem to be some grammatical differences between the two words. This question is about whether there's a way to formally pin down these differences, or whether they're just contingent features of the two words having different histories.
Some examples of grammatical differences are as follows:
On the other hand, many other constructions work just as well with either (though they might have subtly different meanings), for example
I'm interested in whether there's a way to pin down these differences (e.g. are the two words classified as different types of verb in some way?), or whether they're essentially just arbitrary. I'm also interested in why we have these two different words with subtly different meanings. Is the distinction between “speak” and “talk” a feature of many languages, or is it just a peculiarity of English?
Etymologically, both words are from Germanic origins. “Talk” seems to have been formed from the Middle English tale, even though “speak” already existed in the English language by then (as far as I can tell). This makes it even more mysterious: Why did we form a new word as a synonym of one that was already established? Or were the meanings different at that time?
According to my grammar book, but at variance to the answer to this question, the correct singular possessive if a word ends in ‑s is:
James’s car
The grammar book allows exceptions for historical nouns, so the examples in the answer to the above-linked question would pass muster.
However, I’m sure that I learnt at school (which, admittedly, was a while ago) that for a singular (proper) noun ending in ‑s, the apostrophe went after the s and there was no additional s.
I don’t wish to start a flame war on which is correct, though my question doesn't really make sense if my grammar book is wrong! What I’m curious about is when the change occurred. :
So my question is when did James’s become the correct form and James’ the incorrect one?
Answer
Since, 1810, forms like James’s (which I will call type A) have generally been more commonly used than forms like James’ (type B), according to my research using the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA).
I compared a number of names ending in -s looking for possessive forms with and without a final s. Here is a graph comparing incidences of type A and type B forms:
.
The y-axis shows the difference in incidence between types A and B. If it is above 0, that means that type A was more common in that period; if below 0, that means type B was more common. The raw data used to generate the chart is in this Google Spreadsheet.
Here’s the same data, shown cumulatively:
For the 14 names tested, type A has been more common throughout the period beginning in 1810, except for the decades starting in 1850, 1940, and 1950.
Overall, it is quite clear that type A forms (e.g. James’s) predominate, and have done so for nearly two hundred years. Nevertheless, type B forms are also quite common, and during the 1930s to the 1960s, a number of names had more incidences using type B. But since 1970, most names have had a majority of usage in type A. As for the original question’s example of James, throughout almost the entire period, excluding 1820, incidences of James’s has strongly outnumbered incidences of James’.
When is it appropriate to use a hyphen when naming colors?
For instance Blue-green has a dash but Teal blue does not.
Is there some general English rule that applies?
Answer
Generally one uses a hyphen for compound adjectives where they precede the noun or noun clause which they describe.
For example, I would write 'A blue-green sea provided the background curtain to the open-air theatre'.
But I might equally say 'My favourite colour is blue green', and 'I love being in the open air'.
I am reading a book on grammar. Now I can't understand the difference between the verb+preposition and phrasal verbs. For example
He never thinks about(or of) other people.
and
put on your coat
Why this book call think about a verb+preposition and put on a phrasal verb. What's the difference between them?
Here are another examples about this subject
ask (somebody) for
A man stopped me and asked me for money.
belong to ...
Does this book belong to you?
talk to somebody about something
Did you talk to Paul about the problem?
Turn over
Turn over and look at the next page
turn on
It was dark, so I turned on the light.
bring back
You can take my umbrella but please bring it back.
I don't know the difference clearly.
Answer
There are several types of phrasal verb, and several types of verb + preposition. Not all of them are constituents, they serve different functions, they're all irregular as hell, and they're all governed by the matrix verb.
Every verb has its own assortment of special idioms, affordances, prohibitions, requirements, and irregularities. There is such immense variation in these details that such matters are considered part of the meaning of the verb; certainly they are strongly affected by the meanings. Square and cube that variation for phrasal verbs, since there are far more phrasal verbs in English than there are single-word verbs.
Some varieties can be examined in this freshman grammar homework problem. Examples of different types, from there:
Sentences (1) and (2) show two normal verb + prep constructions, from the same verb: look at, with transitivizing at; and look for, a transitive idiom meaning 'search'. Both of them require that the preposition precede the object (which may be thought of either as the object of the preposition, or as the direct object of the transitive verb + prep construction), even if that object is a pronoun. It makes no difference to most prepositions whether their object is a noun or a pronoun (ungrammatical sentences are marked with an asterisk *):
Sentence (3), on the other hand, is a real transitive phrasal verb. There are two characteristics of phrasal verbs that help to distinguish them. Both tests have limitations, however. The most important one, and the easiest test to administer, is the difference between the pattern of asterisks in the second and third columns, where pronoun objects force the difference.
There is a syntactic rule (called Particle Shift in the literature) that applies to transitive phrasal verbs only, and imposes a special requirement on pronoun objects. Thus, with a real phrasal verb like look up 'research (v)', the particle may appear either before or after a Noun object, but must appear after a Pronoun object.
Note, however, that this test is helpful only with transitive phrasal verbs. There are plenty of intransitive phrasal verbs, too, but there's no object to test with. Many transitive phrasal verbs can appear also intransitively, e.g take off, move away, often with a different sense (He took it off ~ The plane took off), or not (He moved it away ~ It moved away).
The second useful characteristic is that a phrasal verb is stressed on the particle, at least as much as on the verb, and maybe more. A V + PP construction like look at, on the other hand, is stressed on the verb, not the preposition.
That's because prepositions are rarely stressed, except for emphasis (In the toilet, you idiot!);
they're sposta slide by like articles and conjunctions to grease the way into the object, which is the informational part. They're not sposta distract, so they're unstressed, and therefore reduced, so we get common contractions like sposta and lookit.
Unfortunately, stress is not represented in English writing, so that distinction is not helpful for readers.
Neither of you understands him as I do
Neither of you (more than one) is plural. Why does it say understands instead of understand?
It was taken from Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows. Conversation between Voldemort and Severus. When Voldemort says "neither of you" he means Severus and Lucius. And "him" is Potter.
Answer
In this kind of context, many will regard neither as being grammatically singular, and therefore requiring a singular verb, as in your example. Not all authorities agree with this analysis, however, calling in aid the concept of ‘notional’ or ‘proximity’ agreement, which would allow a plural verb after neither of. As ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage' reports, plural agreement ‘is strongly associated with spoken discourse. In the British National Corpus it’s used in 75% of all instances from transcribed speech, but only about 20% of instances from written texts.’
It may be this preponderance of plural agreement in speech that has led you to expect understand rather than understands here. I imagine that the example you give is indeed speech, rather than part of the narrative of the book. If it is, then the author may have had some characterisation purpose in having the speaker use a form that is untypical.
Punctuation question:
Which is correct?
I am familiar with " at the end" and " in the end" constructions, but I have found in "English Grammar in Use" book, the following sentences that contain "on the end":
Question tags are mini-questions that we often put on the end of a sentence in spoken English.
Put a question tag on the end of these sentences.
Naturally, I would have used at instead of on.
What differences are between "at the end" and "on the end"?
Thank you!
Answer
In general "at the end" is more natural. (For example, "In German the verb often comes at the end of a clause.") It seems to me that they have used "on the end" here because the question tag is something extra that you ADD ON. You could even use "onto" in this specific context.
I have a grammar which says that:
"The 'noun+noun' structure is normally used to say what things are made of."
"A few pairs of nouns and adjectives are used as modifiers with different meanings. Generally the noun simply names the material something is made of, while the adjective has a more metaphorical meaning."
a gold watch - golden memories;
a silk stocking - silken skin
I've also heard that the "-en" ending is used in a poetic sense. But when I looked up at my dictionary for the word "wooden", it brought as an example "wooden bench"; even though "wooden" wasn't being used in a figurative nor in a poetic way. Furthermore, I don't know whether to use "wood door" or "wooden door", meaning that the door is made of wood.
We can use will for both past and future assumptions. But how do we differentiate if it refers to past assurance or future possibility? For example:
You will know all about Rachel, of course.
Now this conveys two possible meanings 1.) It is a past assumption and the speaker implies that the person knows about Rachel for sure. 2.) It could also mean that the person will know about Rachel at some point in the future.
Another example:
He will have finished eating supper
now.
So how do we know if it refers to the past or the future? Do we need to change our intonation while speaking?
I know that "y'all" and "you all" are common in many English dialects and are often used as pronouns. Are there any dialects in which the number marking of the second person pronoun has become obligatory? That is, I'm looking for dialects in which "you" (or something similar) always refers to the 2nd person singular, and the 2nd person plural is always expressed with something similar to "y'all".
Many small companies have difficulty growing because the number of
orders becomes too large to handle.
Should I use become or becomes in this sentence? I don't know, but the sentence feels a little odd to me.
Answer
Many small companies have difficulty growing because the number of
orders becomes too large to handle.
In your sentence, you need to see what exactly is becomes describing. Whether you should use "become" or "becomes" depends on what the word intends to describe- number or orders.
because the number of orders becomes too large to handle
Here, becomes refers to number. Number is used as singular here, so you should use becomes.
When you intend to refer to orders instead, that is when you would use become, as in this (hypothetical) example:
Many small companies have difficulty growing because their orders
become too large to handle.
Also take a look at this and this. They describe some basic rules to help deal with similar sentences.
Is there any specific name for the bold portions of the following sentences, or for their structure?
It has been suggested that drinking water is good for your health.
It is unknown how long could this last.
My research has shown that hoofs and hooves are correct plural forms of hoof. That being said, which is preferable? Which came first in the English language?
If I lost all my money and became homeless, what standard expression can I use which has the word 'street'? Would it sound perfectly okay to a native English speaker if I said "I was pushed to the streets"? What would a native English speaker say?
Answer
It sounds like the phrase you're looking for is "kicked out on the street", which typically implies homelessness or unemployment.
Judging by the consensus over at this question, one should use "fewer" over "less" for countable quantities. What about in this situation?
[Less or Fewer] than 10.7% of the people were happy.
Here, a percentage is not countable (because it is a real number of arbitrary precision), whereas the noun "people" is countable. My instinct tells me that "fewer" would be preferred, because the percentage must always correspond to a rational number (which is countable)—unless of course fractions of people can be happy!
Answer
*Disclaimer: this answer is based on a grammatical standard, which has been shown to be a "myth" in a response to a related question "Less" vs. "fewer". I posted my answer here before reading the previous discussion on this whole issue of "less" versus "fewer". I would like to make it clear that my views are not based on some pretentious notions of superior knowledge of grammar. This is simply a standard I have always followed based on my background in English. I leave it to the reader to decide what they want to stick to. Thanks.
Indeed, one should use "fewer" for countable quantities. In fact, the usage of "less" for such quantities is grammatically incorrect. Also, I agree that a percentage is really a fraction. As such, it is apparently not a countable quantity in the grammatical sense. But, there's a catch! The word "percent" means "one part out of every hundred". Thus, if the percentage turns out to be countable, then one gets a countable quantity. When referring to a group of people, this is usually the case. Therefore, in your example sentence, the absolutely correct choice would be "fewer":
Fewer than 10.7% of the people were happy.
As the subject of the sentence "fewer than 10.7%" is certainly a countable quantity.
Now, for a counter example using cake! A fraction of a cake is not countable, no matter how you look at it. Thus, this example is correct:
Less than 10.7% of the cake was eaten.
(although 10.7% is a very arbitrary fraction to use for cake!)
In general, the rule* for percentages would be:
As far as AmEng goes, can likely be an acceptable alternate to probably in the following OUP quiz?
The traffic is terrible so I'll probably be late this morning.
Climate change is likely to affect us all by the end of the decade.
I'll call them if you like, but they aren't likely to be in.
The concert tickets are likely to sell out very quickly.
I'll probably find out if I've passed or not by the end of the day.
You've probably heard this joke before, but I'll tell you anyway.
LIKELY
adv. Probably: They'll likely buy a new car soon. [AHDEL]
Usage:
Likely as an adverb is preceded by another, intensifying adverb, as in it will very likely rain or it will most likely rain. Its use without an intensifier, as in it will likely rain is regarded as unacceptable by most users of British English, though it is common in colloquial US English. [Collins]
likely meaning “probably” is often preceded by a qualifying word: The new system will quite likely increase profits. Some usage guides maintain that such a qualifier must always be present. However, likely without the qualifier is standard in all varieties of English: The new system will likely increase profits. [Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary]
Answer
In examples 2-4, likely is a predicate adjective, appearing with auxiliary be: is likely, are(n't) likely.
Probably is always an adverb, so it can't substitute for a predicate adjective.
That leaves 1, 5, and 6, where likely can substitute for probably. Both are adverbs, and both occur after the first auxiliary verb (will likely, have likely), which is normal and common.
However, an auxiliary verb is not necessary; likely occurs with simple verbs as well:
In effect, in American English, likely is a 2-syllable adverb complementing a 3-syllable probably.
A quote from The Economist:
In Iraq failure to reach a similar security agreement led to the
sudden and premature departure of all American forces.
Here we have two nouns which may be either mass or count according to Oxford Dictionary. One has a zero article (failure), the other takes THE (departure).
Filling in articles (which were pre-cut in a text editor), I've committed two mismatches with The Economist's version, as follows:
In Iraq *the failure to reach a similar security agreement led to *a
sudden and premature departure of all American forces.
I thought that the noun "failure" here is a mass noun, yet modified enough (which failure? - "to reach a similar..") to merit the definite article.
Concerning the "departure", I'd consulted Oxford Dictionary which states that the word may be used as a count noun: "she made a hasty departure". Besides, the troops' departure may well be unknown to the reader, hence "A".
Assuming both nouns are mass nouns in this sentence, I have two questions:
Can we still use "THE" with "failure"? Or does it need to have an "of-phrase" modifying it in order to take THE? ("..the failure of the government to reach..")
Can we use zero article with "departure"? (despite the post-modification by an "of-phrase"; It seems to me that "of-phrases" are powerful inducers of THE-ification.)
And still it puzzles me why "departure" here cannot be a count noun, like in "she made a hasty departure".
Answer
Yes on both counts.
When you say you made two mistakes, I disagree. I guess your teacher is a grammar Nazi…
Note, originally my question was "should I ask" instead of what I meant, which is "should I say". Sorry for the confusion.
If I do an internet search about:
Whom should/shall I say is calling.
I invariably get blogs and articles saying that this is incorrect, and probably a form of hypercorrection.
This question follows from a previous question based on an Oxford Living Dictionaries article about whom and who.
In the article it claims that in both:
the use of whom is wrong, and it should be who. This seems to be agreed to by the users that contributed to the previous question I linked.
However the Oxford Living Dictionaries also claims that the following two are incorrect:
✗ He is demanding £5,000 from the elderly woman whom he claims has ruined his life.
✗ Mr Reynolds is highly critical of journalists, whom he says just use labels to describe him.
However on these two examples the majority seemed to say that objection to using whom in the last two is an old prescriptivist objection, and to quote an answerer:
According to many respected grammarians, the article is incorrect ...
So:
In the second example whom appears to be both subject and object, however more particularly "whom" is the subject of "won the race", but the object of the whole clause seems "I say won the race". At least that's what I understood from the point.
If this is acceptable, then in the case of "Whom should I say is calling?" Doesn't the following apply:
If we turn these questions into statements I think we get:
Is this analagous to the other cases, and therefore saying "Whom should I say is calling?" is not incorrect?
I'm not sure what the answer is, but every every single result I saw about "Whom should/shall I say is calling?" have all said that it's incorrect and that it should be "Who", mainly because the "Who" is doing the calling and therefore the subject.
Who/whom shall I say is calling?
He is calling.
Who shall I say is calling?
englishessaywritingtips.com
Correct: Whom did you speak to earlier?
Correct: A man, whom I
have never seen before, was asking about you.
Incorrect: Whom
should I say is calling?
grammarly.com
On this usingenglish.com forum thread an English teacher calls it an instance of hypercorrection.
usingenglish.com
On this Quora question all the top answers say it should be "who".
In this sentence, "he" is the correct choice, so you would choose "who" for the question.
Quora question
I take it given all this information my instinct is wrong about this?
Background:
Nowadays, I see this usage a lot. I don't know if it was this common in the past.
For example: "one of them people"
When I did a research about it, some people say it comes from a dialect of British English. And some says it is a "non-standard" usage.
I see this usage in Canadian English also and seems like some people use in a sarcastic way.
Moreover, I saw in a song title as "one of them days". And I saw in the book called "A Broken Promise" as "Now my mother become one of them people."
And finally, Wikipedia says that it is a usage in Appalachian English (a common name for the Southern Midland dialect of American English):
Pronouns and demonstratives
"Them" is sometimes used in place of "those" as a demonstrative in both nominative and oblique constructions. Examples are "Them are the pants I want" and "Give me some of them crackers."
Question(s):
What would you say about the usage of this word? Is it correct? Can we use it in daily speech? Can this usage go beyond a specific dialect and be used in other dialects, regions etc.?
Is it really originated from Appalachian English? Why did this usage become popular among other English speakers?
Note: I already saw this question:
What are the grammatical rules for use of "these", "those", and "them"?
But it only says "ungrammatical" there. This question is specific to this situation only and there is more to it.
Answer
In the succinctly named textbook: English Grammar in Familiar lectures. Embracing a new Systematick Order of Parsing. A New System of Punctuation, Exercises in false Syntax, and A System of Philosophical Grammar. Designed for the use of Schools and Private Learners by Samuel Kirkham, dated 1834 we have this example of usage pertaining to Pennsylvania
The author provides further examples and an explanation as to why this construction is considered ungrammatical
I found an even earlier instance from an American textbook illustrating this usage, dated 1803, The Elements of English Grammar: Methodically Arranged for the Assistance of Young Persons, Who Study the English language Grammatically by George Neville Ussher 1
The above extracts prove without doubt that this form of speech (and writing) was used and heard in the past. I cannot say for certain if this usage of them originated in the Central and Southern Appalachian Mountain region of the Eastern United States. I can only testify that when I attended primary school in North London way back in the 70s this form of speech was very common among children.
Aha! I found an even older school textbook The Rudiments of English Grammar For the Use of Those Who Have Made Some Proficiency in the Language
By Joseph Priestley, dated MDCCLXXII (1772) printed in London, England.2
Lets say I want to talk about the 10 ingredients most frequently found in each continent, while being as concise as possible. I have the choice to say 10 most abundant ingredients in african and european continents, but then it becomes unclear whether the 10 are the sum of both, or 10 in each, and how they are split. How would you say this?
Non-native speakers often get confused about what the various tenses
and aspects mean in English. With input from some of the folk here I've
put together a diagram that I hope will provide some clarity on the
matter.
I offer it as the first answer to this question. Consider it a living
document. Input is welcome, and good suggestions will be
incorporated into the diagram.
Nota bene: What this is not is a discussion of whether there are
more than two tenses in English. We have a dedicated question for
that, to which this
question is not intended to supply arguments one way or the other.
Here, the aim is to provide an overview of what constructions
English-speaking people use for conveying information about actions
referring to past, present, and future, and to provide it first and
foremost to precisely the people who are likely to use "tense" as a
catch-all term in their search, rather than to linguists who know better.
Breaking News There is now an excellent ELU blog article titled
How We Talk About Future
Situations.
It is highly recommended reading.
Answer
A visualization of what we mean in English by the various tenses:
Why is it that the following sounds incorrect:
"Would she know where it's?"
But this sounds fine:
"Would she know where it is?"
Answer
Because you don't contract away a stressed syllable. It's counter to the very nature of contraction.
See also the answer to Is there some rule against ending a sentence with the contraction "It's"?
I was reading a topic article in a English grammar book.
In an explanation, the following guideline was mentioned:
Use the to refer something that has already been mentioned.
While I was doing an exercise, I faced the following sentence.
- Our teacher gave us ______ test today. It was ______ really hard test.
There were questions on there which I didn't even understand. But based on the explanation above, the answer in the first sentence should be a, and the answer in the second sentence should be the.
But when I saw the answer, there was a in first sentence and a in the second sentence also.
How is this possible? Based on the explanation, the answer in the second sentence should be the! Please explain.
"How much ever you prepare, it is your attitude in the exam hall that matters"
From a previous question concerning the same phrase, I realize "how ever much" could be used.But I am asking this because of 2 reasons.
1. It does seem to make a little sense, that is
how much- doesn't it imply the level of preparation
and ever- for whatever period of time you might have prepared.
2. I have seen the phrase being used in a lot of sites.
Is there any chance for the phrase to be used by a native speaker of English ?
If I use how ever much, would it mean the same thing ?
When nouns such as average, total, sum, etc., are modified by a prepositional phrase, how do you choose between the definite and indefinite articles? I cited sentences 1, 3, and 5 below from various sources on the Internet. As an English learner, I have always wondered what difference there is if the indefinite article is replaced by the definite article. Are sentences 2, 4, and 6 below correct or possible?
Here are example sentences:
He finished the season with the batting average of .357.
That will use a total of about 3.3 million tons of lead.
That will use the total of about 3.3 million tons of lead.
What two prime numbers have a sum of 7?
I would appreciate your help much.
Answer
You have an (or a) average, maximum, minimum, or other group-based calculation of something, while you take (or calculate) the average, maximum, or minimum.
Thus your samples 1, 3, and 5 are correct, but not 2, 4, or 6.
(To clarify, as per the comments: In the example sentences, the average is a property that is already known, and it is being treated grammatically in the same way as a generic, indefinite possession and thus can take the indefinite article 'a'. If the average is an unknown number that needs to be determined, then you are taking or calculating it, and then it is a specific feature and should be referred to with the definite article 'the'.)
I'm trying to decode what word-type each word is in the following sentence, please correct me if I'm wrong.
The things you own end up owning you.
I have it decoded as follows:
The (det) things (noun) you (prep) own (verb) end (noun) up (adverb) owning (verb) you (prep).
Answer
You have many of them right. However, I believe the correct answer would be.
"End up" is an interesting compound verb which is mostly used in informal speech and writing. Its actual meaning appears to be rather complex and depends somewhat on the sentence it is found in. See the link below:
http://thesaurus.com/browse/end+up
I want to know if what certain orders or positions in the orders are in English.
The following are my questions, assume that we have ten apples, I put my questions on these apples:
What is the name of the order when all apples are red? We say the apples are all red?
What is the name of the order when one apple (the first) is red, the next one is yellow, and then the third one is red and the forth one is yellow again and this continues to the last apple.
What is the name of the order when one is red, and the next two are yellow and the forth one is red and again the next two are yellow and ....
You see, I'm seeking for word/phrase to describe this orders.
My second concern is the position of the items in an order.
We say the first apple is red.
We say the last apple is red.
But, how do we say one apple to the end is red? I mean an apple before the last one?
Thanks
Answer
If by "order" you mean the arrangement or organization, you can try these terms directly or look them up in a thesaurus for some alternatives:
What is the name of the order when all apples are red? We say the apples are all red?
Uniform pattern The apples are uniformly red.
What is the name of the order when one apple (the first) is red, the next one is yellow, and then the third one is red and the forth one is yellow again and this continues to the last apple.
Alternating pattern The apples alternate between two colors - red and yellow.
What is the name of the order when one is red, and the next two are yellow and the forth one is red and again the next two are yellow and ....
Repeating pattern The apples have a pattern that repeats after every three.
We say the first apple is red.
First item is red.
We say the last apple is red.
Last Item is red, Ultimate item is red.
But, how do we say one apple to the end is red? I mean an apple before the last one?
Next-to-last item is red, Penultimate item is red.
Consider:
My English grammar knowledge tells me that "need" doesn't have the same status as the modal verbs "may", "can", "should" and what not. Hence the second usage where two verbs appear consecutively is incorrect.
But yesterday, my native English speaking friends (Americans) told me that "I need compute this." is a perfectly grammatical sentence, and one is simply omitting the "to". How can this be? Is it a colloquial usage but grammatically incorrect, or is it grammatically correct? If it is grammatically correct, is it because "need" is a semi-modal verb?
EDIT: in particular, is it okay to use "need compute" in a scientific paper?
EDIT2: the exact phrase that raised the question was "The advantage of this representation is that we need only compute sums and products"
Answer
Your friend is correct. "I need compute ..." is ungrammatical, but "I need only compute ..." is fine, if a little bit old-fashioned and formal.
Modal verbs do not use a "to". That is, you say
I can do this.
The verb "need" is a funny case; it is only modal in the negative. In the positive, we already have an equivalent modal verb; namely, "I must". However, there are two possible meanings for the opposite of "I must do this": "I am forbidden to do this" and "I am not required to do this". These two different meanings are conveyed by the modal verbs "I must not" and "I need not".
Searching with Google books, it appears to have been this way at least since 1600 (although back then, there was a positive construction "I must needs", which has since for the most part fallen out of use). Thus, you get various grammatical constructions.
In the negative, you have:
I need not do this.
I do not need to do this.
In the positive, you have:
I must do this.
I need to do this.
*I must needs do this. (obsolete)
"I need do this" is incorrect.
Over the last few centuries, "I don't need to" has slowly been replacing "I need not", but "I need not do this" is still used reasonably frequently, and is grammatical. However, if "I need do this" was ever grammatical, it was in the long distant past.
Finally, in the past you could say
it is not the case that I need compute this,
since that is a negative use (and this is why your friend might not be wrong). Today, I believe most people would use "need to" here. But if your friend was using "need compute" in the negative, there is a good case to make for it being grammatical.
My question does not have to do with the correctness/incorrectness of 'neither do I'/'me neither', but with the presence of the 'yes' (or 'yeah', which is how it most often 'comes out' for me) at the beginning.
If someone were to say:
I love chocolate.
I'd naturally answer (orally) one of the two:
Yeah, so do I. / Yeah, me too.
But if someone were to say:
I don't like driving.
Would it be normal to answer:
Yeah, neither do I. / Yeah, me neither.
Or with it be best to say:
No, neither do I. / No, me neither.
I do not understand why my question was marked as a duplicate. My question is not about the personal pronoun (I or me) but about the adverbs (Yes/Yeah or No). I do state in the first paragraph that my question concerns "the presence of the 'yes' (...) at the beginning.", whereas the question I'm supposedly 'duplicating' is clearly focused on the personal pronoun.
I shall edit to make the words I'm concerned with in bold to see if that clarifies that I'm not interested in the pronouns.
Answer
The short answer is yes, it would be normal to respond with either statement.
As was mentioned already in the comments, the "yes/yeah" parts of your example sentences are simply agreeing with the original speaker. It would become awkward if they'd followed their statement with a question ("I don't like driving, do you?" "Yeah, me neither.") and sounds more like you'd formulated your response before they'd finished speaking, but as it stands it's not awkward and definitely not incorrect.
I know you didn't ask about the difference between responding with "me" or "I" but in formal speech they should both be "I" since you are the subject of your own statement. "Me too" and "me neither" are both fully accepted in conversational speech, though.
Having grown up in England and then moved to the States I will say that I have (on incredibly rare occasions) encountered people who are amused by my "formality" when I say "neither do I" but have never encountered the opposite with "me neither."
So, while both are fully acceptable statements in both the English speaking countries I have any experience with, the States appears to have a (very, very) slight leaning towards "me neither" in an informal setting.
This is a continuation of the question at A significant amount of zombies were detected in your city which raised further questions in my attempted answer.
There were purchases. A significant number of them was/were detected.
From [Oxford Dictionaries][1]:
Although the expression ‘a number’ is strictly singular, the phrase ‘a number of’' is used with plural nouns (as what grammarians call a determiner (or determiner)). The verb should therefore be plural:
A number of people are waiting for the bus.
This is not the case with ‘the number’, which is still singular:
The number of people here has increased since this morning.
It can therefore be argued that "them" refers to "purchases". Is "them", "purchases" or "a number" the noun in the second sentence, and why?
Answer
'A significant number' is a stand-in for what can only be imagined as a relatively large number. More importantly, that number of significant size would merit pluralization.
"1 was detected"
"2 were detected"
"A significant number were detected"
"A number [of something] were detected"
As the only number that leads to the singular case is 1, pluralization is the natural choice for unspecified quantities.
To answer your question, the noun is 'number.' The definition of number, per Google:
1.
an arithmetical value, expressed by a word, symbol, or figure, representing a particular quantity and used in counting and making calculations.
2.
a quantity or amount.
Considering the second meaning of 'number,' the pluralization is much more rational.
EDIT (after comment by Edwin below)
Plural noun usage is explained nicely here.
Relevant quotation:
Note that "the number" is a singular collective noun. "The number of applicants is steadily increasing." "A number," on the other hand, is a plural form: "There are several students in the lobby. A number are here to see the president."
If I went to a place last night where I needed to show an id, but I forgot to have it on me. So if in the morning I was speaking to a friend(reporting on what happened), which one of the following would be correct:
I had heard that you needed an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary
I had heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.
I heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.
The first one seems correct to me, but I might be wrong. Ideas?
And which one of the following should I say in the context above:
Reporting on what had happened
Reporting on what has happened
Reporting on what happened
Answer
I had heard that you needed an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.
This sentence is correct. It implies that you knew about the necessity of carrying an ID before the events of last night.
I had heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.
This is also correct, although some people might say that the use of Present Simple with need doesn't agree with the past perspective. I believe, however, you can use it because in this place the ID is a norm and it is still valid.
I heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.
This is correct but not very clear. I heard doesn't show that you knew about the ID beforehand. I prefer the previous two examples.
You are reporting what happened since you have already mentioned that these events took place last night.
What pronouns would you use in the following sentence
John and Lou recognized a bear cub. Replacing the proper nouns with a pronoun and then replace bear cub with a pronoun.
In every-day language, I would say, "Give me the fifth largest pumpkin you have"; that is I would use the ordinal.
However, this feels clunky in mathematical texts, especially when reading out loud: "select the k-th largest element" or, even worse, "the k plus first/oneth largest element".
Is it fair to say/write "the k-largest element"? It seems to me that the "aspect of ordinality" is sufficiently expressed by the -st suffix in larger (or smallest, heaviest, ...), that is the superlative.
Consider the following sentence.
We are selling ___ 1,800 sq ft office.
I would write an, because I say eighteen hundred.
But someone else would say a, because they say one thousand eight hundred.
For 2,000 it's easier, because it's always two thousand.
For 2,100 it can again be twenty one hundred, or two thousand one hundred.
So what is grammatically correct, what do I write so that I don't confuse my readers?
And why?
I always see whom used in questions. This is not a question, is a statement. Whom sounds correct to me, but I'm not sure if it is and why.
The "rules" I've seen around are all for questions, not for statements. In this case, "whom" seems the object to whom (hehe) the action of "being with" is performed. Is this correct?
Answer
The distinction as I understand it after reading the comments is essentially about the distinction between the possible sentences:
You are with whoever your mind is with.
and
You are with whomever your mind is with.
My answer is that the latter is correct and the former is acceptable in many variants of modern English.
Reasoning
We say, 'You are with him.'
We do not say, "You are with he."
The above is almost universally true, regardless of grammatical terminology.
We can say, 'You are with whom?'
In many varieties of English we can say, 'You are with who?'
We merely have to extend this series in order to arrive at the two sentences I started with.
What is the correct (Ooops, I'm afraid it's me again! rule-o-cratic French speaker), preferred, then, word order in a superlative?
"She booked the earliest flight she could back to London."
or
"She booked the earliest flight back to London she could."
Or neither, the sentence sounding awkward anyway… How would you put it then?
Answer
As to rules, several have already applied in both of these sentences
To start with, let's put back most of the deleted words
Note that there are two relative clauses modifying flight
They are both a result of the superlative construction, listing its two boundary conditions:
Given these conditions, the superlative earliest refers solely to time of departure.
The order in which several relative clauses that modify the same antecedent may appear
in a sentence is open; this is a matter for the speaker's judgement, as usual.
Which one of the following sentences is grammatically better?
I hope she has started doing that by then.
I hope she will have started doing that by then.
Now, if I make it indirect, it will probably be:
My hope is that she will have started doing that by then
...Which makes me think the second one might not be correct.
Also, is there any difference between American and British English usage?
Answer
The use of the future perfect tense ("will have started") is the more correct construction there; you are talking about a time in the future, before which time something should have occurred; but that thing has not occurred as of the moment at which you are speaking.
However, if you were to use the first construction, you would still be understood perfectly well.
So, I am not a native English speaker. I am from India and some of the sentences that I hear from certain movies leaves me dumbfounded. So, the other day I was watching Suicide Squad and I heard Will Smith say "So, you one of them deaf hoes?". Now, what the hell does that suppose to mean? Let me get one thing clear, I know the meaning of hoe(cough).
What's the difference (or correct way of saying it) between the followings:
"Review plan" vs "Review a plan" vs "Review the plan"?
"Agree on plan" vs "Agree on a plan" vs "Agree on the plan"
"Implementation of the plans" vs "Implementation of plans? vs "Implementation of plan"?
I suppose it boils down to when do you add "the" or "a" or not add it at all?
Answer
This isn't an academic answer, but a practical one based on the English language as it is used.
Review plan - this could be a name for an existing plan designed to review something. The name of the plan is 'Review Plan'. Or, it is shorthand or note form (perhaps in a 'To Do' list)
Review a plan - referring to a plan (any plan) being reviewed
Agree on plan - shorthand, note form (wouldn't be spoken). The correct usage in normal speech or writing is one of the other two (both are equally correct)
Implementation of the plans - the correct usage in formal writing or normal speech. The other two are both note form or shorthand.
How would I punctuate the bold portion?
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Wait," I replied, "did you just ask me Who are you?"
I would use the following:
"Wait," I replied, "did you just ask me, 'Who are you'?"
Comma before the quote
Quoted with single quotation marks (instead of italics, which I'd consider another option)
Closing quotation mark before the question mark
Only one question mark (for my question, not the quoted one)
Is this correct?
Answer
Here's the correct version:
"Wait," I replied, "did you just ask me, 'Who are you?' "
Some things to notice:
1. The statement being quoted is a question, so you need the question mark in the embedded quotation marks. You don't need a second question mark. A sentence can have only one end punctuation mark.
2. The comma before the embedded quotation, which follows standard format for introducing a quotation.
3. The space between the single and double quotation marks at the end.
If I were to revise this, I would write this:
"Wait," I said. "Did you just ask me who I am?"
Here are two parts of the US Constitution that would today be treated as having spelling errors:
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts
or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely
necessary for executing it's inspection Laws. (Art. I, Sec. 10, Cl. 2)
...no State, without it's Consent, shall be deprived of it's equal
Suffrage in the Senate. (Art. V)
When did prescriptive grammar specifically begin to target the preposed possessive pronoun it's as a bad spelling, and recommend exclusively its?
See related question on SE.
I am confused about the usage of the words 'we' and 'us'. I am using a Princeton Review 11 SAT tests 2011 edition, practice test 7, section 6, number 29 (just in case anyone actually had that book).
This question was a "find the incorrect word or phrase in the following section" question. For those of you who don't know, this kind of question gives you a sentence. Four different phrases or words are underlined in that sentence and labeled A, B, C, and D respectively. The objective is to find the phrase that is incorrectly used. The particular question I need help with says:
As finalists, Mark and I were both shocked by the decision; it seemed to us that the winner of the contest was far less talented than we.
A: both shocked
B: it seemed
C: far less
D: we
E: No error
So of course, everything seemed right till I got to that last word. My thinking was to use 'us' instead of 'we'. However, the answer in the back of the book says the answer is:
E. There is no error in the sentence as written. The we in (D) may sound strange, but the subject pronoun is correct here.
Can someone please explain this to me? Why am I wrong in saying that the word us should have been used instead?
Answer
This is one of those messy situations the exam writers should know better than to dump you into.
Very rigorous judges have long held that constructions of the type "X is better than Y" (substitute your own comparative for 'better') should be parsed as elliptical reductions of "X is better than Y is", and therefore require Y to be realized in the nominative case, if that's distinct from the objective (which is only the case with the pronouns "I", "he", "she", "we" and "they". That's the "rule" which the exam requires you to follow.
Unhappily for those rigorous judges, the "rule" is not, and never has been, followed in the language-as-she-is-actually-spoken. In ordinary speech virtually everybody has virtually always said "She's better than me", "He's better than her, "I'm better than him", "We're better than them", and "They're better than us". That's the "rule" recognized by most descriptive linguists; and many people who offer advice on how to say stuff promote that rule.
So there's a fundamental disagreement between two schools of prescriptive grammarians: which "rule" should you follow?
This will probably sort itself out on the "me/him/her/us/them" side by the time you retire. But right now you're stuck in the middle.
The "I/he/she/we/they" rule is a bad one. But you're applying for admission to a discourse community which very largely observes it; so choke down your annoyance and follow their rules until you have enough seniority to follow your own rules.
Just wait for them to die and you'll be fine.
Clunky title, sorry.
An example: "Lots of pizza" sounds right, as does "many pizzas." "Lots of pizzas" does not sound right (in my dialect; I think it's fine in others), nor does "many pizza." "Lots of tortillas sounds right," as does "many tortillas." "Lot of tortilla" does not sound right, nor does "many tortilla."
Why do some words stick with the singular plural when following "lots of," and why is it strictly followed (to my knowledge) that all words are pluralized following "many"?
Answer
Many means more than one or two and hence always precedes plural countable nouns:
I have many friends. - She has read many books.
So many help, many money, many pizza and many tortilla are all ungrammatical.
On the other hand, lots of can mean both a large amount of and a large number of. In the first case it is followed by a singular noun, and in the second case by a plural noun:
I need lots of help. - She has lots of money.
I have lots of friends. - She reads lots of books.
(Note, however, that lots of, particularly when followed by a singular noun, is considered very informal.)
The complication is that many nouns, particularly food nouns such as pizza, may either be conceived of as referring to the entity/food itself or to separate instances of that entity/food. In the first case the singular noun is used, and in the second case the plural noun.
So, I eat lots of pizza has an emphasis on the total amount of pizza eaten, whereas I eat lots of pizzas places greater emphasis on the number of individual pizzas.
As for tortillas, I can only speculate that lots of tortilla does not sound right because a tortilla is conceived solely as an individual item. So, I eat lots of tortilla sounds as odd as saying I eat lots of grape. Maybe someone has a better idea.
If a sentence contains a complete question, but ends with a statement, should it be punctuated with a question mark?
Example:
Could she go to the store, he wondered
I am writing a description for one of our internal repositories of knowledge we have at my company, and I want to describe one of them as being "a hub of FYIs to keep all teams up to date on the latest news, alerts, etc."
I was wondering if there's a better noun other than "FYI" to describe nuggets of information that isn't necessarily urgent, but is there for reference? I tried to replace "FYI" with "information", "knowledge", but it doesn't quite have that implication that these are short, and are just there for other people's reference.
Thank you!
Some brands or product names take the form of an acronym, but the letters don't actually stand for anything. An example would be Windows XP--the "XP" was chosen for its sound and connotations rather than any particular words starting with X or P. Is there a term for this sort of formation? My first thought was "initialism", but it seems too broad since it includes terms that are meant to stand for things.
Answer
I agree with aaa that this could just be recognized as a trademark, but this could also be a pseudo-acronym.
A pseudo-acronym is a type of initialism that once had a deeper meaning (or was once an acronym) but lost this meaning and is now just a string of letters. In this case, XP was an abbreviation for experience, but over time, this has faded away and the letters are just letters.
The question:
Suppose John is my friend, and I am introducing myself to his brother, should I say
"I am a friend of John's"
or
"I am John's friend"
??
I would use the former, but some think the latter is also correct. If both are acceptable, what are the differences? If we can already say John's friend, why do we need constructions like a friend of John's in English?
Note:
There are lots of question on this site asking about a friend of John versus *a friend of John's
* and so forth. This however, is not one of those questions!
The Lord’s Prayer begins in English:
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Shouldn’t it be who is there, not who art? You would have said thou art and he is at the time this was written. See the Wikipedia article on Thou for example.
Answer
"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy (your) Name," is the rest of that sentence.
By saying "Our Father... Thy..." you are addressing God personally, making that the second person singular (you are). (First person singular: I am. Third person singular: he/she/it is.) "Our Father" is not speaking about God; it is speaking to God. (It is like saying, Hey, Dad, you, up there. Blessed be your name.)
If it were about Him, it would certainly be He is. From the same book which states Our Father, who art in heaven:
For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. - Isaiah 33:22
Quoting your source:
When thou is the grammatical subject of a finite verb in the indicative mood, the verb form ends on t... (e.g., "thou goest"; "thou dost"), but in some cases just -t (e.g., "thou art"; "thou shalt")
and
Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye... thou was later used to express intimacy...
and
The familiar form is used when speaking to God... (an "informal" singular form of the second person in modern speech.)
My question does not have to do with the correctness/incorrectness of 'neither do I'/'me neither', but with the presence of the 'yes' (or 'yeah', which is how it most often 'comes out' for me) at the beginning.
If someone were to say:
I love chocolate.
I'd naturally answer (orally) one of the two:
Yeah, so do I. / Yeah, me too.
But if someone were to say:
I don't like driving.
Would it be normal to answer:
Yeah, neither do I. / Yeah, me neither.
Or with it be best to say:
No, neither do I. / No, me neither.
I do not understand why my question was marked as a duplicate. My question is not about the personal pronoun (I or me) but about the adverbs (Yes/Yeah or No). I do state in the first paragraph that my question concerns "the presence of the 'yes' (...) at the beginning.", whereas the question I'm supposedly 'duplicating' is clearly focused on the personal pronoun.
I shall edit to make the words I'm concerned with in bold to see if that clarifies that I'm not interested in the pronouns.
Answer
The short answer is yes, it would be normal to respond with either statement.
As was mentioned already in the comments, the "yes/yeah" parts of your example sentences are simply agreeing with the original speaker. It would become awkward if they'd followed their statement with a question ("I don't like driving, do you?" "Yeah, me neither.") and sounds more like you'd formulated your response before they'd finished speaking, but as it stands it's not awkward and definitely not incorrect.
I know you didn't ask about the difference between responding with "me" or "I" but in formal speech they should both be "I" since you are the subject of your own statement. "Me too" and "me neither" are both fully accepted in conversational speech, though.
Having grown up in England and then moved to the States I will say that I have (on incredibly rare occasions) encountered people who are amused by my "formality" when I say "neither do I" but have never encountered the opposite with "me neither."
So, while both are fully acceptable statements in both the English speaking countries I have any experience with, the States appears to have a (very, very) slight leaning towards "me neither" in an informal setting.
I’ve always thought it grammatically wrong to use “that” to introduce non-defining relative clauses, after a comma, or after a preposition.
The following two sentences, however, use “that” after a comma and they still sound idiomatic to me.
- “It’s no use repeating the obvious things, that have been said by others, and that can be found in any encyclopedia.”
- “That’s the person, if I’m not mistaken, that we were talking about."
Can it be that, contrary to what I think, “that” can be used after a comma? Or is it just the wrong use of a comma where there should be none? It’s true that in the second example “that” introduces a defining relative clause. But it doesn't appear to be so in the first example.
Edit - I'm not asking for a more natural way of saying things. What I'm asking is:
1. Are these sentences grammatical? Should we use "which" in the second sentence?
2. Is it wrong to place the comma before "that"?
3. Is it wrong to use "that" to introduce a non-restrictive clause as in the first sentence?
The questions Difference between 'which' and 'that' in restrictive (defining) relative clauses and Are there rules about using "that" to join two clauses? and The usage of "that" as a relative pronoun have some good answers on when to use or to omit “that” but they do not address these specific points.
Answer
tldr: What’s written is ok, and I’ll show you what it means.
Grammar is something that falls out of the spoken language, not the written one. Punctuation is unrelated to grammar except in that rare circumstance when it signals an audible intonation change meant to alert the listener to some change in the actual underlying grammar. Those cases are hard to come up with, but do exist. All punctuation is just cues for hearing the real language in your head better.
Therefore by that metric, not only is there nothing wrong with the punctuation as written, there cannot be, and no matter how it is written.
So try saying your first example aloud in your head, which I will here write without commas because voices have no commas, just intonation:
This is a restrictive that here, which you can tell because it can be substituted by which with no change in meaning or permissibility:
We can’t use that in descriptive clauses but we can use both that and which in restrictive ones, so if you can swap them, you know what you have. And the other way around, too. This is grammatical whether with or without its comma:
But this is ungrammatical again no matter whether you write the comma or not:
That one is wrong because it tried to use that for a descriptive clause, and you can only use which for those. The native ear goes HUH? when it hears it, which is what makes it ungrammatical.
As you see, it’s never its punctuation which makes something grammatical or ungrammatical. It’s whether you the right worms oops I mean words have managed to put together right — which this sentence almost did not. Twice. :) It had almost managed not to put the right words together, twice.
As you observe, we do not usually use commas before restrictive clauses in English because there is no intonation change to signal there. Presuming that the writer was a competent one, this means the writer was trying to signal something else by including intonation dips. I believe that what he was signalling was an apocopated version of two appositives, which I’ll use em dashes to set off with a repeated things:
If you read his punctuation there, the commas, as an indicator of appositives the same way as they’re used for that in this sentence, his pauses will make much more sense. It’s not especially common, so it’s no wonder it caught your eye, but I believe that there is a legitimate reading where it makes perfect sense.
As for this one:
Here you have to read this for syntactic constituents. The phrase if I’m not mistaken is a parenthetical aside. It could have been written:
So the commas are the same as parens or dashes: they’re there to surround the parenthetical statement. Since in the spoken language you cannot hear any punctuation, this cannot change the grammar. They’re just there to help the reader.
These too are all ok:
All those are fine. About the only thing you can’t do is say:
Because which cannot function there to start the clause to serve as the object of a preposition.
Don’t allow some simple, perhaps simplistic, mnemonic tip for good writing style such as “don’t use a comma before that” confuse you about the larger surrounding issues or about a sentence’s actual grammar. Such tips exist to break a common pattern in beginning writers unfamiliar with the conventions normally observed in these things. But rest assured that the actual grammar remains intact no matter the punctuation, for any grammatical error will jump out to your ear without seeing the punctuation — just like in my very last bulleted example sentence above, the one with the extra asterisk.