linguistics - Is there such a thing as an unvoiced vowel?

I can't think of any and google has not been helpful.

Answer

Voiceless vowels are quite possible, and occur in one way or another in many languages.
After all, all vowels and all consonants that are whispered are ipso facto voiceless.
Whisper [a] and you have pronounced a voiceless vowel.

However, the overwhelming majority of vowel sounds in speech are voiced, since vowel formants are modifications of a voiced airstream from the larynx. Exceptions to this rule fall into a number of categories.

• in some languages, like Japanese, some vowels become voiceless in some environments
  (in Japanese, high vowels /i/ and /u/ are devoiced between voiceless consonants)


• in some languages, like English, voiceless vowels are allophones of a consonant phoneme
  (English /h/ is a voiceless vocal onset, a voiceless version of whatever vowel it precedes)


• in some languages (Acehnese, for instance) some vowel phonemes are contrastively voiceless
  (this is quite rare, however -- most voiceless vowels are conditioned rather than contrastive.)

pronouns - "It was he/him who/whom I voted for."

I'm not particularly a grammar pedant, but I thought of this sentence this morning and it has defied my searching skills.

It was he/him who/whom I voted for.

The question here covers something similar, but it doesn't have the disagreement where the "he" behaves like an object in the second clause and a subject in the first. Which of these sentences sounds more grammatical?

1. It was he who I voted for.



2. It was he whom I voted for.


3. It was him who I voted for.


4. It was him whom I voted for.

Oddly enough, this website seems to suggest that one should use sentences like "I chose whoever came first," despite the usual usage of "I chose him."

Answer

The traditional pedantic version of this sentence would be "It was he whom I voted for" (although a pedant who believed in avoiding stranded prepositions would instead say "It was he for whom I voted").

The object of the preposition for in the relative clause is typically analyzed as consisting only of the relative pronoun whom/who. The relative pronoun and the personal pronoun he/him refer to the same person, but they do not occupy the same position in the grammar of the sentence. The personal pronoun he/him is not part of the relative clause at all.

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The "Let he/him who..." question has "he/him" as the object of the main clause and "who" as the subject of the relative clause. It seems comparable to your sentence, where "he/him" serves as a predicative complement in the main clause and "who/whom" serves as the object of the preposition "for" in the relative clause. In both cases, the standard prescriptivist viewpoint is that the relative pronoun should be inflected according to its role in the relative clause, and the pronoun before the relative pronoun should be inflected according to its role in the main clause.

"I chose whoever came first" is a different situation because there is no other pronoun before the relative pronoun: it is a "fused" relative. A fused relative pronoun is "supposed" to inflect according to its role in the relative clause. See this blog post: "For Whomever the Bell Tolls" (by Jonathon Owen, Arrant Pedantry). The actual, as opposed to prescribed, behavior of "fused relatives" seems to be fairly complicated: see F.E.'s answer to “Put me in touch with whomever created it”? for more details.

The verb be is not actually analyzed as taking a direct object, but a "predicative complement". Completely separately* from the issue of relative clauses, there is variation between "he" and "him" as a predicative complement: "It was him" is usual, but "it was he" has traditionally often been prescribed as a "more grammatical" form (based on the idea that the predicative complement should have the same case as the corresponding subject, which in this case is the nominative pronoun it). Sentences with nominative predicate pronouns, like "It was he", still exist to some extent as "elevated" variants of sentences with accusative predicate pronouns.

(*"Completely separately" may be a slight simplification: Barrie England's answer to "It is I who am at fault?" indicates that the use of "nominative" predicative complements may in fact be more frequent in present-day English before relative clauses that have who as the subject. But from a prescriptive point of view, there isn't supposed to be any relationship between the use of "It was he" and the presence of or case of a following relative pronoun.)

grammar - Pluralization of Germanisms

The German noun "Ansatz" is widely used (at least) in physics and, less frequently, in math texts in English. I have seen it always in singular though and now I must use its (English) plural. The German plural of this word is "Ansätze".

Which of the following plural forms is the right one for the Germanism "Ansatz"?

1. Ansatzs (perhaps the expected one)


2. Ansätze (too exaggerated?)


3. other unexpected, like "these Ansatz are..." (unchanged)

Answer

The OED entry for ansatz lists it as a regular noun in English. That means it takes -es for the plural here.

On the other hand, its earliest citation almost looks invariant:

• 1942 Jrnl. Indian Math. Soc. 6 41 (title) Studies in Fourier ansatz and
  parabolic equations.

The other citations, through 1990, all look completely singular. There are no clear examples of a plural. It just isn’t marked as irregular, and they always do that if it is.

There are extremely few words in the OED of German derivation that retain their German plural in English, perhaps a half-dozen odd ones, and seldom as the dominant form. For example, there is one citation from 1962 of bratwurst > bratwürste:

• 1962 Punch 11 July 51/2 We ate two delicious Bratwürste apiece.

In contrast, Wandervogel is definitely marked Wandervögel in the plural, and the plural forms Wandervogel and Wandervogeln are marked catachrestic — that is, erroneous. Here are two examples of the word as an irregular plural:

• 1967 Listener 30 Nov. 705/3 Around 1930, alienated and disaffected youth was being manufactured mainly in Germany, where the First War had produced the biggest earthquake. Some of them called themselves the Wandervögel, and wandered around Europe with their guitars and their interchangeable girlfriends, living on what they could get wherever sympathisers would accept them.


• 1978 J. I. M. Stewart Full Term xxi. 241 A bunch of juvenile Wandervögel.

You can tell those uses aren’t assimilated because they’re still written in italic in the original. And they’re still capitalized, unlike most (but not all) citations of ansatz.

One more example with an irregular German plural in English is Land, “a semi-autonomous unit of local government in Germany and Austria”, whose plural is given as any of Länder /ˈlɛndər/, Laender, Lands, and in that order.

verb agreement - "Lots and lots of...two different uncountable nouns"

I'm writing a story for little children and would really appreciate some help with the following sentence:

"There was lots and lots of red, and lots and lots of blue."

Is that correct? Or should it be "there were"?

Answer

When you are saying merely blue or red as an object rather than a modifier,'was'shall be used.

There was loads and loads of blue (colour) and loads and loads of red (colour).

However if there were an object that blue and red were modifying and the object was more than one in number, we would use 'were'.

There were loads and loads of blue books and loads and loads of red books.

The only time you would use a colour name in plural would be when referring to shades:

There were many greens to choose from. which is an informal way of actually saying
There were many hues/shades of greens to choose from.

or in a metaphorical use of the colour.

I have the blues."

Are there idioms specific to one English dialect?

Let's get into a little conversation about the differences between American English, British English and regional dialects. Some words are specific to certain dialects (lass is Scottish, the lads is British, etc.). Some words take different meaning (theatre vs. cinema to mean “movie theatre”). Pronunciation is obviously different, and spelling can be (neighbour/or, gray/grey, etc.).

What I wonder is this: are there some specifically British (or American, or whatever) idioms. I don't see why there shouldn't be, but I can't think of a single one right now. So, can you come forward with such idioms with the following constraints:

• the individual words do not markedly belong to one dialect


• it does not refer to a specific cultural element: geographic place, local dish, …

It would be fun to have some from a wide variety of English dialects, to broaden the perspective.

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Edit: to clarify, an idiom in this question has the meaning of “a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words”

grammar - Omitting verbs, is it correct?

I wonder if I could omit the second 'visit' in such sentence:

You have to visit all the places, which she wants to (visit)

Would it be correct?
Thanks in advance
:)

expressions - "Finnish Swedes" or "Swedish Finns"?

In Finland, there live 5.6 % Swedes (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fi.html). They have lived there for many generations, being standard Finnish citizens, just inheriting the Swedish language as their mother tongue.

Which of the following terms is better for them?

1. Finnish Swedes


2. Swedish Finns

Of course you may describe them by some more complicated phrase. What I am looking for is just what should be the adjective and what should be the noun.

Note 1

I expect that Americans might feel their citizenship as more important and hence use Finns as the noun, while Europeans might feel their mother tongue as more important and hence use Swedes as the noun, but I may be wrong?

Note 2

The interesting (for me as a native Czech) thing is that in English the word nationality has two very different meanings (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationality):

• a group of people who share the same history, traditions, and
  language, and who usually live together in a particular country





• the fact or status of being a member or citizen of a particular
  nation

In other languages, these notions are often expressed by two different words and, most of all, they are perceived as two very different things.

Answer

This problem cannot be removed from context and social/historical nuance

It can depend, among other things on whether people are immigrants, or whether they are descendants of a landowning class of foreigners e.g. the Anglo Irish. (I have never heard anyone talk about the Irish English.) However the Polish Germans could presumably either be Poles who happen to live in Germany, but could also be part of the residue of landowning Germans who remain east of the Oder-Neisse Line in modern-day Poland. Similarly the Sudeten Germans in the Czech Republic. Naming is governed largely by historical convention, I would say.

Do people say Irish Americans or the American Irish?

That too, seems to me as though it may depend on context. If, for example, I am giving a talk about hyphenated Americans, I would almost certainly say Irish Americans, African Americans, Italian Americans etc. But if I was speaking about, let's say, the Irish diaspora, I might talk about the American Irish, the Australian Irish, the UK Irish, the London Irish, the Liverpool Irish etc. (there are societies and sports teams named London Irish, London Scottish and London Welsh) So there is no certainty here.

I don't know much about the circumstances of the Swedish families who live in Finland. But no doubt these sorts of issues could affect the way they are described, within a Scandinavian context, which may be quite different to that of the Anglosphere.

My advice would be to look to local nomenclature, and to use that.

word order - Why do some questions not start with an auxiliary verb?

When I learned English, my teachers told me that all questions must have an auxiliary verb at the beginning, just like Are you mad? or Is she playing? do.

But when watching some movies or talking with people who speak English, they just ask using things like You mad? and She’s playing?

Of course, the kind of intonation let me know they are asking a question, but why this happen?

Answer

They do start with an auxiliary verb, but since it's predictable, it's often omitted.

These are examples of what's called Conversational Deletion in the literature.
The link has references and further examples.

orthography - siphon vs. syphon - any reason to prefer one over the other?

I've come across two spellings for this word. Siphon and syphon are apparently both correct. English is not my first language and this word is not used often in practice, especially in written form. I am very curious about this. Is there any reason to prefer one over the other? And which spelling would be more common? Is it a regional thing (like maybe American like one and British the other) or something else. I wonder if this is a specific case of more common interchange between i and y in some words - which would be interesting.

Wikipedia suggests that siphon may be more common spelling.

Answer

Both are in the "Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary" so I don't think there's any strong reason to prefer one over the other.

As a native speaker of English I would say 'siphon' is the more commonly used spelling (for example see this Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/may/10/dictionary-definition-siphon-wrong).

I personally find 'syphon' much more aesthetically pleasing though.

grammaticality - Can an English sentence have a 'dative subject'?

I have been thinking about this for a while. It seems to me that, sometimes, the subject plays a dative role in that it is the recipient of something. Take the following active sentence.

He gave me a gift.

If it is made passive, it normally changes as follows.

A gift was given to me (by him).

In which case a gift is clearly nominative and to me clearly dative. However, I often see the following passive construction used instead.

I was given a gift (by him).

In which case I appears to be a sort of nominative-dative, yet I can't quite explain a gift or what it does in the sentence; it is certainly not accusative. Semantically, I understand the sentence, but I cannot make syntactic sense of it.

After a quick search on Google Ngram, it seems that gift was given me is the oldest possible construction, which makes sense, followed by gift was given to me, which also makes sense. The first instance of I was given a gift appears to be in 1920, from which point it has risen steadily. So it seems quite obvious that it is a new usage.

Is this a 'correct' usage, so to speak? How did it come about? Most interestingly to me, how is it explained grammatically? Can it be adequately explained with traditional grammatical terms? or does it require an altogether new analysis?

Answer

This is a fairly well-known phenomenon in English grammar;
the simplest explanation is that there are two syntactic processes interacting here.

• One process (rule, construction) is the Passive,
  which exchanges the subject and the object of a transitive sentence,
  without changing meaning -- but adding or subtracting a prepositional phrase:
  The janitor painted the fence. ~ The fence was painted (by the janitor)




• The other process (rule, construction) is the Dative Alternation,
  which exchanges the direct object and the indirect object of a bitransitive sentence,
  without changing meaning -- but adding or subtracting a prepositional phrase:
  The janitor sent the bill to us. ~ The janitor sent us the bill.

These processes are optional: one can occur, or the other, or both, or neither --
as long as their conditions are met. So there are variations:

1. He gave a gift to me.
   (no Dative occurs)
   == Passive ==>
   A gift was given to me by him.
   == Agent Deletion ==>
   A gift was given to me.




2. He gave a gift to me.
   == Dative ==>
   He gave me a gift.
   == Passive ==>
   I was given a gift by him.
   == Agent Deletion ==>
   I was given a gift.

Both are correct; they're just variations. The easiest way to look at it is that an indirect object can get promoted to direct object by Dative, and a direct object can get promoted to subject by Passive. If it's already been promoted once, it can still get promoted further.

The point (the communicational purpose) of the Passive is to downplay the agent subject and get some affected patient object up front for emphasis. Having both these variations allows any noun with a grammatical relation to the verb (Su, DO, IO) to get moved up front, where the action is. It gives the speaker more latitude, and obviously is adaptive, since it's universal in English (though those prepositions will vary somewhat, as usual).

grammar - Correct construction for "easily protected against"

What I am trying to express is that I have a problem P and a good G and it is easy to protect G from P.
However, G is not the focus of the sentence and P was described in the previous sentence.

So I would like to say something like:

There is the additional problem P. However, it is easily protected against.

With it referring to the problem P and without going into what G is again. However, the construction seems complicated and possibly plain incorrect. What we would be a good expression?

I also considered:

There is the additional problem P. However, it is easy to protect against.

acronyms - "An RV" or "a RV"?

I am writing about Random Variables, which I am abbreviating to RV. Should I write 'an RV' (an Arr-Vee) or 'a RV' (a Random Variable)?

Answer

This depends entirely on how you expect people to read the letters RV. If you expect them to say "random variable" every time, then use a RV. If you expect that they'll pronounce the letter names, use an RV. Personally, I would lean towards the latter.

That's because the choice of a or an is determined entirely by pronunciation.

Why does the contraction of "I will" sound strange in certain sentence constructions?

Recently, while chatting with a friend via text, my friend asked me, "Can you ask them tomorrow?"

I responded with:

I will when I go.

It occurred to me when writing this response that it would be really weird sounding to say:

I'll when I go.

However, it would have been normal sounding if I had said:

I'll ask when I go.

Is there any formal reason why the version without "ask" following "I'll" is incorrect? Or maybe it is correct, but merely awkward?

I suppose there may not be any explanation deeper than, "it just sounds weird," but any informative insights into why, ideally with examples of similar cases, would stand as an answer.

relative clauses - "a patient who is" or "a patient whom is"?

I am still very confused on when to use who and whom, I understand the idea these sentences are correct:

• He is the person who won the competition.


• That is the person whom I went on holiday with.

But what would be correct in the following sentence:

This image shows a patient who is... or whom is?

Would it be who because the patient is the subject, or is it?

articles - Which one is correct: "the name of the X" and "the X name" or "the X's name"?

I'd like to know if writing the name of the variable is necessary. Could we just write the variable name (if not variable's name) instead?

Examples:

To reuse data, reuse the name of the variable that stores it.

Scope is the part of the program where a particular identifier, such as a variable or a function name is accessible.

It can lead to conflicting names of the variables.

Answer

It depends heavily on the context.

To explain:

To reuse data, reuse the name of the variable that stores it.

This is correct because we're talking about the name (a property) of the "variable that stores the data".

To reuse data, reuse the variable's name that stores it.

This is incorrect because now we're saying its the name (that belongs to the variable) storing the data.

To reuse data, reuse the variable name that stores it.

This is incorrect because we're still saying the variable name (as a thing) stores the data.

Scope is the part of the program where a particular identifier, such as a variable or a function name is accessible.

This is correct because we're saying the function name (as a thing) is accessible.

Scope is the part of the program where a particular identifier, such as a variable or a function's name is accessible.

This is correct, and is basically identical to the sentence above. We're saying the name (that belongs to a function) is accessible.

It can lead to conflicting names of the variables.

This is grammatically correct but very badly written. We're saying there are "conflicting names" that are properties of the "variables", but this makes it sound like all variables have names that are conflicting.

It can lead to conflicting variable names.

This is correct and makes much more sense than the sentence above. Now, it is clear that we are talking about the variable names (as things) conflicting with each other.

Source: Native speaker & author. Hobbyist coder.

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EDIT: Detailed answer to an example from the comments:

The book's title is confusing when compared to the content of the book.

This is correct because we are saying the title (that belongs to the book) is confusing when compared to the content (a property) of the book.

The book's title is confusing when compared to the book's content.

This is correct because we are still saying the title (that belongs to the book) is confusing when compared to the content (that belongs to the book).

These two sentences are very similar. In this context, they mean the same thing.

-------------BONUS TIP---------------

Because we have already explained that we're talking about the title that belongs to the book, we don't need to explain that the content also belongs to the book. Instead, we can use the possessive form of the generic noun "it" and say:

The book's title is confusing when compared to its content.

This is correct because we are saying the title (that belongs to the book) is confusing when compared to the content (that belongs to it). We can assume that "it" = the book because we are not talking about any other objects.

Note: Be careful to not confuse "its" with "it's". "Its" is the possessive form of "it". "It's" is a contraction of "it is".

grammar - Singular they = general they

Well, here is the situation.
I have four students. They did a test. Suppose that the regulation is a student getting a score below 40 gets the remark "study hard" which is written at the bottom of the work instead of a numerical score. When I want to confirm this, may I say:

They get study hard if their SCORE IS (instead of SCORES ARE) below 40, right?

Answer

I am answering the OP's edited note : 'how to figure out the correct grammatical number to use'.

I suggest :

Scores below 40 earn a "study hard" comment.

The number (or even gender) of the students is actually irrelevant to the necessary grammar. There is no need for the possessive pronoun - or any pronouns at all.

And it fits for a single student, also.

The statement is about a logical connection between scores and commenting.

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(I only answered this 'cos @Mari-Lou A made me do it.)

grammar - "If you were to ..." or "If you ..." or "If you will ..."

If you were to go home you would feel better

versus

If you went home you would feel better

versus

If you will go home you will feel better

Are all the above correct? Are there circumstances where one is preferable over the other? Or, are some of them just informal colloquialisms?

Is one form always more preferable than the other? In other words, were I to always use the "If I were to ..." form, would I always be correct?

Answer

The first form "If you were to go home, you would feel better." should be grammatically correct, but it sounds rather strange to me.

The second form "If you went home, you would feel better." is grammatically absolutely correct and also expresses the right thing. It is a so-called Conditional Clause of Type II which means that the event in question (i.e. you go home) is improbable but still possible. In general such a clause is constructed according to the pattern: If + simple past, would/could/might + infinitive.

The third form "If you will go home you will feel better" is incorrect. If you slightly adjust it to "If you go home, you will feel better." you get a so-called Conditional Clause of Type I which expresses that the event in question is likely to happen. In general a Type I If-clause follows the pattern: If + simple present, will-future or can/must/might+infinitive or imperative.

There is also a Type III, which, in your case, would be "If you had gone home, you would have felt better." It implies that the event in question is impossible, because you are talking about the past. In general, Type III follows the pattern: If + past perfect, would/could/might + have + past participle.

Other conditional if-clauses that do not fall into one of the above categories are usually grammatically incorrect. As always, there might be some exceptions and special cases, but the above is definitely a good guideline.

EDIT: People also sometimes speak of a Type 0 if-clause which addresses something that is generally true, for example: If it rains, I take out my umbrella. The construction is fairly simple, as you see.

grammar - walk-through, walkthrough, or walk through?

Referring to something that means a step-by-step tutorial, which is the correct word / term ?

walk-through

walkthrough

walk through

I'm under the impression that the dash version "walk-through" is correct as that seems to be the most commonly used. Most spell checks flag "walkthrough" as not a word, so I'm pretty sure that's out. Most grammar checks to not seem to flag the spaced version "walk through", however, so I'm not 100% sure.

Thoughts on this?

-- EDIT --
Not sure why somebody linked to a post about "well-being" vs "wellbeing" clearly not the same word(s) I'm asking about.

american english - Reword a positive question into a negative one

I have a list of yes/no question. I want to associate a "yes" answer with a positive meaning (desirable) for all the questions, but I am having a problem with the last question of my list:

Does the middleware rely on XML-based protocols?

Because answering yes to this question is considered undesirable in my context.

Can be appropriate to use the following question instead? (So a "yes" answer is desirable)

Does the middleware not rely on XML-based protocols?

If not, how can I reformulate the question?

Answer

“Is the middleware independent of XML-based protocols?”

is a clearer formulation because it uses a single negative form in place of not + a positive form. You can apply this approach generally, but only where common positive and negative forms exist, which is why the word ‘reliant’ (no useful negative equivalent) was replaced by ‘dependent’.

meaning - "Plan to do" vs. "plan on doing"

What are the differences between the following?

1. He is planning to do something.



2. He is planning on doing something.

When to use each?

Answer

The sentences are quite similar. They convey similar meanings. Without being overly technical (not that I'm capable of it), I suggest sentence number one sounds more definite than sentence two.

An appropriate comment coming after sentence one might be, for example,

"[He is planning to do something.] We are not sure what he is planning, but we know he's going to do something!"

Coming after sentence two, an appropriate follow-up comment might be,

"[He is planning on doing something.] We are not sure what he is planning, and we are not sure he will actually do it, but we are pretty sure he will at least make an attempt to do something."

In other words, sentence one is less "qualified-sounding" than sentence two.

The nonverbal aspects of the sentences, however, can affect the meaning and implication of the sentences. Let's say, for example, two people are whispering to each other in an audience that is gathered to watch a magician. The magician is on stage, and as he pauses briefly, as if to think what to do next, one person whispers to the other, with the nonverbal emphasis on the word something:

"He is planning on doing something!"

On the other hand, suppose the whisperer said, with an emphasis on the word do,

"He is planning to do something."

Which sounds more definite to you? If you say "Sentence two," you are probably well on your way to understanding the differences between the two locutions. If not, then I have failed to 'splain things well enough!

contractions - If “I Will!” vs “I’ll!”

I told my friend “Enjoy your coffee.” and she answered “I’ll!” It took me a second to realise it was “I will!” Why is the first one wrong and the second version not? I know it’s wrong but I don’t know why.

Thanks.

punctuation - Where do I put a comma when I have quotes around a short story, and the sentence structure needs a comma?

Where do I put a comma when I have quotes around a short story, and the sentence structure needs a comma? I know that, generally, commas go inside of quotes, but what if the quotes are marking a short story. Here is the part of the sentence I'm having trouble with:

Gertrude Stein’s The Gentle Lena is vastly different from Edith Wharton’s “The Other Two,” yet the two female leads ...

Should it look like that, or should it look like this:

Gertrude Stein’s The Gentle Lena is vastly different from Edith Wharton’s “The Other Two”, yet the two female leads ...

punctuation - Is the use of a period within quotes, in a sentence, accepted?

In the article by Anthoney McCartney on Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/man-arrested-red-carpet-says-never-hit-pitt-172635914.html):

Don't get offended at me. Don't get mad at me. And just to be thankful that I show it's easy to get access to you and maybe you have to tighten security," Sediuk said. He said celebrities should be cautious when talking to fans. "Obviously, I don't want to say, 'Don't talk to fans.' But (be) cautious.

Looking at the last sentence, is the period within the second quotes technically correct within the quotes outside? Or, is the last sentence technically correct? I've always held that a period does not have to be confined to the end of the sentence but was divided about it. Because the period is the end, is it not? Now, for the first time ever, I've seen an example in an article I just happened to read, and my age-old doubt just got "re-ignited".

What are your thoughts? Is it acceptable? At least Yahoo! QA seems to think so?

Answer

It looks like your blockquote should have a close quote mark at the end of it, so I'll assume that's the case.

In this use, the quote from Mr. Sediuk is two sentences. The first one includes a nested statement that gramatically is itself a quote -- he's clarifying that "Don't talk to fans" is not what he's trying to say. Since that statement is a full sentence, and is placed at the end of the sentence he was speaking (that started with "Obviously"), a period at the end is appropriate. The period's placement within the single quote is correct given that Yahoo is edited to standard American English.

The alternating of single and double quotes for nested quotations is the established way of dealing with quotes within quotes (e.g., Chicago 15th ed, 11.33 and the AP Stylebook). For extreme examples, you might look at some of the prophetic books of the Bible (like Jeremiah ch. 2), which can go three or four sets deep.

grammaticality - Is "On January 17th our team had represented" correct English?

My team recently posted a status update,

On January 17th, our team had represented [organization name] at [place].

Though I am unable to explain why (I have never formally learned tenses), I am convinced that the 'had represented' part of the sentence is incorrect, or at the very least weird-sounding English (I'm open to being proven wrong). I have tried bringing it up but all it brought about was an endless argument.

Someone claimed that the sentence is formatted in past perfect tense, referencing this page: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/pastperfect.html

I am sensing a difference between the formatting of the question and the examples of past perfect tense given in the page, but I can't quite point it out convincingly.

Is the status correctly written?

As a side note, does it matter if it's British or American English?

comparative construction used with pronouns, especially 'her'

I was recently pulled up by a colleague when I made a statement along the lines of I am a better player than her. My colleague suggested the correct statement should be better player than she is because her is a possessive pronoun, and my colleague was waiting to hear what noun her referred to.

I was unconvinced. I am able to say:
I am taller than Jim, which can become I am taller than him.
So, just because her is both the feminine possessive and personal pronoun why does that exclude me from saying I am taller than her?

Or, have I made a false assumption, and should never have a noun/pronoun without a verb at the end of a comparative structure? Should I always have been saying I am taller than Jim is, and Rabbits are faster than turtles are? This seems awfully cumbersome

grammatical number - Apostrophes and caps in Happy Mother’s Day / Happy Mothers’ Day

So, I’m writing this as it is Mother’s (or maybe Mothers’) Day today, and I was wondering what would be a correct way to write that.

Should the apostrophe come be between the r and the s, or after the s?

And are the following capitalization correct?

Happy Mother’s (or Mothers’) Day!

and

I wish you a Happy Mother’s (again, maybe Mothers’) Day!

and also

I sure spent a nice Mother’s (maybe Mothers’) Day with my momma!

grammatical number - Correct way of saying I want a list of the names of each individual entity in a group?

I'm a programmer and in a program I'm currently creating, I want to get a list of all the accounts names that can access a database.

I have no idea if I'm supposed to "get account names", to "get accounts name" or to "get accounts names".

My best guess is that "get accounts names" is the correct answer as it seems more logical to say it that way, but I see the first case used the most, which makes me doubt about this.

The way I see it, "get account names" would refer to multiple names given to a single account and "get accounts name" would be the name of the group of accounts, but I'd like some clarification on this.

Answer

This depends mainly on whether you wish to emphasize "account" and "name" as being a single unit (an "account name") or as separate units (the "name" of an "account").

In the first case, an "account name" is a single thing. So you can think of it as being a parenthesized term, and then pluralize thus: "(account name)s". You can see that "account" is not pluralized, since an "accounts name" is not a thing.

However, if you wished to separate "account" and "name" as concepts, you would say "Get accounts' names", where the apostrophe indicates that names belong to accounts.

In normal English usage, I have seen the "Get account names" formation much more often.

grammatical number - What is the correct plural form for multiple bachelor degrees?

I am helping a former intern ready their resume for distribution. The candidate used an abbreviation I was unfamiliar with:

B.S.s in Physics, Computer Science, and Mathematics

I am familiar with the student's educational background so after a moment of thought realized "B.S.s" was their attempt to indicate multiple bachelor of science degrees. That said I can see those unfamiliar with the student's background being confused. Unfortunately, I do not know how to provide the correct punctuation to indicate the correct grammatical number for multiple degrees in the same discipline.

What is the correct plural form for multiple bachelor degrees? Additionally, are there variations for other degree levels: associates, masters, Ph.D, etc.? In addition to the abbreviation what's the correct way to indicate plurality for the unabbreviated form?

Answer

I think this may be one of the rare cases where 's is used to denote plurality:

B.S.'s

This seems to be supported by a bunch of places:

and many more.

verbs - What is the past simple and past participle of spit? Each online dictionary has different form

Cambridge: past tense and past participle : here is the cambridge link:spat.https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spit#british-1-1-2

Oxford:spits, spitting, spat, spitted
Oxford link :https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/spit

Collins:spits, spitting, spat or spit
Word forms: spits, spitting or spitted

Collins link:https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/spit

Wikitionary:spitted,spitted
spat/spit,spat/spit
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spit

Which one is correct?

grammar - Using a present tense verb in an "if" clause, followed by the main clause

Is it possible to have a present tense verb in a sentence like this:

If you resign now, you'd feel sorry later.

Or must you always follow the second conditional format, arriving at a sentence like this:

If you resigned now, you'd feel sorry later.

My goal is not to necessarily to produce a second conditional sentence, but rather to see whether the first sentence is acceptable, whether interpreted as a second conditional or not. It seems acceptable; what explanation is there for this?

grammar - What's the difference between "speak" and "talk", grammatically speaking?

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:

• be talkative ... be speakative


• speak French ... talk French


• give a talk ... give a speech (as opposed to a speak)


• speak up ... talk up (the meanings of the two phrases being completely different, with "up" being a preposition only in the latter case)


• speaking of which ... talking of which


• grammatically speaking ... grammatically talking

On the other hand, many other constructions work just as well with either (though they might have subtly different meanings), for example

• speak to ... talk to


• speak with ... talk with


• speak about ... talk about

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?

What part of speech is “there” when used in “There is (blah blah)”?

What part of speech is there in the sentence “There is a book on the table?”

Also, while typing it out, another question pops up vis-à-vis punctuation. In my complete first sentence above, I ended it with a question mark since my main sentence is a question. The quote is not a question, but it looks like it because of the question mark. Is this the right way to punctuate?

Answer

The phrase "there is" indicates the presence of the object of the sentence, without making the object the subject. The similar sentence "A book is on the table" would mean the same thing but restructures the statement to have a subject. Usually, when using the indefinite article "a", the statement will more often use "there is" to emphasize the presence of the book over the book itself.

The construct comes from the French term "il y a", literally translated as "that there has" but thought of by native French speakers as identical to "there is" (except conjugated using "avoir" instead of "etre"). As this shows, "there" basically replaces "il y" ("that there") from the French and so takes the place of the pronoun.

As for punctuation at the end of a sentence containing a quote, there are a lot of conflicting rules regarding punctuation in quotes. In American English, the rules are as follows:

• if the quote is not a complete, structured sentence, the punctuation should always be placed outside of the quote. (The defendant said that his actions were "lawful and appropriate".)


• if the quote and statement both end in a "forceful" punctuation (? or !), the punctuation should be placed outside the quote. (Why did the defendant say "Why are you questioning me"?) - this is the correct use of punctuation for your specific case.


• If the quote ends in "forceful" punctuation but the statement does not, use both punctuation marks, and place them inside and outside the quotes as appropriate. (When asked about his involvement, the defendant cried "I will not be interrogated by you!".)


• If neither the quote nor the statement are "forceful" (they'd both end in periods), and the quotation is a complete, properly structured statement, the punctuation goes inside the quotation marks in American English. In British English, traditionally the punctuation still goes outside, but American influence in English writing currently makes it about 50-50. (When asked about his actions, the defendant said, "what I did was lawful and appropriate to the situation.")

pronouns - "I hope you all/both are doing well" vs "I hope you are all/both doing well"?

Do both convey the same message, or not?

1. I hope you all are doing well.


2. I hope you are all doing well.

It occurs to me that the same thing happens with both when I'm only addressing two people rather than more than two:

3. I hope you both are doing well.


4. I hope you are both doing well.

I'm sure that the first of each pair addresses more than one person, but I'm not sure if it is as “grammatically correct” as the second from each pair where the quantifier follows the verb instead of the pronoun.

I just wanted to check up on my friends but I'm not sure which one I should use; I'm a non-native speaker.

punctuation - Where do I put a comma when I have quotes around a short story, and the sentence structure needs a comma?

Where do I put a comma when I have quotes around a short story, and the sentence structure needs a comma? I know that, generally, commas go inside of quotes, but what if the quotes are marking a short story. Here is the part of the sentence I'm having trouble with:

Gertrude Stein’s The Gentle Lena is vastly different from Edith Wharton’s “The Other Two,” yet the two female leads ...

Should it look like that, or should it look like this:

Gertrude Stein’s The Gentle Lena is vastly different from Edith Wharton’s “The Other Two”, yet the two female leads ...

Are there any differences between "penultimate", "the last but one" and "second to last"?

Are there any differences between "penultimate", "the last but one" and "second to last"?

From my point of view, they mean the same. However, I'm not a native-speaker, so I'm not sure.

Could you please tell me if there are situations where to better use one option instead of other.

Answer

Penultimate is a very mannered way of saying second to last, and its use in English goes in and out of fashion. According to Google ngrams, it has been rarely used in American English since around 1840, and in British English it marks certain periods, as shown below.

Personally, I think of it as Victorian (1837-1901), and you can see a marked peak in 1865, but it seems to have lived on. It seems to be passing out of fashion again, although it's too early to tell.

It's a useful word if you're hoping to establish a pedantic tone, e.g. in an academic paper that needs additional weight and dryness. Otherwise not so much.

history - Why have the subjunctive and indicative converged in Modern English?

It is to me a curious fact that the subjunctive mood of verbs in English has so nearly disappeared in modern times. In fact, even the correct form and usage of the subjunctive in Modern English barely distinguishes itself from the indicative! In many regions and dialects, the subjunctive would appear to be entirely obsolete, replaced by the indicative in all cases. (Educated speakers, certainly in Britain at least, do however still make good use of it.)

The present subjunctive form in Modern English is (in almost all cases) virtually identical to the third-person plural present indicative (e.g. 'He were', 'She own'). This is markedly different from Old English, where the subjunctive form a form was much more easily noticeable. Even by the advent of Early Modern English in the 16th century, the subjunctive was already converging with the indicative.

Other Modern European languages, not only Romance ones such as French and Spanish, but Germanic languages related to English (e.g. Dutch/German) have a much more pronounced subjunctive form. From what I remember of my Classical Latin, word suffixes for a variety of tenses are hugely obvious in the subjunctive.

My question is: why is this convergence of the subjunctive and indicative so strongly the case in Modern English? Is it a general trend in other Germanic/Romance (or more generally Indo-European) languages? Why is its disappearance so much more apparent in English than other related languages?

Answer

I mentioned this in another question, but just because the morphological inflection is disappearing, that doesn't mean the subjunctive mood is actually disappearing from the language. Just like when most of our verbal inflection disappeared (now it's "I go", "you go", "we go", "they go"), that doesn't mean we lost verbs for first person singular and plural, 2nd person, and so on.

Nohat's short answer gives the main point — if 9 out of 10 times the form looks identical to a MUCH more common form, then over time things might converge and regularize. A linguist would call this "paradigm leveling". Less common words and structures tend to regularize faster than more common ones (which is why words like "to be" and "to have" are irregular in so many different languages). The subjunctive is rare and not that distinct in English, so it is in trouble.

We see the past subjunctive form only in "to be", but we see the present subjunctive in the third person singular form of any verb — it has no "s" at the end like the indicative form.

So, this is of course subjunctive:

If I were ten years younger... (often said "If I was...")

But this is subjunctive too:

So be it.

It's important that he arrive on time tomorrow.

There are a bunch of examples here that include this other kind of subjunctive. This is just anecdotal but I haven't noticed this one disappearing as much.

Is this a general trend in related languages? Well, in Swedish this seems to be happening. In German one subjunctive form is used all over the place, and the other is used pretty much just in newspapers and journalism in general, but it is at no risk of dying out (it has legal implications akin to those that make the word "allegedly" so important in English journalism).

subjunctive mood - Conditional clause

Yo, is this sentence correct? It's hard to find a guide that speaks directly to this use of the subjunctive:

I realized that this issue needed more active contemplation, were I to find any closure.

More simply it'd be:

I realized that, were I to find any closure, active contemplation was needed.

Answer

Reduce it to its most straightforward word order, and the answer will become clear:

1. I realized that active contemplation would be needed if I ?were to find any closure.

The thing is, I’m not sure this should be a were there, which is why I’ve marked it with a ? character of dubious grammaticality. I think it’s a backshifted real case, not a hypothetical one at all!

Here's the original, which as you see is all completely real:

2. If I am to find any closure, active contemplation will be needed.

When you prefix that with I realize that in the present tense, you leave both of the other two existing verbs in the present tense that you found them in in the first place:

3. I realize that if I am to find any closure, active contemplation will be needed.

Notice again those three bold verbs are all in the present tense.

Now to place the whole sentence into the narrative past, you merely swap each of the three tensed verbs from their present tense to their respective past tense:

4. I realized that if I was to find any closure, active contemplation would be needed.

Since there is no hypothetical case here, you cannot use the “unreal” inflection of were, the one descended from the old past subjunctive. Since there is no subjunctive, you also cannot use “subjunctive inversion” of starting with a verb in the subjunctive and skipping the if word altogether.

5. I realized that, ✻was I to find any closure, active contemplation would be needed.

That has the ✻ mark of ungrammaticality because you cannot use inversion on a subjunctive conditional when there is no subjunctive conditional in the first place. That’s a real case so no inversion is permitted!

This is valid, though:

6. I realized that active contemplation would be needed if I was to find any closure.

But I don’t much care for it.

meaning in context - all but.. none but.. usage

I'm a bit confused with the usage of all but and none but:

1. "We are all but defenseless" – should mean we are definitely defenseless?


2. "None but misfortunes follow" – only misfortunes follow?

Were all but and none but used correctly here?

How do you use them correctly? There seems to be a contradiction.

word choice - "Need of" vs. "need for"

Is "need of religion" grammatically incorrect as opposed to "need for religion"?

Or "need of salt" vs. "need for salt"?

Answer

With "of":

• have need of: This is very formal usage, though, as simply using "need" would suffice

  
  
  

  
  

  They had need of shelter.

  
  





• in need of: This is more commonly used in everyday English

  
  
  

  
  

  I am in need of clothing.

  
  

With "for":

• need for:
  

  There is [a] need for discipline in the classroom.

  
  Using the article "a" in the above example would be superfluous but it may emphasize that specific need. With a qualifier, the article becomes useful, although it can also be done away with, as in:
  

  There is [an] urgent need for discipline in the classroom.

  
  



• have a need for:
  

  I have a need for food.

  
  This usage is awkward, at best, but it is not grammatically incorrect. However, it is more commonly used in the negative
  

  I have no need for spiritual enlightenment.

  
  
  

apostrophe - The Jones's, Joneses, or Jones'?

I am calligraphing holiday ornaments. I have been given a list of names. Which is correct when a name ends in an es, "The Jones's, or The Joneses, or The Jones'?"

Also, when it does not end in an es, is it "The Smith's, The Smithes, or The Smiths', or The Smiths ?"

phrases - Question about parts of a sentence

I have a question about this sentence: "The tarsier's most remarkable feature, however, is it's enormous eyes, which, relative to body size, are the largest eyes of any mammal."

What part of the sentence is "of any mammal", specifically? Our textbook states that "the largest eyes of any mammal" is a noun phrase, but what part of the sentence is "of any mammal", specifically?

Subjunctive mood

I am just curious, how often this form of Subjunctive mood is used and what alternatives are available to express the very same thing.

Examples:

• I suggest that he implement a budget cut in March.


• It’s essential that they be heard

and so on.

tenses - "Your message was deleted" vs. "your message has been deleted"

I don't know which form is better to use, when telling a user that his message was/has been deleted (in the sense that the message was not appropriate/against the rules e.g. in the comment section etc.).

Answer

I would use the sentence

Your message has been deleted.

if I am telling the users right after their message has been deleted. (Like a little notification superimposes on the screen for a few seconds before fading away, something similiar to what happen when you try to upvote your own question.)

But I would use

Your message was deleted

like this page as they search for their long-gone message.

pronouns - "Me" or "I" in one-word answers

I've just read a couple of questions concerning the proper usage of the pronouns "I" and "me" in sentences like:

John and I went fishing

It seems clear and obvious to me, that when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence, we should use the subject pronoun.

My question concerns a different context, though. I'm curious as to which pronoun is correct when used in a short, one-word answer? So, when we hear a question like "Who wants to go fishing tomorrow?", should the answer be:

Me!

or

I!

My intuition tells me it should be the former, but I don't really know why.
Is there any underlying rule in English, that dictates which pronoun - subject or object - should be used in the above-mentioned context?

orthography - What is the possessive of "you guys"?

Most people seem to stumble over this. The problem can arise with any multi-word phrase that needs a possessive but ends in S, and so sounds awkward using the clitic apostrophe-S. I've heard this particular one variously rendered as:

• You guys'



• You guys's


• Your guys' / your guy's

What's you guys...your...guises...what's your take on it?

Answer

Regardless of the various permutations being thrown around these days, the correct possessive of you guys is you guys’, spoken or written, and I quote (emphasis mine):

To form the possessive case of a plural noun ending in s, add only the apostrophe.

EXAMPLES

• highways’ intersection


• the beetles’ legs

---

^{John E. Warriner, Warriner's English Grammar and Composition (Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), 243}

Since you guys is a plural noun, it is subject to the above rule, which has no exception, as far as I know.

Indeed, you guys's is not an uncommon colloqiualism (I have even used it myself on occasion) but it is grammatically incorrect, and thus has no place in standard, proper or formal contexts, whether spoken or written.

A grammar rule (Present perfect)

Is this rule correct?

when 'for' and 'since' are used in a sentence(in present perfect tense) to show duration of an action they imply that the action is still in progress. Without the 'for', the last sentence suggests that the person doesn't live in Paris anymore and that the action is complete.

I have lived in Paris for two weeks.

I have lived in Paris.

Answer

Context is king. I have lived in Paris for two weeks could mean that the speaker is no longer living there, but will not normally do so. I have lived in Paris, without further elaboration, will almost certainly mean that the speaker is now living elsewhere.

orthography - Should I use the "correct" form or the form used in the specification

I'm writing about a web framework. Integral part of it is its lifecycle. Apparently (as for example my browser tells me), this is not the correct spelling. I should either use life cycle or life-cycle. Google Ngram confirms this. And I also had a look at Life cycle, life-cycle or lifecycle? and When should compound words be written as one word, with hyphens, or with spaces?.

However the specification uses exclusively lifecycle. It may be the short form of some kind of proper name Request Processing Lifecycle. But then again it uses the spelling lifecycle in a different context, like this: "A human readable string describing where this particular JSF application is in the software development lifecycle.". So I'm not sure about the "proper name".

But since the specification uses the spelling lifecycle, and I'm writing partly about the lifecycle defined by this specification, should I also use this spelling? Should I only using this spelling when I'm writing about this specific lifecycle and use life cycle when writing in a different context? Or should I always use life cycle?

Answer

Lifecycle is perfectly correct, it's just not the most common form of the compound.

Normally that can leave one unsure which form to choose. Here though you don't have that problem since one of the perfectly correct forms is favoured by the very thing you are writing about. So use that, unless you've some great personal loathing of the form.

If you do decide to change to a different from, then in quoting the specification you should keep it's wording, and particularly if the word is given any technical meaning (e.g. used as a keyword to a computer program, etc.).

tenses - “Has been” vs. “was”

Should one use has been or was in the following sentence, and why?

• For many years the USA has been a British colony.


• For many years the USA was a British colony.

Answer

"Was" is the correct word to use. Why?

If we were to rearrange the sentence a little, we would see why:

1. The USA has been a British colony for many years


2. The USA was a British colony for many years.

Example 1 indicates that the USA is still a British colony, and has been a British colony for many years.

Example 2 indicates that USA used to be a British colony, but possibly is no longer.

Thus, "was" would be more appropriate in this case.

For many years, the USA was a British colony.

punctuation - Adjective order: Why is "big" before "beautiful"?

I was reading an English children story to my niece the other day when I came across these phrases said by three different characters:

• I want a big, beautiful hat!


• I want a big, exciting computer!


• I want a big, expensive TV!

Why is the first adjective big and not the adjective expressing an evaluation or opinion? I thought adjectives expressing the speaker's opinion came first and foremost. I am also curious about the comma separating the two adjectives, how does it affect meaning?

And finally, if I were to insert red in the first example, where would it fit best and should I keep the commas?

I want a big, beautiful red hat!
I want a beautiful, big red hat!
I want a big, red, beautiful hat!

Answer

Commas between adjectives are typically used for adjectives from the same category:

That was a very expensive, boring, useless conference. (Opinion
adjectives)

?That was a very expensive boring useless conference.

Adjectives from different categories are not usually separated by commas:

She's just bought a beautiful new red car.

However, writers may separate words from different categories with commas, and reorder them, in order to give each word individually a focus that it would not have in a non-comma-separated list. This is what is happening with sentences such as:

I want a big, red, beautiful hat!

grammatical number - When "most is" and when "most are"?

Most corn seed is genetically engineered.

Most people in town are unemployed.

Most fish is/are seawater species?

Is there any general rule that separates where the majority part described by "most" is plural, and when is it singular? Especially, when it's describing some entity composed of parts.

Answer

I am not sure about 'rule', but there is a guide and it is down to perception.

When the items can be perceived as individuals, it is plural. When the items cannot be perceived as individuals, they are literally uncountable and hence singular.

When you look in a sack of seed you don't really see individuals, and they are beyond counting, so it is seed. Sand, or powder, is a more extreme example. In contrast, if you have three seeds in your hand, you see them as individuals and easily countable, so it would be three seeds in your hand.

Compare this with, say, a sack of potatoes, where the individual potatoes are easily discerned.

As for 'fish', one explanation I have seen is that when they are animals (in other words they are alive) the plural is 'fish'; when they are food (in other words they are dead) the plural is 'fishes'. This explains why we have all the fish in the sea but five loaves and two fishes.

There are alternative explanations, of course.

People is inherently plural - the singular is 'person'.

punctuation - I'm looking for the possessive of 'boss'

What is the possessive of boss; ie, how do you describe the son of the boss?

etymology - Pronunciation: ‘lousy’ vs. ‘mousy’. Why?

Inspired by comments on Proper use of the word “lousy”?:

The word lousy is traditionally pronounced with a /z/ sound, as though it were louzy.^* Contrastingly, the word mousy is always pronounced with an /s/ sound. The difference seems to be pretty consistent and well-established: these are the only pronunciations listed in the OED and Merriam-Webster for each.

But their root words, louse and mouse, are pronounced identically, both with /s/. Indeed, these words are parallel in almost every other way: they form analogous plurals — lice, mice — and have very similar origins.

So how and why did the pronunciations of lousy and mousy diverge? And are there any other analogous words that also form analogous adjectives? (House doesn’t form *housy; and blousy exists, but blouse is not analogous to the other words.)

*: _{It seems that recently, since the literal meaning “infested with lice” has become rare, it may sometimes get pronounced with /s/ in this sense, as a spelling pronunciation.}

Answer

The answer is historical. In Old English, voiced and voiceless fricatives were phonologically equivalent. (The current English graphemes and did not exist in Old English.) Between voiced segments, voiceless fricatives became voiced--and this is called sibilant softening. Then, in Middle English, these fricatives became phonemic. That's why you see these discrepancies. Words with between voiced segments after the Middle Ages don't fit in this pattern. That's why lousy (from the 14th cy) got /z/ (softened /s/), whereas mousy (from 1853) got /s/.

Including a comma at the end of a list before a dependent clause

I have this sentence on my resume:

Develop the front-end of a platform using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap to connect people and systems

Is there a comma after Bootstrap? I wanted to elaborate on the reason for building the application rather than simply listing the programming languages I used.

Answer

If the platform uses HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap to connect people and systems, I can't see any advantage to introducing a pause before "using"—and you certainly wouldn't gain anything by putting a comma after "Bootstrap." That is, the minimally punctuated sentence

Develop the front end of a platform using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap to connect people and systems.

conveys the intended meaning just fine.

On the other hand, if you developed the front end of a platform to connect people and systems, and you accomplished this by using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap, you might well want to use some sort of punctuation—paired commas, open and close parentheses, or paired em dashes—to break out the phrase "using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap," to indicate that the phrase constitutes an independent clause in the larger sentence. That is,

Develop the front end of a platform, using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap, to connect people and systems.

or

Develop the front end of a platform (using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap) to connect people and systems.

or

Develop the front end of a platform—using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap—to connect people and systems.

would convey the intended meaning in this second scenario.

verbs - When to use present perfect and when present perfect continuous?

In my English book it says ''I have done'' is used when an action is ended, but where there are consequences in the future. For example: 'There has been an accident, and as a result the street is blocked'.

I understand how to use it, but I am puzzled about the difference with the present perfect continuous' For example: 'It has been raining (and now the street is wet)'. Why could we not use the present perfect?

Why can't we say ''It has rained''? When should we use the present perfect and when the present perfect continuous?

grammar - Overthinking "...expect there to be..."

This sentence struck me as odd when I casually said it in conversation:

I expect there to be bears.

...meaning I wanted [sarcastically] bears in the cave we were planning on exploring. What allows for the odd construction of "...expect there to be..."?

I scoured the internet, found an EL&U question, found another EL&U question, and discussed with my friends to no avail. Well, to some avail, but I'm still left with questions regarding construction, and how many grammar rules I'm bending or making up.

• The word "expect" always takes an infinitive clause (never a gerund [why?]), which explains the "to be". Could we say that "to be expected" is a verb phrase?


• I think "there" is an Adverbial Demonstrative Pronoun. Adverbial because it's supporting a verb and Demonstrative Pronoun because it's replacing the known noun phrase (the cave). I'm having a hard time backing this up with sources though.


• If "there" is adverbial, what verb is it supporting: "expect" or "to be"? Or, is it an entire verb phrase as I mentioned ("to be expected") that's been flip-flopped and split by "there", thus making "there" support both? (I feel like I just made that up but can't find evidence otherwise.)


• My friend said "there" is a post-position, because it's after the verb (he's assuming it's supporting "expect") but I read post-positions are not common in English.

Perhaps this is a daft and overthought, unimportant question, but it's been bugging me so I'm hoping for a smarter person to help with an explanation of this construction.

(A side thought, possibly unrelated, but regarding redundancy: If "there" means "the cave", I can say "I expect bears to be in the cave." ("I expect bears to be there.") This has the same meaning as my original sentence, but re-arranged. But I could even say "I expect there to be bears in the cave" or "I expect there to be bears there" which, to me, makes "there" redundant but still grammatically correct. Why?)

grammaticality - Which is right: "They are who/whom we dislike"?

Which is right in this instance, subject or object pronoun? Further explanation as to why would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

capitalization - Which words in a title should be capitalized?

Are there any concrete rules that say which words (parts of speech) in a title should start with a capital letter? What would be a correct capitalization for the title of this question?

Answer

This Writer's Block page on capitalization sums up the rules in one page which is the most useful that I have found, basically these rules from the Chicago Manual of Style plus a number of minor rules which are worth reading:

1. Always capitalize the first and the last word.


2. Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions ("as", "because", "although").


3. Lowercase all articles, coordinate conjunctions ("and", "or", "nor"), and prepositions regardless of length, when they are other than the first or last word. (Note: NIVA prefers to capitalize prepositions of five characters or more ("after", "among", "between").)



4. Lowercase the "to" in an infinitive.

grammar - Using "of" before "whether" and general usage of "whether"

I was reading a mathematics text, and I came across a phrase which I thought was written incorrectly. There was a part of a sentence:

... it begs the question whether or not A=B.

and I feel this is incorrect, but I'm not sure. I think it should be written like this:

... it begs the question of whether or not A=B.

Or maybe there that's also incorrect, and there is a better form altogether? Maybe taking out the "or not" would make it even more correct, but I'm still not sure. My main problem is that I think there should be an "of" before the "whether" but I don't know why.

So, what is the correct form of this expression?

Answer

Both uses of the phrase are correct.

I would probably use the 'begs the question of whether or not A=B' as it flows better, but the 'or not' is superfluous really. Whether A+B only has two options, true or false, so the 'or not' doesn't really add anything to the phrase.

grammar - Alternatives to use technical protocol terms as verb in a sentence

I find it much easier to say:

1. I can RDP to your computer


2. Please SFTP the files to me

than to say:

1. I can use the RDP (protocol) to establish a connection to your computer


2. Please send the files to me using the SFTP (protocol)

These technical protocol terms are not verbs: RDP, SFTP, SSH, telnet, VPN, email, etc.

How can I get around this to be grammatically correct and at the same time avoid the clumsiness?

Or, one day, (already?) will using these technical terms as verb be approved and added to modern English grammar rules?

Answer

I would choose to use abstraction with the potential addition of "via" if clarity is needed.

Depending on with whom your are speaking, you audience my vary well not care about the underlying technology. in which case

I can RDP into your computer

Becomes

I can remotely connect to your computer.

Abstracting out the technological details will in most cases bridge the gap of communication between you and your potentially less knowledgeable audience.

However, if you need to specify the technology, consider the abstracted sentence followed by "via"

I can remotely connect to your computer via RDP.

I believe this makes your sentence more comprehensible, yet provides the requisite details.

SteveJ

american english - How should I address a professor in the US?

I am always puzzled about how students address a professor in America. Perhaps "Professor + Last name" is the most formal way to do. Here are my questions:

• What if the last name of a professor is very long?


• Is it common that students use the nickname or the first name of a professor?


• What if the teacher is a lecturer instead of a professor? How should the student call him/her?


• Is it formal to write "Prof." instead of "Professor"?

Answer

So, the preferred method of addressing a professor in the US is not entirely consistent. Variations from university to university or even department to department occur, however, at the three universities/departments I've attended/been employed by, the following is true:

• If the professor holds a doctorate, calling him/her Dr. Lastname is the most common in my personal experience, but Professor Lastname is also very common, especially in departments that have faculty with a lower percentage of doctorates (since with Professor you don't have to know whether they hold a doctorate)


• If the professor does not hold a doctorate, Professor Lastname or Mr./Ms. Lastname are common


• In the US, the difference between professors and lecturers is not as clearcut as in other countries, especially to students. In many cases, they may not actually know whether their instructor is one or the other and so, in general, the same rules apply as to professors. As an example, when I worked as a visiting lecturer, I was referred to frequently as Professor, even though that wasn't my actual title.

A few other notes

• The length of the last name of the professor doesn't really change things. If it's hard to pronounce or spell, you may wish to avoid it by simply saying 'Professor', but it doesn't entitle you to switch to the first name or some nickname.


• Some instructors may prefer being addressed by either their nickname or first name. However, you should only do this after being explictly told to. I've had professors who preferred Professor Firstname or just Firstname, and they'll usually say so on the first day. However, I've also had professors get offended when students referred to them using a more informal form of address.


• Using Prof. as an abbreviation of Professor is fine if you're merging it with their name, just like Dr. is for Doctor.

Usage of the definite article with the abbreviated name of an equipment in a user's manual

As part of my translation studies, I have to detect anomalies in a user's manual. This manual refers to an equipment whose full name is Compuwash Commander Controller - Model CC-64. Lack of coherence is considered an anomaly in technical writing. My problem is that the manual is not constant in the use of the definite article.

It sometimes refers to "the controller CC-64", sometimes to "CC-64 Controller" only:

• The CONTROLLER CC-64 is the brains of the system and contains the following major components: [...]


• The ROC-16 Relay Centers
  communicate with CC-64 Controller via a 4 twisted pair shielded
  wire [...]

Similarly, it sometimes refers to "the CC-64" and other times to "CC-64" with no article, such a in the examples below:

• The memory and clock/calendar that is resident in the CC-64 has battery backup [...]




• Position the DT-32 Dumb Terminal on a table top next to CC-64 or office [...].

Which of these sentences are faulty? Should I just find out which usage is more frequent in the manual and consider it the correct form?

Thank you for your help.

word choice - What is the plural form of "SMS"?

What's the plural form of "SMS" (if X), like:

I'm concerned, I sent him over a million X but got no response.

I usually use text message to get rid of that situation.

Answer

The common way to pluralize acronyms is to add a lowercase S, so it would be SMSs. But SMS (short message service) is not usually used like that. SMS is the service you use to send text messages. SMS can also be used to talk about a feature-set ("It's got unlimited SMS."), or a technology ("This tablet supports SMS."). Both text (sometimes abbreviated txt) and text message are used.

I'm concerned. I sent him over a million texts, but got no response.

or

I'm concerned. I sent him over a million text messages, but got no response.

Google Ngram seems to support this:

morphology - Is it possible to regard -id as a suffix forming adjectives in Modern English?

The morphemic status of -id can be proved by its regular occurrence in Modern English adjectives (mostly of Roman origin): horrid, stupid, rapid, acid, sordid, valid, solid, etc.

Answer

I would suggest that it only makes sense to call something a "suffix" if either it is productive (i.e. you can use it to create new words from existing ones), or if the words in which it exists are envisaged by native speakers of being made of a smaller element plus that suffix.

In the case of -id, it's not clear to me that either of these are the case. If you can think of cases where you could create a plausible new word by adding -id to an existing one, or if you really think that speakers envisage, say, "stupid" as being made of the morpheme "stup(or)" plus -id, then you might want to call it a suffix. I personally don't think that either of these conditions are true.

[In Latin, "stupor" could mean what in English would now be "stupidity"-- i.e. to a Latin speaker, there was arguably a sense that "stupidus" was derived from a "suffix" -idus, but I don't think that today English speakers see "stupid" as being derived from "stupor" even though both words have been borrowed; and "solidus" possibly derived from e.g. "solum" (="base", "floor"), or at least they share a common derivation, but this notion is lost in English today, as indeed the relationship between Spanish "sólido"~"suelo" or French "solide"~"sol" has probably also been lost.]