Thursday, May 31, 2012

capitalization - Question regarding capital letter in scientific report

I'm writing a scientific report (due this evening), and I'm having some problems regarding capital letters. As usual, figures, tables, sections, etc., are given capital letters.
Example:
Results given in Fig. 2.
See Tabs. 4-5.



In one of the tables I have defined 14 integrals, where each integral is paired up with a number. These integrals are referred to by:
Integrals 3-4 in Tab. 2.



My question is this. Should I capitalize the I in integral, when referring to them in the middle of a sentence?




Should I say: When testing with integral 4.
Or: When testing with Integral 4.



If the latter case, should I use an abbreviation for Integral, like I do for Figure (Fig.), Table (Tab.) and Section (Sec.)?

grammar - "If we were going outside" in polite requests











Can we use "if you were going outside, please let me know" or "I was wondering if you were going outside" in a polite request? If yes, do you think changing it to "if you are going outside, please let me know" makes it less polite?


Answer



This is a good question, but it shows once again the difficulty of assessing the options without knowing the context. I think we can assume we’re talking about speech and not writing. If so, what is said will be reinforced by paralanguage and tone of voice and may not occur in exactly the same way that we might write it.



‘If you are going outside, please let me know’ is a well-formed sentence, but the extent to which it is or isn’t polite will depend on the circumstances in which it is said and the way it is uttered. Imagine a workplace or a classroom. If someone repeatedly went outside without permission (person A), a teacher or supervisor (person B) could say ‘If you are going outside, please let me know’ as a rebuke, particularly if staring hard at the offender. If, on the other hand, B was merely making a request of A, then the words might be formulated a little differently, as, for example, ‘Oh, look, by the way, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know if you’re going outside, because I need to know where everyone is’ and it would be said in a friendlier tone and with less aggressive body language.




Of course, the situation might be one in which B wants to ask a favour of A, such as asking B to bring back something from outside. In that case ‘I was wondering, if you were going outside’ is perfectly possible, but so, too, is something like ‘You’re not going outside by any chance, are you?’ It is, however, hard to imagine any circumstances in which ‘If you were going outside, please let me know’ might be used. That sequence of tenses is not normally used in a conditional sentence.


grammatical number - Are abstract nouns always singular? Or are there such things as 'plural abstract nouns'?

'Abstract noun' is defined by Oxford as follows:





A noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete
object, e.g. truth, danger, happiness.




Are abstract nouns always singular?
Or are there such things as 'plural abstract nouns'?



Do any of these qualify as 'plural abstract nouns'?





We all want to see this criminal get his just deserts.



Levels of earnings are still rising.



There's a chance it could rain, but odds are that it'll be sunny tomorrow.



The judge awarded her $5,000 in damages.



Please accept my condolences.




When it comes to men, she prefers brains over brawn.



No guts, no glory




EDIT



In no way am I asking about these specific nouns, as the title clearly indicates. So please take these nouns simply possible examples of plural abstract nouns (if there are such things), and try to answer the general question about the existence of plural abstract nouns.

present tense - Learning about the difference between past simple and past perfect

I've been reading about the difference between past simple and past perfect and I've found that when a series of events are narrated in order past simple is the one to be used. When the events aren't in order or when one is subsequent to another past perfect has to be used instead.



In the next examples which one should be used?
"We (walk) around the garden for an hour then we (stop) for an ice cream."
As these events are in order but one is subsequent to the other should I use past perfect in the first verb (had walked)?
"After we (finish) eating the ice cream, we (buy) our tickets and (stand) in a long queue."
In this case should it be past simple in the three verbs because the events are in order and reassemble a list?

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

articles - Determiner and reference grammatical yet don't match in number

I came across this sentence while checking a student's English journal:

"It was unforgettable eight days."



What sounds more natural to me would be:
"It was an unforgettable eight days."



However, "eight days" is obviously plural while "an" can only be singular. Is there a certain grammar rule that allows these to be different in number yet still grammatical?

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

grammatical number - Is there a list of plural names of currencies?




Is anyone aware of a list of plural names of currencies? I don't really care what conventions are used. I just want to avoid using an obviously wrong plural form.


Answer



Wiktionary has a category for everything, including one for currencies, with currently 289 entries.


terminology - What is a gerund? A noun or a verb? 'His smoking upset me’

I've been studying the Huddleston and Pullum book for four months now. So far only one thing confuses me: the identity of gerund. Is it a noun or a verb?






  1. His constant smoking upset me. smoking seems noun because of adjective constant.

  2. Him/His constantly smoking upset me. smoking seems to be verb because of adverb constantly.

  3. Him/His smoking cigars upset me. smoking seems to be a verb because of object cigars.




"His smoking upset me." So is this smoking gerund a noun or verb? Because there is no differentiation, is it both verb and noun? Maybe it's new word category?




Also his seems to be both sometimes a subject and at other times a possessive determiner. Is that correct?

grammaticality - Is it necessary to add "a" before the noun in this sentence?




Consider the sentence fragment:




...as Business Development Representative, I would...




If Business Development Representative describes a role occupied by a single person (for example, "as President" instead of "as a President" or "as CEO" instead of "as a CEO"), is an "a" required to precede the noun so it reads:





...as a Business Development Representative, I would...




There is just one Business Development Representative.


Answer



You should drop the article:



[1] ...as Business Development Representative, I would...



is exactly like




[2] ...as President/treasurer/secretary/chair/[...], I would...



Even though President (like treasurer, secretary, chair, etc.) is a count noun† in the singular, and such nouns normally require a determiner, examples like [1] and [2] are exceptional.



Business Development Representative is not a single noun, but rather what CGEL calls a nominal. (In linguistics more broadly it would often be called an NP', pronounced "NP-bar"; see e.g. here.) However, the head of that nominal is a count noun in the singular, representative, so the whole nominal therefore normally requires a determiner. In general, in what follows, everything stated about President, treasurer etc. applies also to Business Development Representative.



As far as why in examples like [1] and [2] we drop the article, there are two points—one about semantics, and one about syntax.



Semantically, President (treasurer, chair, etc.) refers to a 'unique role' held by a person in a particular situation. This means that the determiner should normally be dropped, provided the gramamtical function of President (and this is the syntactic point) is either that of a predicative complement or of a predicative oblique. In [2], President functions as a the latter, a complement of the preposition as, where the whose as phrase functions as a marked predicative complement.




In particular, a bare role NP cannot function as a subject or an object. You cannot say *Treasurer has resigned or *She questioned treasurer; you'd need some determiners, e.g. Our treasurer has resigned and She questioned the treasurer.



Discussion



Here is the relevant section from Collins COBUILD English Guides: Articles (pp. 51-52):




6.14 Special roles




Some nouns can refer to a special, unique role held by a person in a particular situation (for example, a government or business). When they are used like this, you can leave out the definite article.



...when he was President.
It was nearly 40 years before she became Queen.
...Mr John Hume, leader of the Social and Democratic Labour Party.



It would be unnatural to leave in the definite article and say 'when he was the President' or 'she became the Queen', although you can leave it in when the noun is followed by 'of'. Some words commonly used in this way are:



author                  chairman             king                          queen
best man             chairperson         leader                       secretary
boss                      director                manager                  treasurer
captain                 goalkeeper          president
centre forward    head                     prime minister



The context is very important. In a gang, one person can be 'leader'; in a football team, one person can be 'captain', 'centre forward', or 'goalkeeper'; at a wedding one person can be 'best man'; in a country one person can be 'king', 'queen', 'president', or 'prime minister'. Many other nouns can be used in this way in a particular context.




Note that when you are talking about a person rather than describing someone's role you need an article.



The President had issued a sympathetic reply.
The Queen then abandoned the project.




In



...as President I would...



we have a singular count noun, President, appearing without a determinative. This is a highly exceptional situiation, which is subject to some syntactical constraints.

CGEL analzyes President in [1] as bare role NP (noun phrase). Here is a relevant passage (p. 328):




Also included in the category of NP are bare role NPs such as president, deputy leader of the party—bare in the sense that they do not contain a determiner. These qualify as NPs by virtue of occurring as the predicative complements of verbs like be, become, appoint, elect, but singular NPs of this kind are exceptional in that they cannot occur as subjects or objects, where a determiner such as the definite article the is required:



[8]   i  I'd like to be president.                                        [predicative complement]
       ii  I'd like to meet *president/the president.                                     [object]




In more detail (p. 253):





The crucial syntactic property of PC [predicative complement] is that it can have the form either of an AdjP [adjective phrase] or of a bare role NP (a count singular with no determiner, such as President of the Republic, treasurer, etc.). Usually it can have the form of an ordinary NP [noun phrase] too, but what distinguishes PC from O [object] is the admissibility of an AdjP or bare role NP.



[5]            PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT                                   OBJECT
             i  a.  He seemed a nice guy/nice.           b.  He met a nice guy/*nice.
            ii  a.  I consider it bad advice/bad.         b.  I gave her bad advice/*bad.
          iii  a.  She remained treasurer.                   b.  *She questioned treasurer.
           iv  a.  They appointed him secretary.       b.  *They promised him secretary.



Examples [i-ii] illustrate the possibility of replacing an ordinary NP by an AdjP (adjective phrase) in the case of PC, and the impossibility of doing so with O. Examples [iii-iv] show bare role NPs functioning as PC and the ungrammaticality that results from putting them in O function: the NPs in [iiib/ivb] need determiners (e.g. She questioned the treasurer; They promised him a secretary).



The ability of AdjPs to function as PC but not O reflects the fact that a PC characteristically expresses a property, while O (like S [subject]) characteristically refers to someone or something: AdjPs denote properties but are not used referentially. Similarly, the restriction on bare role NPs reflects the fact that they too cannot be used referentially; note in this connection that they are equally excluded from subject function: *Treasurer has resigned.





On p. 255, CGEL points out that a bare role NP can function as predicative obliques, which is exactly how it functions in [1] and [2].




■ Predicative obliques



Predicative elements may occur as complement of a preposition instead of being related directly to the verb. Much the most common preposition is as:



[9]                    INTRANSITIVE                                          TRANSITIVE
          i  a.  That counts as excellent.    b.  I regard her as indispensable.                  [AdjP]
         ii  a.  She served as treasurer.    b.  They chose her as secretary.         [bare role NP]



Again the predicand is S [subject] in the intransitive, and normally O [object] in the transitive.30 The complements of as we analyse as predicative obliques, and the as phrases themselves (as excellent, etc.) as marked predicative complements.




30The verb strike is exceptional in having S as predicand in a transitive construction: compare I regard him as a
liability
(normal, O as predicand) and He strikes me as a liability (exceptional, S as predicand). The behaviour of strike here correlates with its exceptional alignment of semantic roles and syntactic functions. Like regard it belongs to the field of cognition, yet it aligns experiencer and stimulus with O and S respectively, instead of the usual S and O (cf. §2.3), and this exceptional alignment in turn reflects the fact that the sense involved here is a secondary one relative to that of He struck me on the chin.



grammatical number - Is "an ocean of flowers" singular or plural?

'There are an ocean of flowers.' I saw this sentence in the Internet. Is it grammatically correct? I was wondering whether 'an ocean of flowers' should be treated as singular or plural.



If it is singular, then the verb should be 'is' - There is an ocean of flowers.



Apparently, the writer consider 'an ocean of flowers' a plural subject, as the verb 'are' was used. But should it be plural when the phrase starts with 'an' ('AN ocean of...')?




Thanks!

Why is it usually "friend of his", but no possessive apostrophe with "friend of Peter"?



As this NGram shows, we nearly always use the possessive form of personal pronouns for friend of mine/his/ours/etc.



But when it comes to actual names, we prefer friend of Peter without the possessive apostrophe. That preference is even more marked with, say, friend of America. Not that I think the usage itself is particularly American - it's much the same with Britain.




Personally, I find friend of him grates. In general I've no strong feelings either way as to whether it's friend of Peter or friend of Peter's (though I deplore the possessive in this example), but in line with many others, I really don't like the possessive in relation to things like countries.



Why is this?



Edit: Noting an apparent "progression" (pronoun -> person -> nation) marked by reduction in use of the possessive, I checked at a finer "granularity". NGram shows that although it does occur, friend of me virtually "flatlines" against friend of mine. But the bias reduces through of you, of us, and by the time I get to of them it's much less extreme. There seems to be something "egocentric" about the double possessive.



Presumably when babies learn to speak, they soon notice that possessive pronouns, possessive apostrophes, and the word "of", all do the same job. Parents would correct a child who says "of mine's", but probably wouldn't even notice the same "redundancy" in "of Peter's". Younger speakers are unlikely to even be talking about something "of America's". Perhaps as we mature we tend to discard the "double possessive" for the more "distant" things that only adults are likely talk about, but we keep it for "closer" people because that's how we spoke when we were younger.



EDIT2 I note that I'm a great fan of him is vanishingly rare compared to ...fan of his, but with ...fan (of John) the double possessive occurs far less often than ...friend (of John's). Usage seems to be affected by the noun before "of" as well as the one after it. This is getting complicated...



Answer



To me, "Friend of Peter" and "Friend of Peter's" mean the inverse of each other.



In "Joe is a friend of Peter", Joe is the active person in the friendship - it describes Joe's active relationship to Peter. Peter is one of the people Joe expresses friendship toward.



In "Joe is a friend of Peter's", Peter is the active person in the friendship - it describes Joe as being the object of Peter's friendship. Joe is one of the people Peter expresses friendship toward.



In most contexts, nothing is being implied about the inverse relationship, although friendship is usually reciprocal. It's usually more a matter of who the speaker knows about the relationship from. So if I'm introducing you to Joe, but we both know Peter, and Peter's talked about Joe, I might tell you that Joe is a friend of Peter's.



The distinction is probably most significant in high school. ;-)



Monday, May 28, 2012

negation - Possessive followed by negative gerund

Is it correct to say this?





Her not paying attention to the class annoys me.


determiners - a vs an before an noun starting with x





Im a programmer and I was writing a comment today that read:




Finds a XPath relative to the Node




From what I understand you should always use 'a' over 'an' when it proceeds a word starting with a vowel. such as




I ate an apple




I ate a orange




It sounds weird to me the way "Finds a XPath" reads. It feels more comfortable reading "Finds an XPath". I know English is full of weird rules and I am wondering if this is one of them. What is the correct usage here?



In case it is relevant heres a link to what XPath is.


Answer



What matters is not the letter with which the written representation of a word starts, but the sound. XPath is pronounced as if it were written expath, so "an" would be the appropriate article.




Even if we take the pedantic approach that abbreviations and their derivational terms should be expanded before deciding between "a" and "an", you will eventually wind up at extensible, which again points us to "an" (Personally, I think the only valid approach is to use the term as it would be pronounced; when discussing an FBI scheme, very few people are ever going to reass it as if it had been written a Federal Bureau of Investigation scheme, so "a" woould make little sense even in the most formal writing.)


Sunday, May 27, 2012

punctuation - Is a question mark needed at the end of a question if the sentence ends with a period or an exclamation mark?

For example, in the two sentences below, are you supposed to end with a question mark?




Which of Shaw's plays has the line "If only parents would realize how they bore their children!"




And





Is the next board-meeting going to be held in Washington, D.C.




Edit: Why do I ask? Because the Webster's New World College Dictionary (3rd edition) that I have at home says if two marks of punctuation are needed at the same place within a sentence, 'only the stronger is usually retained'. And they give the first sentence as an example, omitting the question mark. I made up the second example. There's nothing said about how to decide which is stronger.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

perfect aspect - 'could have + past participle' to talk about possible events in the future

BACKGROUND



In this earlier thread, Edwin Ashworth approved a use of 'could have + past participle' for the future event that was precluded by context as in:





(1) Mary could have arrived tomorrow, had she managed to get that flight.




But he did not approve a use of 'could have + past participle' for possible events in the future as in:




(2) */?Mary could have arrived tomorrow.





Nor did he approve a use of 'may have + past participle' for possible events in the future as in:




(3) (?)Mary may have arrived by next week.



(4) *Mary may have arrived tomorrow.




I think that there is no reason to treat 'next week' and 'tomorrow' differently insofar as both refer to a future time. So the different treatment for the latter two examples is because of the existence of the preposition 'by'. That is, inserting 'by' would somehow increase the acceptability at least for the 'may have + past participle' construction.




QUESTION



My question is whether inserting 'by' would increase the acceptability of the 'could have + past participle' construction as in (2):




(2') Mary could have arrived by tomorrow.




Note that (2') is along the lines of (2) in that Mary's arriving tomorrow is a possible future event as opposed to a future event precluded by context as in (1).




ADDITIONAL EXAMPLE



An example of the 'could have + past participle' construction being used in a possible future event similar to (2') is found in this Harry Potter:




Malfoy could have attacked half the Muggle-borns in the school by then!







I'll have to admit that it was not easy to find an example of the 'could have + past participle' construction being used in a possible future event. So maybe it's not that idiomatic to use the construction for a possible future event. Does that mean that (2') as well as the Harry Potter example is somehow unnatural?

usage - How to ask a question about ordinal number?

There are many pupils in the classroom. Peter was the n th( n is a positive integer) student to arrive. Now I want to ask Peter about what n is. How can I ask him?
It seems that it is very difficult to begin with a wh- question in situations like this.



As I have noticed previous similar questions about this.



Where did Peter fall in the sequence of arrival?



Is this idiomatic ?

Friday, May 25, 2012

hyphenation - Is a hyphen or a dash longer?

Can anyone confirm if the hyphen or dash is longer? Which one is longer than the other and which one is the shorter?

Thursday, May 24, 2012

grammar - Experience (of) creating software




I'm trying to phrase the following sentence for my portfolio: "I'm a C#/Js/Python developer with 10+ years of experience creating software at corporations and cutting-edge startups". I'm confused whether it's necessary to put of between experience and creating. Two of close to each other seem to sound a little off, so may be if of is necessary, it would be better to rephrase it to sound more native-like?


Answer



No preposition is necessary in the following:




I'm a C#/Js/Python developer with 10+ years of experience creating software at corporations and cutting-edge startups.




Experience in (gerund) is a common usage in English. In this list of common combinations of nouns followed by prepositions and gerunds, both experience in and experience without a preposition are acceptable:





She has a great deal of experience in introducing new products to international markets.



With the noun "experience," sometimes a gerund is added without the preposition "in." "Experience introducing new products" would also be acceptable.




As an illustration, look at these book blurbs which feature the exact phrase "ten years of experience creating ..."


american english - Pronunciation Rule for "nt" in the Middle of Words

Is there a "rule" or pattern for the pronunciation of "nt" in the middle of words, followed by a vowel (or "er" sound)?



Here's what I have so far:



1) "t" is often omitted in words like "wanted," "mental," and "international" when "nt" is followed by a vowel or an "er" sound.




2) If the syllable following the "nt" is stressed, the "t" is pronounced: "integrity," "intoxicated," and "intact"



3) In words with "int," the "t" is sometimes obligatory, such as in "interrogation" and "interpretation," BUT it is not obligatory in others like "interception." The only pattern I see so far is that when the root word has a stressed syllable following the "nt," this carries over into the longer forms of the word. For example, "inTERRogate" is pronounced with a "t" and "interrogation" is also pronounced with a "t" (even though the syllable following the "nt" is no longer stressed).



4) In words like "attention," the "ti" is pronounced as /ʃ/ ("sh").



Can anyone think of additional examples or rules? Are there any examples which would contradict my reasoning so far?

articles - Is it "a hour-long drive" or "an hour-long drive"?





In the following context, which usage is correct, or are both of them OK?




  1. After a hour-long drive, they arrived at Chinatown.

  2. After an hour-long drive, they arrived at Chinatown.




Your help is greatly appreciated!


Answer



Use "an" before unsounded "h." Because the "h" hasn't any phonetic representation and has no audible sound, the sound that follows the article is a vowel; consequently, "an" is used.




an honorable peace
an honest error
an hour-long drive




reference



British English plural verb for group noun in a contraction



I'm curious about the use of the famous British plural verb form with a group noun¹ in a contraction. The general custom for the plural is discussed here and here but those don't call out contractions.



England football fans are currently singing the following to the tune of September by Earth, Wind, and Fire:




Woah, England are in Russia,

Woah, drinking all your vodka,

Woah, England's going all the way!





Now, it's a football song, not high poetry, but note that in the above, the first line uses England are but the last line uses England's. Unless we magically decide that the first England is the team but the second England is the country, that's...interesting.



The plural contraction is really awkward:




  • England're going all the way

  • Family're hard work sometimes

  • The group're on it




...and as we know, awkwardness tends to get smoothed out of language.[citation needed] ;-)



Is this just a fudge to make the song's meter work? Or is it a deeper pattern to use the singular form in a contraction even when using the plural form otherwise, perhaps because of the awkwardness?



Sadly Google Ngrams won't let me look for England is going vs. England are going (and England is vs. England are is too general) and in any case, I'd be flooded with American English results. Trying to search Hansard, unfortunately Google Search treats the ' as a space.



I can't use my own instinct on this and am having trouble coming up with other examples to look for: I'm an English/American dual national who spent 30 years growing up in the U.S. reading British novels and watching British television on PBS, who's been back in the UK for 18 years. So my dialect is mid-Atlantic and horribly confused. :-)







¹ E.g. the team are vs. American English's the team is for nouns representing groups of people (roughly; there's lots of nuance).


Answer



It's just a fudge to make the meter work.


grammar - Should hyphenated compound words be permitted to break across lines?



When using a hyphenated compound word (i.e., a compound adjective, verb, or noun) in a document and the word splits across two lines due to it being at the end of a line, is it considered improper to split it across lines and should one instead force it to the next line with a non-breaking hyphen?




For example, the compound adjective self-supporting:




A good mat for this purpose should have enough rigidity such that the mat is self‑
supporting




versus





A good mat for this purpose should have enough rigidity such that the mat is
self‑supporting




In other words, should one use a non-breaking hyphen in compound words so that the reader does not mistake the word for not being compound (e.g., selfsupporting) and just broken at a syllable due to being at the end of the line?


Answer



Yes, at least according to the Purdue OWL:




For line breaks, divide already-hyphenated words only at the hyphen:




mass-
produced
self-
conscious



word choice - Should a photograph label read “you and I” or “you and me”?

I had a debate with my friend about this topic because he had a photo captioned:




Seth and I playing lion king




and I said it should be





Seth and me playing lion king




Which is correct?

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

grammaticality - When to use a comma before coordinating conjunctions?




I understand that a serial comma (the one used before and/or) is used only when we have three or more items to be separated using and/or.



What exactly is the rule that governs where to add a comma before an and/or in a sentence such as the following:





  • S1: I went to John's house, and I watched a movie there.

  • S2: I went to John's house and there I watched a movie.

  • S3: Look around for any evidence that might reveal the identity of the intruder, and carefully place that evidence in a plastic bag, so
    it can be examined closely at headquarters.





I have seen S1 written both with and without comma. Which is correct; why?



What would be the right way to punctuate S2; why?



Should there be a comma before so in S3 or not; why/why not?


Answer



Generally speaking, you want to use a comma in sentences made of two independent clauses connected by one of the following seven coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet.




Don't use commas between an independent and dependent clause UNLESS the dependent clause shows extreme contrast.



So, in the S1, there are two independent clauses connected by AND. Use a comma. In S2, again we have two independent clauses connected with AND. Use a comma. In S3, you have correctly punctuated the sentence according to the rules listed above (independent clause AND independent clause SO independent clause). However, you created a run-on sentence, so at least one of those clauses should be made into its own sentence.


word choice - pretend, imagine and suppose

An article about the msnbc political show with Chris Hayes is titled :





Let's pretend we had a functional Congress.




The way I read this title is that it says that we are to pretend that we have a functional Congress now, as opposed in the past. Hypothetical past tense is used with "suppose" and I guess that "Let's suppose we had a functional Congress" would be as acceptable if not preferred to "Let's suppose we have a functional Congress", but what about the use of "pretend" and "imagine" with the past verb form the same way?



In this sentence I'd understand that either pretend, suppose or imagine would imply that we don't have a functional Congress, but for the sake of argument we are imagining a situation in which we have. By using any of these verbs in this sentence the inference would be that the fact of the matter is different, and the situation we are imagining, supposing or pretending to exist is counterfactual. "Had" in this sentence thus refers to current state of affairs and not to the Congress in the past, that is, "had" is used to convey a hypothetical idea and not to place the situation in the past.



I understand that unlike suppose, verbs pretend and imagine are not normally followed by hypothetical past tense verb, but I find examples such as the example I cited or with "imagine":




Imagine if we had the McCarthy era right now.



Imagine we had a studio right now.



where the meanings of the three verbs seem to overlap, and I understand that the past tense verb following them can be rephrased as "we are imagining a situation in which something is true or is happening now" as opposed to imagining a situation that occurred in the past.

grammar - The use of "Their"

I saw on facebook recently where its states and individuals birthday for all to see and comment the use of "their", which seemed inappropriate to me. Upon further investigation on my singular male friend celebrating his birthday. Facebook had:



Today is their birthday.



uhmm... "their" birthday implies plural to me, so what is the correct use here? Is facebook right or am I right?




I figured:
Today is his birthday or gender-less Today is its birthday.

grammaticality - "has been" vs "have been"

I am answering an online English grammar test and encountered the following question




Where was Jack yesterday? —I don't know. He ________ seeing the doctor.





My answer is: might has been
Correct Answer is: might have been



Why not might has been? He is singular?

grammar - Why Does the Format "_____ Is" When Asking a Question Sound Correct in Some Situations, but Not in Others

For context, I am an Assistant Language Teacher for ESL. Part of my job is offering a native speaker's perspective, the main teachers are not native speakers, and I was asked about this. To the other teachers, this structure is always acceptable, but I am not sure about this.



I realized that in some situations, "____ is" sounds like a perfectly fine answer, but in other cases it doesn't. I want to be able to explain to the other teachers and my students why that is, or what the rule is.



For example:




-Who is going to the game tonight?
-She is.



This sounds fine to me.



-What is the most popular sport in America?
-Football is.



This seems okay enough to me.




-What is the name of this book?
-Catcher in the Rye is.



This, to me, sounds off. I'm assuming that other native speakers feel the same way, but I can't seem to figure out the rule. Also, is this actually grammatically correct, but it just feels off?



I should add too that the previous native speakers in my position had told the main teachers that "____ is" is acceptable, and the main teachers are under the impression that they said it is okay in all contexts. So, if I'm going to say that it only works some of the time, I need to explain why.

word choice - "boilinghot" vs "boiling-hot" vs "boiling hot"




As the title indicates, these three forms of words/phrases can be quite confusing to me sometimes. When should they be written as one word ("boilinghot"), when should they be written in two words ("boiling hot"), and when should they be written as a hyphenated compound ("boiling-hot")? Does it make any difference which is used? There are other terms like this, such as blackboard/black board/black-board; swingman/swing man/swing-man etc.


Answer



In the first place, I've never seen boilinghot used.




As for the other two, there are different times for different uses. Only use the hyphen when it is a compound adjective




Let's speak of why the sea is boiling hot.



Let's speak of the boiling-hot sea.




@drm65 illustrates how Google NGrams may be misapplied. Searching for a hyphenated expression will cause it to flat-line unless you put a space between the hyphen and the words: e.g. "boiling hot,boiling - hot"




enter image description here



So while boiling hot appears to be used more often than boiling-hot, the latter's representation is not zero.


pronouns - Them wolves or their wolves?

I just came across on lyrics of Eminem's "survival" which confused me. Here is piece of song which confused me.





Throw me to them wolves and close the gate up on me.




I thought that correct phrase is their wolves instead them wolves. Am I right?

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Of sweet tooths and black sheep: when does the plural of a compound turn regular?



According to many dictionaries, the plural of sweet tooth is sweet tooths, and not *sweet teeth (see e.g. here and here; the OED doesn't address the issue explicitly, but one of the examples it lists is A symphony for sweet-tooths.) After looking at the examples at lexico and google books, it appears that sweet tooths is mostly used in the sense of 'people who have a sweet tooth', i.e. who have a liking for sweet foods. Still, there are plenty of examples where sweet tooths is the plural of 'a liking for foods that are sweet':




So for a lighter effect and taste, especially for young children whose taste buds and sweet tooths are just being established, dilute juice with water… (source)
They were soon joined by many home-bakers, indulging their sweet tooths, honing their whisking and frosting skills, wowing their friends, colleagues and families with impressive multi-layer cakes, fluffy cupcakes and abundant sweet bakes. (source)
“I love sweet stuff. I have a real sweet tooth. Do you have a sweet tooth, Hatch?” “I have a whole mouth full of sweet tooths. Or is that sweet teeth?” (source)
Another couple with matching sweet tooths created Lrbé/Lac/waéécon an elaborate Candy Land theme, complete with… (source)
And there must have been creatures of such affluence that I cannot even speculate about their day-to-day outside the fact of their sweet tooths. (source)
Natives nurse their sweet tooths with Sacher Torte (a rich chocolate cake layered with marmalade) and Linzer Torte (a light yellow cake with currant jam). (source)
The younger ones started squirming around, their sweet tooths temporarily satisfied. (source)





On the other hand, the plural of black sheep seems to be—black sheep and not *black sheeps (see e.g. here; the OED again doesn't address the issue explicitly, but one of its examples is To pick out of the whole mass of English clergy, one or two, or one or two and twenty black sheep.)



Is there a systematic reason for why, in these constructions, the plural of tooth becomes regular, but the plural of sheep doesn't?



My usual sources (CGEL and ComGEL) seem to be silent on the subject, but it is certainly possible that I simply missed the relevant sections.



So far, all I have been able to find is one relevant discussion (here), which says that, in the case of sweet tooths, the reason the plural of tooth becomes regular is that the compound as a whole is both exocentric (meaning, the head of the compound doesn't match what the whole term describes) and idiomatic.



First of all, if this is correct, it would be nice to find an actual reputable source for it (like a comprehensive grammar, a monograph, or a journal article). At the very least, it would seem we need lots more examples of such behavior.1




1Just as important, we also need nonexamples, such as endocentric idiomatic compounds where the plural remains irregular.



Even more urgently, however, it seems to me that the theory does not quite work: black sheep would also seem to be both exocentric and idiomatic, and yet the plural remains irregular. Let me explain.



What CGEL does say (p. 1645) is that




Compounds formed by patterns that invariably result in non-hyponymic compounds are commonly called 'exocentric' with others being, by contrast, 'endocentric'. Considerable problems arise, however, in giving rigorous definitions for these categories, and we shall not make use of this taxonomy in the present discussion.





As far as hyponymy, they explain it like this (same page):




A high proportion of compounds, especially compound nouns, are hyponymic: the compound as a whole is a hyponym of the base that functions as head. Hyponymy is a semantic relation that can in the first instance be most easily explained by reference to nouns. We say that noun X is a hyponym of noun Y when X denotes a subset of what is denoted by Y. This relation may hold between morphologically unrelated words. For example, tulip, daffodil, and rose are hyponyms of flower, while alsatian, poodle, and cocker-spaniel are hyponyms of dog: a tulip is a kind of flower, an alsatian is a kind of dog,and so on. With compounds, the relation of hyponymy is reflected in the morphological structure: wall-flower consists of wall as dependent and flower as head, and denotes (in its literal sense) a kind of flower; bulldog has bull as dependent, dog as head, and denotes a kind of dog. We can generalise from nouns to compounds of all categories by talking in terms of entailment rather than subsets. This is a wall-flower entails This is a flower, but This is a flower does not entail This is a wall-flower. Similarly for such an adjective as paper-thin: This is paper-thin entails This is thin, but not conversely. And for a verb like hand-wash: They hand-washed it entails They washed it but again the reverse entailment does not hold. For a compound to be hyponymic can be regarded as the default case: it is when the compound is not a hyponym of the head that we need to consider why this is so. There may be a variety of reasons why a compound fails the entailment test for hyponymy. Consider:



[2] hotshot, glow-worm, cholesterol-free, sunset, breath-taking, redskin



The informal term hotshot does not denote a kind of shot, but a person who is skilled or successful in some field: this illustrates the common case where the non-hyponymic property of a compound is simply a matter of lexicalisation, an idiosyncratic feature of the particular compound in question. Glow-worm, which denotes a kind of beetle, is also lexicalised, but in this case there has also been a historical change in the meaning of worm, which earlier had a broader denotation than is now current, being applicable to any animal that crawled, such as snakes, legless lizards, caterpillars, and long-bodied insects like glow-worms. Cholesterol-free is not lexicalised but it is non-hyponymic because free in the sense it has here cannot stand alone as a phrase but requires a complement. The sense of free in It is free of/from cholesterol is not the same as in It is free. Sunset involves a particular sense of set which occurs only as a verb (the corresponding noun being the derivative setting), so again It was a beautiful sunset doesn't entail It was a beautiful set. Similarly with the adjective breath-taking: there is no adjective taking (except with the specialised sense of "captivating"), and hence His arrogance was breathtaking does not entail His arrogance was taking. Redskin "Red Indian" is another example of lexicalisation, but it illustrates a pattern of compounding which necessarily results in a non-hyponymic form. It belongs to the pattern (discussed in §4.2.1 below) where the literal meaning gives a property of the entity the compound denotes: a redskin is not a kind of skin but a kind of person, the kind that has (or is perceived as having) redskin.





Thus the question becomes, is black sheep hyponymic or not? In the comments, users herisson and GEdgar suggest that it is. This would imply that saying He is a black sheep of the family implies He is a sheep (possibly He is a sheep of the family). It seems to me that this is clearly not the case. It seems to me that black sheep is more like2 redskin in the passage from CGEL.



2I apologize for using that offensive term; I use it only to make a grammatical point and would not use it if I could find a different term which is explained to be non-hyponymic by an authority as reliable as CGEL.



And if it turns out that, despite everything I just said, black sheep is hyponymic/exocentric after all, I would still very much like to see a reputable source for the theory that exocentric and idiomatic NP compounds have regular plurals even if their heads do not. At the very least, I would like to see more examples (and, just as important, nonexamples) supporting that theory.



Appendix: what is a compound?



This is motivated by Araucarias question in the comments. I did think about whether compound is the right term. CGEL gives no example of a morphological compound that isn't at least hyphenated. On the other hand, CamGEL's examples of compound nouns include assistant director, cleaning woman, washing machine, book review, office management, crime reporter, spending money, diving board, air rifle, steam engine, oil well, food poisoning, hay fever, piano keys, oak tree, toy factory, cough drops, and others. Their definition is (p. 1567)





A compound is a lexical unit consisting of more than one base and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word.




They add that (pp. 1569-1570)




If prosody reflects the semantic structure, so too does orthography. The semantic unity of a compound is reflected in an orthographic unity:




a black bird but a blackbird



Spelling conventions are however less dependable than prosody. Practice varies in words and some compounds may even occur in three different forms, 'solid', hyphenated, and 'open'; eg:



a flower pot   a flower-pot   a flowerpot



But in general there is a progression from open to solid as a given compound established, and hence widely recognized and accepted as a 'permanent' lexical item.



In AmE, hyphenation is less common than in BrE, and instead we find the items open or solid (more usually the latter) where BrE may use a hyphen:




language retarded (esp AmE), language-retarded (esp BrE),
psychosomatic (esp AmE), psycho-somatic (esp BrE).




and




It may be useful to conceive of 'partial' compounding to account for the formal and semantic gradience between phrase and compound:
We need some furniture for the offices.            [1]
We need some office furniture.                         [2]
Office furniture is getting more expensive.      [3]
In [2] we have an expression appropriate to phase structure with no necessary lexicalization of 'office furniture' but merely referring to furniture that will be used in the office(s). In [3] however, the generic statement makes the beginning of lexicalization a more plausible interpretation: it is implied that there is furniture of a kind designated specifically for office use. 'Partial' compounding may be said to have taken place, though the stress pattern and spelling still lean in the phrasal direction.



Answer



"Black sheep" is always endocentric




"Black sheep" is endocentric. CGEL's decision to avoid using that term because of difficulty in defining it is probably well justified, but even without a rigorous definition, I think it is possible to give a more accurate definition of the concept than the one given in the linked blog post. And I think it is necessary to do so to address your question because I don't know of any claim that non-hyponymic phrases or compounds in general pluralize regularly: the claim that I am familiar with is specifically about exocentric compounds (I linked to some relevant Language Log posts in the answer I wrote to Bigfoots or Bigfeet?).



"Exocentric" refers to compounds that have an implied head rather than being headed by any of the constituent words



The terms "endocentric" and "exocentric" are based on the concept of a "head". I don't have a rigorous understanding of this concept, but my informal description would be that the head of a linguistic structure is the part from which it inherits its syntactic category and basic meaning. E.g. the noun "hair" can be combined with the adjective "black" to form the noun (phrase) "black hair". Because "black hair" is headed by the noun "hair", it is used in the same kinds of grammatical contexts and has a similar meaning to "hair". There are various complications that can arise; e.g. disputes about whether determiners are heads. The term "head" is relative to a given linguistic construct; the construct "child with black hair" is headed by the noun "child", but contains the construct "black hair" which is headed by the noun "hair".



An exocentric compound is one that is analyzed as lacking a head, or having an implicit head that is not any of the explicit constituents of the compound. In reference to a person, "sweet-tooth/sweet tooth" can be interpreted as an exocentric compound standing for something like "someone who has a sweet tooth". The implied head of the construct would be some invisible element that contributes the meaning "someone who has...". "Tooth" would be the head of the embedded construct "sweet tooth" that refers to what the person has, but not the head of the construct that refers to the person.



The types of compounds referred to as "exocentric" are things like Bahuvrihi compounds: the linked Wikipedia article gives a list of examples including lowlife and redhead. Redskin would fall into this category because the word "skin" refers to an attribute of the referent rather than to the referent itself: it stands for something like "a person with red skin", as covered by the last paragraph of the CGEL quote.




It is disputed whether compound words in this category are actually exocentric. Laurie Bauer in "English Exocentric Compounds" suggests that there is no implied head and instead the term refers to a person through synecdoche (p. 7).



Exocentricity is not the same thing as non-hyponymicity



When present, the head of a grammatical construct cannot always be used by itself to accurately describe the referent of the overall construct. For example, the construct "a fake passport" is headed by the noun "passport", even though it would be misleading to describe a fake passport by just saying that it "is a passport". "Fake" is what is called a "non-subsective adjective", an adjective that is regularly used to create non-hyponymic constructs. These constructs can have irregular plural forms; e.g. the plural of "a fake tooth" is "fake teeth".



"Black sheep" in that quotation doesn't refer to a subset of "sheep" in the usual sense because it has come to be used as a metaphor. (Note the careful wording of CGEL's "formed by patterns that invariably result in non-hyponymic compounds"--"black sheep" is not formed in such a way, since it also has a hyponymic literal use.) But whether used literally or metaphorically, "black sheep" is still headed by the noun "sheep", so "black sheep" is an endocentric construct.



"Sweet teeth" exists as an endocentric compound




Separately, I wanted to note that "sweet teeth" is not unacceptable in all contexts. Of course, it could be used compositionally if you had to describe literal teeth that literally tasted sweet. But it is also used metaphorically by some speakers in situations describing something people have rather than something people are. Here's one example from Google Books:




Every year there are more little feet padding about, and more cheeky faces craving goodies to satisfy their sweet teeth.




("Introduction: Sweets and Treats", All Things Sweet)


possessives - "John and Me's ping pong game"

If you played someone in a game of ping pong, and wanted to refer to the game later, you could refer to it as "our game". For instance:



"It was after our game."



But if I were talking to a different person about this, I might find myself inclined to refer to the other person and me specifically, such as:




"It was after John and me's game"



But that doesn't sound right and also doesn't quite make sense. I almost more want to say:



"It was after John and my's game"



But I don't think that's correct either. Despite this, I don't feel like expressing it like this should be completely impossible. Is there any way to convey something about a possession that belongs to two people in this way?

Usage of Indefinite Article

I am wondering whether both of the following sentences are acceptable:



(A) Only water bottles with "caps" are allowed in this area.
(B) Only water bottles with "a" cap are allowed in this area.



If I want to emphasize the importance of having A CAP on the bottles brought into the area, would it be acceptable to put "A" instead of "CAPS"?



Please advise.



Thank you

Monday, May 21, 2012

word choice - Which is correct, "be proceeded" or "be processed" (used in business letter)



Which usage (be proceed/be processed) is correct in the following sentence? (This is written in a business letter) Are there any differences between these two words? Thanks a lot!




  1. Please be noted that your order won't be "proceeded" until we receive your confirmation.



  2. Please be noted that your order won't be "processed" until we receive your confirmation.



Answer



Proceed is an "intransitive" verb: it cannot be used with a direct object, only with a subject. That is, you cans say "X proceeds", but not "We proceed X".



As such, you also cannot use the passive voice ("be proceeded") since the point of passive is to express that an object gets acted upon; since there can be no object, there can be no valid passive form.



Process has no such limitation; indeed, as it is a transitive verb, it requires an object.



Thus your second sentence is the more correct option.




(However, "Please be noted" should be either "Please note" or "Please be aware".)


grammaticality - Which is correct, "you and I" or "you and me"?



When the phrase is used as an object, why so many native speakers are saying "you and I" instead of "you and me"? I'm not a native speaker but I thought "you and me" is correct. Not sure if this falls into the same category, but "Just between you and me" sounds more natural than "Just between you and I".


Answer



This is an example of hypercorrection, which is when native speakers make an accidental error in their zeal to avoid a different error.



In this case, the error that's being avoided is the error of writing "you and me" in subject position, as in the following sentence:





You and me are going to the store.




This is formally incorrect, although it's very common in contemporary spoken English. Because they have been taught that this is incorrect, many people hypercorrect and change "you and me" to "you and I" in all positions. That is, they incorrectly learn the rule about when to use "you and I", and so produce sentences like the following:




You and I are going to the store. [Correct]



He'll come to the store with you and I. [Incorrect]




Plural possessive with compound subject

Which of the following is correct?






  • John and Becky's knowledge

  • John's and Becky's knowledge


grammar - Is it correct to write: "She told her to phone him the morning of the next day."

Is it grammatically correct to leave out in and write "She told her to phone him the morning of the next day" instead of "She told her to phone him in the morning of the next day"?



If not, why not, and does that rule have a name?



My English teacher (not a native English speaker) tells me it is wrong and that in must be in that sentence, but I don't get why.
The task was to transform




Mrs. X: "Phone me tomorrow afternoon."





from direct into indirect speech. My answer was




Mrs X. told her to phone her the afternoon of the following day.


Sunday, May 20, 2012

grammaticality - Is "statistics" singular or plural?






  • Statistics shows that people are having fewer children these days!

  • Statistics show that people are having fewer children these days!




Which one is grammatical?


Answer




When considering the 'discipline of statistics' as a field of study or body of knowledge, it is singular:




Statistics shows that people are having fewer children these days!




When considering the figures from statistical data, as is often the case in comparative analysis, the figures themselves may be regarded as 'statistics', hence plural:




Statistics show that people are having fewer children these days!





Both are correct. It depends on the context and the author's intent.


vocabulary - "Make sure" vs. "Make sure that"

Is one more correct than the other?



Make sure the part is connected to the widget.



Make sure that the part is connected to the widget.

signage - What word best describes a small store that sells only glasses (spectacles)?




What word would or combination of words would best describe a small store, in which only glasses (spectacles) are sold?



Here are some of my guesses, but I think they are all wrong:




  1. Eye ware

  2. Glass Shop

  3. Glasses Shop

  4. Glass Store


  5. Glasses Store

  6. Optics Store

  7. (What's your option?)



I need it for two cases: one is for a sign on that store, the other one is for this sentence:



"Two years earlier she had worked in a (small) ______."



It is very possible that there are different words (or combination of words) for these two different cases.




Please, remember that only glasses are being sold in that store/shop.


Answer



How about "Optician's?"


Saturday, May 19, 2012

grammar - "It was an awesome weather." Is this sentence correct?




Could someone help me with this sentence:
"It was an awesome weather."



Is this sentence correct?


Answer



One wouldn't say It was an awesome weather but we had awesome weather or the weather was awesome. Another choice is it was awesome weather, especially as an answer to what kind of weather was it?




Weather is almost always a mass (or uncountable) noun. See, among others, Oxford dictionary.



An exception to this is in (in) all weathers, but this is now rare and could be considered a 'fixed expression'. In Moby Dick you'll find




It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides.




In 1998 a book called The Ocean: Our Future includes





Here, at all times of day and in all weathers, the sea and the maritime environment are a constant, pervasive and complex presence.




Today, most speakers do not use weather as a count noun, but usage determines what is grammatical; so stay tuned. Some people in the US these days use weather to mean an individual, particular instance of bad weather, as in We're going to have some weather tonight and Did you get any weather over there last night?, which is a usage that is kind of new to me. Still, this is uncountable, even though it refers to a single event.


Friday, May 18, 2012

grammar - Article when there is an adjective before a noun










When to use a or an before a noun when there are adjectives before that noun?




like the following example:




An operator pressed the button.




should that make:




A professional operator pressed the button.




An professional operator pressed the button.




same for:




A Hypertext markup language.



An Hypertext markup language.





Sometimes it seems a bit confusing, especially when there are more adjectives like:




An omen was revealed to the priest.



A terrible omen was revealed to the priest.



An overwhelming terrible omen was revealed to the priest.





What is the rule?


Answer



The article changes based on the word immediately following, not necessarily on the noun. There is no difference in meaning between "a" and "an" - the distinction is used to preserve an alternation between vowels and consonants when the sentence is spoken aloud.



Be aware that speakers of American and British English observe different rules (mainly because we can't agree on whether to pronounce the letter H or not!)



In your example:




A Hypertext Markup language. An Hypertext markup language.


an American speaker (and, to be honest, most British speakers) would find the first one correct, while an exaggerated aitch-dropper would use the second.



In these examples:



An omen was revealed to the priest.
A terrible omen was revealed to the priest.
An overwhelming terrible omen was revealed to the priest.



all three are correct as written, whether the speaker is American or British.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar)#Indefinite_article


pronouns - "That was me" vs. "That was I"





When telling a story about myself from the past, I have found myself in an internal debate over whether the correct way to segue into the present is:




That was me twelve years ago.




Or:




That was I twelve years ago.





My instincts tell me the first is correct (object pronoun after a verb and it sounds better to my ears). But, I'm not sure if pronouns after linking verbs should be object pronouns. Which is correct?


Answer



Professor Geoffrey Pullum has this to say:




Myth: Expressions like "It was me" and "She was taller than him" are
incorrect; the correct forms are "It was I" and "She was taller than
he."




Pullum responds: The forms with nominative pronouns sound ridiculously
stuffy today. In present-day English, the copular verb takes
accusative pronoun complements and so does "than." My advice would be
this: If someone knocks at your door, and you say "Who's there?" and
what you hear in response is "It is I," don't let them in. It's no one
you want to know.



"People have been living in fear of grammar rules that don't exist,"
said Pullum, who wrote The Cambridge Grammar with Rodney Huddleston of

the University of Queensland, Australia. "We're going into the 21st
century carrying grammar books from the 20th century that haven't
shaken off grammar myths from the 19th century," said Pullum.



Thursday, May 17, 2012

differences - Would vs Will in future events



What is the difference between the following:





  1. Sorry, mate. I wouldn't be able to come for dinner.

  2. Sorry, mate. I won't be able to come for dinner.




Answer



In most cases, (2) would be used to say that the speaker was unable to accept the dinner invitation. (1) is unlikely to be found on its own. It needs some kind of explanatory setting, such as ‘Yeh, it would be great if we could get together some time. I wouldn't be able to come for dinner, though, because we have a problem getting a baby-sitter.'


Correct capitalization for "of" in an acronym definition




For an acronym that includes the word "of", do you capitalize its usage within the definition (or expansion) of the acronym



For example, in the follow sentence:



My coworker Steve suffers from Complete Avoidance of Work Syndrome (CAOWS).



Should of be written as Of?


Answer



First, some definitions from the Chicago Manual of Style:






  • acronym refers to terms based on the initial letters of their various elements and read as single words (AIDS, laser, NASA,
    scuba);

  • initialism refers to terms read as a series of letters (AOL, NBA, XML);

  • contraction refers to abbreviations that include the first and last letters of the full word (Mr., amt.).





As for the capitalization of these constructs, CMS has these recommendations:




Initialisms tend to appear in all capital letters, even when they are
not derived from proper nouns (HIV, VP, LCD). With frequent use,
however, acronyms—especially those of five or more letters—will
sometimes become lowercase (scuba); those that are derived from proper
nouns retain an initial capital. Chicago generally prefers the
all-capital form, unless the term is listed otherwise in Webster’s.
[NAFTA (not Nafta)]




On the other hand, if the words in a spelled-out version of an acronym
or initialism are not derived from proper nouns or do not themselves
constitute a proper noun (as in the official name of an organization),
they should generally be lowercased, even when they appear alongside
the abbreviated form. [transmission-control protocol/Internet protocol
(TCP/IP)]




So, whether CAOWS is:





  • an acronym, pronounced cows

  • an initialism, pronounced "SEE-AY-OH-DUBYA-ESS"



the Chicago Manual, at least, would recommend you write:




My coworker Steve suffers from Complete Avoidance of Work Syndrome

(CAOWS).




Note that in Nathan's comment, it's necessary to lowercase DoS (an acronym for denial-of-service) to disambiguate it from DOS (an acronym for disk operating system). I don't think CAOWS has any such problem.


grammaticality - "Consider the bear that/which scratches his head." Which is correct?



If I wish to say something along the lines of





Consider the bear that scratches his head.




It seems to me that I could instead say




Consider the bear which scratches his head.





I am unsure which of these is correct, if it even matters.



Does anyone know a rule which makes this clear?


Answer



That is restrictive, it limits / restricts / specifies the identity of the subject. Using your example, the bear that scratches his head refers to one specific bear -- "the bear that scratches his head".



Which is non-restrictive, meaning it refers to something incidental about the subject. "Consider the bear, which scratches its head" refers to the bear (could be a single bear, could be the species), which happens to scratch its head.



Hope that helps!




EDIT: ShreevatsaR has pointed out that this is a convention, not a grammar rule. In the end it doesn't "matter", use the convention if it appeals to you. Here is MW's take (thanks, nohat).


word usage - Are there restrictions to what can serve as a subject to "need?"

Basically, I wonder if there are restrictions on what can serve as a subject to the verb need. The sentence that started this comes from a recent EL&U question:




Successfully doing this needs a deep understanding of coding.





The subject of the sentence is formed by a gerund, doing, which refers to a task or action. It makes sense. However, I would never say this myself. A person may need something, but an occasion requires something. The gerund feels better placed with a different verb:




Successfully doing this requires a deep understanding of coding.




On reflection, I suspect that need, as a verb, may be restricted to taking people or things as subjects:





The boss needs someone who has a deep understanding of coding.




Merriam-Webster wasn't useful for tracking this distinction. The Oxford English Dictionary quotations feature personal nouns, pronouns, objects, or impersonal pronouns as subjects. I notice the specification of person and thing in this definition:




8.a. To require (a person) to do something; to require (a thing) to do or be something.




However, this isn't restrictive. It's possible that gerund subjects for need are valid in some cases, or that other subdefinitions accommodate the usage. I appreciate any help figuring out what formal or informal expectations influence what can serve as a subject to need.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

word choice - My and Linda's or Mine and Linda's?




How do you use possessive pronouns in cases where there are multiple "owners" and "objects" in question? For example would it be:



"I've included my and Linda's suggestions in the file"



or



"I've included mine and Linda's suggestions in the file" ?



Also, should I always include "both" before the first possessive pronoun in the sentence and what should be the listing order: me first or Linda first?



Answer



It would be "I have included Linda's and my suggestions in the file."



The trick is to simplify. Separately you would write:



"I have included my suggestions in the file."



and



"I have included Linda's suggestions in the file."




Since the same rules apply in combination, either "my and Linda's", or "Linda's and my" are correct. "Both" is optional before the first term and equally correct.



Which sounds or looks better is a matter of taste.


third person - personal pronoun for AI ( Artificial Intelligence )?

I'm brainstorming on the architecture for an AI system - and describing the interaction with the world - i keep getting back on the question of - how do i refer him/she/it on the third person?



Him or She or It ?



None of this pronouns capture what it is.




Technically is not an it - since it has the potential to be conscious.



Let's take a hypothetical scenario: just makes me wonder



The design comes with a spec. A spec is more or less like a law; describes and enforces the state and behavior of a computational system.



If this it takes upon itself to check the dictionary definition of it - and seeing it - decides that it can not possibly be an it - then maybe it can disregard the spec. The spec can dictate it's behavior only if it's an it. (this sounds more like a weak terminator movie plot then reality :)))



Invent a new new pronoun used just for AI? Maybe ait (only it doesn't conjugate very well). Just googling I could not find any good resources on this.




I think it comes a time to address this issue in a formal way..



What do we do? Is it ok to use it for Artificial Intelligence ?



What is a "by the book" approach to this types of questions?



What would be the specific answer here?

parts of speech - A question about this here adjective



I have already seen these here questions:
Can "here" be an adjective?
What part of speech does “here” have in “I am here”?
but they don't appear to me to answer the question I am about to ask.



If I say:





This lovely lady is my daughter. So, be nice, will you?




'lovely' is obviously an adjective pre-modifying the subject noun.



But if say:




This here lady is my wife. So, keep your paws off, will yah?





1- Is 'here' an adjective here?



2- Which parts of the world (of the USA?) and/or what kind of people use the construction:
"This here + noun..."?



I never use this kind of construction, but I sometimes here it in movies...



E.g. in "Night at the Museum" (2006):





Octavius, hold on. This ain't your fight.
This here giant's on our land.
...
Now, this here's King Ahkmenrah.
His tablet is what brings you to life every night.



Answer



Early instances of the form



One of the earliest examples of the form "this here NOUN" that a (concededly) scattershot series of Google Books searches finds is from James Fennimore Cooper, The Pioneers, or, The Sources of the Susquehana (1823):




"But d'ye see see, Squire, I kept my hatches close, and it is but little water that ever gets into my scuttle-butt. Harkee, Master Kirby! I've followed the salt water for the better part of a man's life, and have seen some navigation of the fresh; but this here matter I will ay in your favour, and that is, that you're awk'ardest green'un that ever straddled a boat's thwart.





An earlier (albeit satirical) example comes from England. From Chesterfield Burlesqued; or School for Modern Manners, third edition (1811):




In relating a story be sure to embellish it with, So said I, and said he to me, and I said to him again, and so said she, you take me right, you are up I see to what I mean, that there fellow understands a thing or two, but this here matter is neither here nor there, the worserer the betterer, in some of they cases, in that there sort of manner, &c.




And earlier still, from Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1760):





"Now this here elixir, sold for no more than sixpence a vial, contains the essence of the alkahest; the archæus, the catholicon, the menstruum, the sun, the moon; and, to sum up all in one word, is the true, genuine, unadulterated, unchangeable, immaculate, and specific chruseon pepuromenon ek puros."




An early dictionary notice of "this here" and "that there" occurs in Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms (1848):




THIS HERE and THAT THERE. These vulgar pleonasms are often heard in this country as well as in England.




Bartlett provides two examples of "this here" in the course of illustrating other Americanisms:





Some feller jest come and tuck my bundle and the jug of spirits, and left me in this here fix. —[William Tappan Thompson], [Major Jones's] Chronicle of Pineville (1845), p. 47




and




"Brethurn and sisturn, it's a powerful great work, this here preaching of the gospel, as the great apostle hisself allows in them words of hissin what's jest come into my mind ; for I never knowed what to preach till I ris up." —[Robert] Carlton [pseudonym of Baynard Rush Hall], The New Purchase[; or Seven and a Half Years in the Far West] (1843), vol. 1, p. 203





The first book is set in the fictitious town of Pineville, Georgia; the second describes life in the 1820s in Indiana (at the time, the Far West). In both instances the authors seem to be playing up the uncouthness of the quoted person.



Another phrase from the same family is the plural phrase "them there NOUN," which we see in action in this passage from Clerus, "Bright Sunbeams in Dark Dwellings: A Tale of the Coventry Distress," (1861), a British novel:




The window was again drawn up, and "coachy" was left to his own soliloquy once more. "Well now, that's what I call a pretty face if ever there was one, and them there eyes of hers are reg'lar beauties. I should think they've got what these bookmakers call 'hexpression.' And she 's so kind-like to the two old uns ; that looks good of her, and makes her prettier than ever in my 'pinion. ..."




The American jazz/blues song "Them There Eyes," by the way, was published in 1930, according to Wikipedia.







Scholarly identification and condemnation of the form



Perhaps the earliest scholarly (or scholastic) condemnation of "this here" and "those there" occurs in Anonymous, Errors of Pronunciation and Improper Expressions Used Frequently and Chiefly by the Inhabitants of London (1817):




THIS HERE, THAT THERE, for This, That. These expressions are very low.





The next to chime in is George Jackson, Popular Errors in English Grammar, Particularly in Pronunciation, Familiarly Pointed Out (1830), whose treatment of the subject seems remarkably similar to that of his predecessor:




This, not this here. That, (pro[nounced] that, not thet) not that there. [This here and that there are] very low.



...



All that there sort of thing, (low.)





Jackson reserves the characterizations "low" and "very low" for what he views as the worst affronts to English as spoken by the well-bred—blunders such as axed and ass'd (for "asked"), as how (under any circumstances), blow me if I do ("exceedingly low"), botheration seize it ("very vulgar"), chuck it to me (use "throw it to me"), drownded, 'tis all gammon, grub (for "meal"), his'n and her'n and our'n and their'n and your'n, howsomdever (for "however"), unproper, no more of your jaw (very low and blackguard-like"), a lark and sky-larking, obstropolous (for "obstreperous"—"exceedingly low"), hoile or ile (for "oil"), rum (in the sense of laughable), row (for "quarrel"), summat (for "somewhat"), etc. To sum things up, "All SLANG language is vilely low." A feller could git hisself a perdigious edycation from all them idears.



On the U.S. side of the Atlantic, Richard Bache, Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech (1869) lays down the law with regard to "this here" and "that there," in his chapter on "Tautological Phrases":




The use of this here, and of that there, instead of this and that, is incorrect. Alone, the word this, or the word that, relates to one of two things, this referring to the one near, that to the one more remote. In like manner, referring to two sets of things, these relates to the one near, and those to the one more remote.




Echoing (indeed, rather more than echoing, given that he doesn't acknowledge Bache's prior use of the same wording) is William Swinton, Language Lessons: An Introductory Grammar and Composition for Intermediate and Grammar Grades (1877):





The use of this here, and of that there, instead of this and that, is incorrect. The word this expresses all that can be denoted by "this here," and that expresses all that can be denoted by "that there." (This way of speaking is a sure sign of a want of education in the person using it.)




Frank Vizetetelly, A Desk-book of Errors in English (1906) was simply restating the established rule in his discussion of "that there":




that there : An illiterate expression commonly used with the mistaken idea that the use of "there" adds emphasis to what follows, as, "That there man." Say, rather, "That man there" or simply, and preferably "That man."





Evidently, the world of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century grammar rules was very much like the world of Internet-based information today: One person says something, and then other people copy it and call it their own. Thus are rules (then) and facts (now) created.



Moreover, in the commentators' deep-seated horror of "low" or "illiterate" speech, we see the truth of John Lawler's remark (above) that the reason these forms are nonstandard "is that the wrong people talk that way."






How the form may have evolved



One way to think of the expression "this here NOUN [is X]" is as an expression evolved from "this here [is X]" in order to make the connection between this and the intended noun referent more emphatic or obvious. Instances of "this here" without an immediately following noun go back centuries. One early example that a Google Books search turns up is from a 1602 translation of Innocent Gentillet, A Discourse Upon the Meanes of Wel Governing (1602):





Dr Camines to prove his alleged saying, setteth down other examples, The Partialitie of the houses of Lancaster and Yorke in England, whereby the house of Lancaster was altogether ruined and brought downe, and the one house delivered to the other, seven or eight battailes betwixt three and fourscore princes of the royall blood of England and an infinit number pf people. This here is no small thing, but it is rather an example, which should make us abhorre all Partialities.




Likewise, from a translation of The Morals of Confucius, a Chinese Philosopher, second edition (1706):




The great Secret, says Confucius, to acquire true Knowledge, the Knowledge, consequently, worthy of Princes, and the most Illustrious Personages, is to cultivate and polish the Reason, which is a Present that we have received from Heaven. Our Concupiscence has disordered it, and intermixt several Impurities therewith. Take away therefore, and remove from it these Impurities, to the end that it may reassume its former Lustre, and enjoy its utmost Perfection. This, here is the Sovereign Good. This is not sufficient. 'Tis moreover requisite, that a Prince by his Exhortations, and by his own Example, make of his People, as it were, a new People.





And from Matthew Henry, An Exposition of All the Books of the old and New Testament (1708–1710):




It will be a surprising day, as the deluge was to the old world, ver. 37, 38, 39. That which he here intends to describe, is, the posture of the world at the coming of the Son of man ;besides his first coming to save, he has other comings, to judge: He saith, (John, x. 39.) For judgment I am come : and for judgment he will come ; for all judgment is committed to him, both that of the word, and that of the sword.



Now this here is applicable,



(4.) To temporal judgments, particularly that which was now hastening upon the nation and people of the Jews : Though they had fair warning give them of it, and there were many prodigies that were presages of it, yet it found them secure, crying, Peace and safety, 1 Thess. v. 3.





In each case it would not be a huge step to bring the referent noun into closer proximity to this, either in the form "this NOUN here" or the form "this here NOUN," yielding from Gentillet's sentence, "This example here" or "This here example"; from Confucius's, "This result here" or "This here result"; and from Henry's, "this biblical passage here" or "this here biblical passage."



In fact, the same Cooper novel cited above includes an instance of "this here" without a following noun, as well as the instance of "this here matter" already noted (both are spoken by the same character, a "steward" named Benjamin Pump):




"Why, yes, it was about their minds, I believe, Squire," returned the steward; "and by what I can learn, they spoke them pretty plainly to one another. Indeed, I may say that I overheard a small matter of it myself, seeing that the windows was open, and I hard by. But this here is no pick, but an anchor on another man's shoulder; and here's the other fluke down his back, maybe a little too close, which signifies that the lad has got under way and left his moorings."




So if we can trust Cooper's ear for colloquial speech, which Mark Twain says emphatically that we cannot, we may take The Pioneers as identifying a common colloquial speech pattern in which the referent noun in a "this here NOUN" phrase is sometimes made explicit and sometimes not.







Status of the "this here NOUN'/'that there NOUN' form today



As other commenters have said, the form "this here NOUN"/"that there NOUN" continue carry a lower-class/underclass/hicks-from-the-sticks stigma in the view of many educated people. The notion that it is primarily a southern/backwoods expression is not entirely sustained by usage. For example, I recall that on the Patti Smith album Horses, the narrator of her version of the Them/Van Morrison song "Gloria" says, in a New Jersey accent,




I go to this here party, and I—I just get bored





a narrative that suddenly changes tempo when the narrator first sets eyes on G-L-O-R-I-A. Smith was born in Chicago, lived for a while in Philadelphia, and then moved to Deptford, New Jersey—right across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. Neither Smith nor her family were from the South or from rural backgrounds. For Smith, I suspect, a character who says "I go to this here party" isn't a rustic but a tough guy—lower-middle-class, indifferent about education, cocky. But others' interpretations, no doubt, will vary.