Monday, September 30, 2013

past participle - Which clauses with phrases

Can which clause modify participle phrases?




Which clause is usually used for summarizing or explaining the clause before it.




1 His wife was stunning, which was always his pride.



2 I left the key at the office, which did not help the situation at all.




A. What I am curious about is if it can modify the phrases, such as absolute phrase and participle phrase as below (italicized part is where the which clause modifies):





3 His wife was stunning, always attracting other men, which bothered her
husband a lot.




(here, his wife's always attracting other men bothered him.)




4 I left the key at the office, having been too distracted by the
appointment
, which was always the problem I had.





(here, being too distracted by the appointment was always the problem he had.)



B. Also, is it possible for the which clause to modify the clause, not the phrase, as below?




5 She was stunning, born between superior parents, which was her only
pride.





(as clearly seen, her being stunning, not her being born between superior parents, was her only proud.)



C. And now, here is the last question. Can which clause modify the whole clause and the phrase altogether?




6 I was cooking a horribly shaped octopus, causing me to
vomit
, which was (or is it were?) a serious problem.





(With this, I am not sure as to which to use (was or were), for there are two actions but those two actions are happening simultaneously)



Are all three versions, A,B, and C, correct, or are there ones that are not acceptable?

past tense - What is the difference between two sentences?

1)When the phone rang,I had been washing the dishes

2)when the phone rang,I was washing the dishes

Is the word 'mistake' a concrete or abstract noun?

According to Answers.com:




The word mistake is an abstract noun, a word for an error in action or judgement.




Is this correct?



Then, why does it act like concrete nouns such as 'car' when it comes to countability?




Both 'mistake' and 'car' are countable, unless they follow "by".




a. I made three mistakes today. vs. I went there by mistake.



b. I saw three cars today. vs. I went there by car.




Does this prove that 'mistake' is also a concrete noun?
Or is 'mistake' still an abstract noun, despite this similarity in countability?

Sunday, September 29, 2013

present perfect - What are the differences between "When did she move in?" & "When has she moved in?"




I am a bit confused!



I am not sure whether the native English speakers choose to use "When did she move in?" or "When has she moved in?".



If we use simple past tense, we imply that the specific time in the past is important. For example, "She moved in 2 months ago"



If we use present perfect tense, we imply that the specific time in the past is not important or we don't need a specific time. For example, "She has moved in recently".




So, my question is



when you the native speakers say "When has she moved in?" meaning that you don't care about specific time or you don't need an answer with a specific time?



when you the native speakers say "When did she move in?" meaning that you care about specific time or you need an answer with a specific time?


Answer



We rarely use the present perfect with when questions. As the Original Poster notes, the present perfect represents an indefinite time of an indefinite event. The word when conflicts with part of the meaning of present perfect constructions.The word when requires an indication of a specific time from the speaker. So, for this reason, we rarely use when and the present perfect in the same question.



The exception to this is when we are using the present perfect to indicate a time starting in the past and running up the the present moment. In such situations we might observe since when or when .... since type questions:





  • Since when have you been waiting?



We also sometimes use the present perfect with when if we want to imply that there there was no event or situation to assign a specific time to:




  • When has a woman (ever) been President of the USA?


meaning - semantic difference for the forms: "x of y" vs. "x of the y" vs. "y x"



As a non-native speaker, I have a problem understanding the difference in meaning of the following forms:




  • "… of …"

  • "… of the …"

  • "… …"




To be more specific, let me give some instances:




  • "theory of mind" vs. "theory of the mind" vs. "mind theory"

  • "theory of activity" vs. "activity theory"

  • "theory of action" vs. "action theory"



While writing, I naïvely notice that there is a difference in nature between my first example and the two latter… I fail to understand exactly why, either… I don't know why, but while "theory of the mind" sounds understandable to me, "theory of the activity" or "theory of the action" sounds less correct (maybe because we can speak about "the mind" as a generality, while "the action" or "the activity" needs to be specified?).




Any help would be much appreciated,



Many thanks


Answer



You are astute in observing the subtle difference with "mind". I think you got that right.



As for the others, there is a slight connotative difference between, say, "theory of action" and "action theory". The first is clearly a theory about action and its causes. The second might be proposing "action" as an explanation or cause of something else.



Consider, for example, Brown's motion theory (or rather Einstein's motion theory, as borne out by Brown's experimental observations) which is now accepted as an explanation for how temperature change "works".



grammatical number - What is the plural of "API"?

What is the plural of "API" (Application programming interface)



Is it part of English irregular plurals ending in "-i"?

grammaticality - Should I follow English conventions, or write what sounds better?



How a sentence sounds when read aloud or in your head can often "sound" different for each individual doing so; however, I was reading details regarding the usage of "data" and "datum" and was intrigued by the alleged usage of it and how said usage flowed within a sentence/phrase.



It is explained here that the word data should not be used as,





...the data tells us...




but rather,




...the data tell us...




Reading the first seems natural, I've heard it quite often; however, the second seems very hard to read or say - simply unnatural in my mouth. A similar situation is found with Hoi Polloi where it is incorrect to say,





...gone to meet with the hoi polloi...




but often corrected to,




...gone to meet with hoi polloi...





due to the redundancy of the term "the" (where Hoi Polloi meaning "The Many").



While my specific usage of these two situations may not be finely crafted, I believe the concept/question to be evident: Is it better to appease my audience by using a commonly used phrasing, or is it better to adhere to the correct implementation of the words/phrases?



Another consideration is my credibility. Will the readers perhaps discredit my writings due to the unfamiliar conventions utilized?


Answer



Your best option would be to check a dictionary as it will usually have a note to clarify such ambiguities.



ODO's entry for data notes:





In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields, it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified. In modern non-scientific use, however, it is generally not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English.




The data/datum question has been covered on ELU before.



Similarly, the entry for hoi polloi carries the following note:





1 To those in the know, hoi is the Greek word for the definite article the (nominative masculine plural); the phrase hoi polloi thus translates as ‘the many’. This knowledge has led some traditionalists to insist that hoi polloi should not be used in English with the, since that would be to state the word the twice. Such arguments miss the point: once established in English, expressions such as hoi polloi are treated as a fixed unit and are subject to the rules and conventions of English. Evidence shows that use with the has now become an accepted part of standard English usage.



Difference between "saw you" and "have seen you"

What is the difference between the two statements?




  1. I saw you recently

  2. I have seen you recently



Are both the statements correct? If correct, then why?



Explain the difference between specified timing and unspecified timing with examples.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Usage of "which" or "that"

I'm a bit confused with the correct answer in this phrase:




In Florida, you can explore the Everglades or the beaches, _______
are relaxing places.





Is it "which are relaxing places" or "that are relaxing places"?
Thanks for the help!

grammar - The usage of "an"

In Visual Studio 2019 there is an error report "initial value of reference to non const must be an lvalue" why is there an "an" instead of "a"? Should not be a typo of the team.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Word order in question with very long subject




The normal word order for a wh- question in English is: wh- + auxiliary + subject + verb.



Hence the sentence below should be correct:




What might the consequences of the loss of diversity of plant genetic resources be?




However, it sounds a bit strange to me (I am not an English native speaker).




The following sentence sounds better, although according to the rule above it is incorrect:




What might be the consequences of the loss of diversity of plant genetic resources?




Which sentence is the correct one?


Answer






  1. What might the consequences of the loss of diversity of plant
    genetic resources be?


  2. What might be the consequences of the loss of diversity of plant genetic resources?





In the first question, the subject is the consequences of the loss of diversity of plant genetic resources. The interrogative word what is the complement of the verb BE. Because it has moved to the front of the sentence it has triggered subject auxiliary inversion, and we see might change places with the subject.



In the second sentence, what is the subject of the sentence. The noun phrase the consequences of the loss of diversity of plant genetic resources is the complement of the verb BE. Because what is already at the front of the sentence, it doesn't cause any inversion.




In short both sentences are perfectly grammatical.



We can make the difference clear by showing the following in situ versions of questions 1 and 2:



1'. The consequences of the loss of diversity of plant genetic resources might be what?



2'. What might be the consequences of the loss of diversity of plant genetic resources?



Sentence 2' has the same word order as sentence 2, because what is already in the subject position. In sentence 1', however, we see what in a position that would have been filled by a specific value or word in the corresponding declarative sentence. It therefore looks quite different from 1.



word choice - Types of things vs. types of thing



When speaking precisely or technically, one would say that "Homo erectus and homo sapiens are two species of hominid" rather than "Homo erectus and homo sapiens are two species of hominids." The hominid here should be singular because we are speaking about instances of a single class ("class" being used here in its broader sense, not in the sense of taxonomic grouping).



Now let's consider more common parallel constructions replacing the word species with other words.





Tide and Wisk are two brands of detergent.
Tide and Wisk are two brands of detergents.



Cats and dogs are two types of pet you can buy at Pets-R-Us.
Cats and dogs are two types of pets you can buy at Pets-R-Us.




I feel that using the singular noun to specify the class is more grammatically correct, but sounds stilted in conversation. Almost everyone I hear making these constructions uses the plural form. What are your thoughts about singular vs. plural here?



Edit



Here's a more extreme example that may help clarify the issue. Consider the following sentence:





It was my first attempt at calming an angry crowd, and I just
stood there while people were hurling all kinds of insults at me.




Here I think the singular insult sounds strange, if not downright wrong.



Further Edit




I just noticed in A Treasury for Word Lovers (Morton S. Freeman, 1983) a section entitled "Types of Errors." This is a book about (American) English usage by an English professor and editor, which purports to be a "practical guide for serious writers and readers." I wish I could say this discovery satisfies the question, but in fact I now feel somewhat farther from the truth, if there is any single "truth" in this matter. But at least I don't have to worry about being wrong when using the plural form of the class in these constructions.


Answer



This is an interesting question, particularly because of this dichotomy:





  • This is a type of apple. (not apples)

  • These are two types of apples. (not apple)





I think that the construction of the form "two types of apple" sounds more than stilted; it just plain sounds awkward, and I would be surprised that it sounds familiar and normal to anyone (at least speaking for US English).



The idea that a plural form would be used for a class is actually not strange at all in English. To express the fact that I like things belonging to the "apple" class, I would say:





  • I like apples.





I would not be able to use the singular to express this:





  • *I like apple.

  • *I like an apple.

  • *I like the apple.





Saying "I like apples" doesn't even imply that I am talking about multiple apples; one could say this, for example:





  • I like apples, although I've only ever had one in my life.




So, saying "I like all sorts of apples" seems to jibe perfectly with the rest of English grammar.




This means that the strange case is actually this one:





  • This is a type of apple. (not apples)




Saying "this is a type of apples" is definitely not natural or familiar. It seems that, in phrases like "type(s) of X" ("kind(s) of X", etc.), there is generally number concord between the type-word and the class itself. Why that is, I don't know.



Thursday, September 26, 2013

grammaticality - Preferred way to apostrophise in case of dual or multiple ownership by distinct entities











Consider describing the wedding of X and Y. If I want to avoid the overly-formal and poor-flowing "wedding of", it is more correct to say "X and Y's wedding" or "X's and Y's wedding"?



I acknowledge a very similar question has already been asked: What possessive forms are used for mutual 1st person ownership?



But unfortunately the example given is able to be easily phrased a different way and so respondents have been able to get away with avoiding the direct question.




Let's face it, we come across the need to get across the concept of mutual possession all the time and we don't always want to have to resort to the more tortured "Z of X and Y" as with the French language.



NB: In some cases, people get around this problem by dropping the apostrophes altogether and "adjectivising" the owners, especially if the owners are actually plural entities themselves. Eg. The "Mazda and Mitsubishi combined outputs" instead of the "Mazda's and Mitsubishi's combined outputs". Let's not let this muddy the waters though.


Answer



This site states it very well:





  1. A less-often faced decision involves the use of apostrophes where multiple owners are named. Where two or more people own one item together, place an apostrophe before an "s" only after the second-named person. For example:




Incorrect: Bill's and Mary's car was a lemon, leading them to seek rescission of their contract under the state's lemon law.
Correct: Bill and Mary's car was a lemon, leading them to seek rescission of their contract under the state's lemon law.



However, when two or more people own two or more items separately, each individual's name should take the possessive form. For example:



Incorrect: Joanne and Todd's cars were bought from the same dealer; both proved useless, even though Joanne's car was an import and Todd's was a domestic model.
Correct: Joanne's and Todd's cars were bought from the same dealer; both proved useless, even though Joanne's car was an import and Todd's was a domestic model.




("The Legal Writing Teaching Assistant: The Law Student's Guide to Good Writing", by Marc A. Grinker)




So, saying "X's and Y's weddings" (note that it's weddings not wedding) has a different meaning from "X and Y's wedding".



The first one is denoting two separate weddings, and the two subjects named are not getting married to one another, but the second one is the one you are probably trying to say.


language evolution - Recent trends in English grammar



A lot of questions have been dedicated to how the evolution of English got many constructs of the old either fall out of use, merge, or evolve into different forms but still with 1:1 relation to original. The English of Victorian times was significantly more complex than modern-day English.




But I'm quite convinced that elements of grammar didn't just die out or evolve into uniform counterparts — I'm fairly sure entirely new ones were borne over time, or simple cores were branched out into multiple, significantly different, more complex variants.



Can you identify elements of contemporary English grammar that would simply baffle someone who spoke Early Modern English?



Common, everyday constructs of grammar that don't have simple direct counterparts of the old, or are significantly more complex? New tenses? Inflections where there was none?


Answer



As Barrie mentions, there is little systemic that has changed in English in the last few centuries. Most of the major systemic changes that you might recognise over the last 1000 years, such as the breakdown of the declension system and the simplification of verbal morphology, were probably all but complete by Shakespeare's time or not much thereafter. Some possible candidates of "recent" semi-systemic changes that might sound if not "baffling" at least "very odd" to Shakespearean ears:





  • a change in the so-called "raising" behaviour of verbs, so that it is now completely ungrammatical to say "he plays not", and that it sounds much more natural to say "he often plays" rather than "he plays often";

  • the frequency with which we now use paraphrases such as "be able to", "have to" etc rather than modals "can", "must" etc;

  • there are no new "tenses" as such, but some combinations of elements making up the verb phrase are relative neologisms (e.g. compounds of past passive progressives: "to have been being watched" etc);

  • using the 's form with inanimates appears to have been much rarer a century or two ago, so it would probably have sounded very strange to say e.g. "the planet's species", "the book's cover" etc.

  • a few other isolated bits of syntax have become more less mainstream whereas they would have been much rarer a couple of centuries ago, e.g. putting elements between "to" and the verb ("to really go", "to fully appreciate", "to not be there"), using analytic comparatives even though synthetic ones exist (e.g. "more cold" instead of "colder").



But on the other hand, these are about as "systemic" as it gets in terms of changes in English over the last few hundred years, and it's probably fair to say that they're not so major as to render the language "baffling" to a speaker either side of the change.


Use of the indefinite article before a day of the week

Can we use the indefinite article before the name of a day of the week?




I was born on a Sunday.




Or





I was born on Sunday.




Which one is more suitable and correct?

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

grammar - Whom or Who in this sentence: These men, all of WHOM or WHO were well-known, well-respected statesmen, were viewed by their peers

Here's the full sentence: "These men, all of who were well-known, well-respected statesmen, were viewed by their peers and common people alike as great thinkers in their day.



I just can't really see where it would fall into: subject? predicate? object? What would it be?

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

meaning - Difference between 'decline' and 'decrease'



I have an advanced English student who is stuck on the word 'decline'. I told him 'decline' and 'decrease' are very similar, but are not always interchangeable. It is a business English course and we were talking about what Customer Focus means. I wanted him to say "A company needs to decrease its customer base in order to increase Customer Focus". And instead he used "decline its customer base", which is not correct (right?!).



He then used the example of "stocks declining in the last quarter" to prove that you could use 'decline' to mean 'decrease'.



Does anyone have a good rule or way of explaining when to use 'decline' vs. 'decrease'?


Answer



When decline is used as a transitive verb, it means "to refuse" or "to say no to": We are declining your loan application. - I regret that I must decline your invitation. Declining a customer would be a bad business move; declining your customer base is simply ungrammatical. Probably bad business too.




When a sentient actor (a person, a corporation, an intelligent animal) is the subject of decline in an apparently intransitive sense, there is generally an implied object; I would call this a "virtually transitive" use: I offered him a job, but he declined (the job). - We offered the chimp a banana, but she declined (the banana).



When a non-sentient noun is used as the subject of decline, it means that that thing/resource/quality is becoming less, or less powerful: The puma population has been declining for the past few years. - Hari Seldon says that the Empire is declining.



When a thing is declining, or a person's health or power is declining, we can say that that thing or person is in decline. As soon as his team started losing, he went into a decline. - This country's been in decline ever since they raised the drinking age.



When decrease is used as a transitive verb, it means "to reduce the amount of": I'll have to decrease my donut intake, or else my chair will break.



Sentient actors don't decrease intransitively; you can't say He decreased.




When a non-sentient noun is used as the subject of decrease, it means that that thing/resource/quality is becoming less: The puma population has been decreasing for the past few years. but NOT Hari Seldon says that the Empire is decreasing.



A crucial difference between decline and decrease in this last case is that decline can be used to indicate a loss of power, influence, significance, etc., whereas decrease can only be used for a reduction in quantity. Thus you can say both The population is decreasing and The population is declining, but while you can say The Empire is declining, you cannot say The Empire is decreasing, since there's still only one Empire.


synonyms - Verb meaning the same as "to be late" or "to become late"

In other languages that I know there are verbs which describe the action of becoming late. They are more commonly used than adjective form that is used in English.



"To be late". Here "late" is adjective describing the state of someone.



Is there a verb meaning the same thing, (something in the form of "I lated to the class")?

omissibility - Interpreting of Omitted subject and verb


When you have a moment, could you please send over next Wednesday’s campaign info?
Double-checking a couple details before it goes live to make sure the client is happy!




The above sentences are from an e-mail. In the last sentence, I know what the author want to say. But, I wonder how it would be read to general readers.



(a) I want to double-check ...




(b) Double-checking a couple details before it goes makes sure that ...



(c) It is for double-checking ....



Or if something was omitted, what would be omitted?

What is the correct way to use infinitive after the verb "help": with or without "to"?




What is the correct way to use infinitive after the verb "help": with or without "to"?



For example:




Please, help me to understand this.




or:





Please, help me understand this.



Answer



The particle "to" is not wrong in this sentence, but it is unnecessary. I would recommend against using it.



The phrase "to understand" can be interpreted as a special case of the infinitive; a kind of future infinitive or impersonal future tense. In that context, the first sentence means, essentially, "please help me develop an understanding of this (in the future)". While that may be technically correct, it adds nothing to the meaning of the sentence.



To add some weight to my argument, the COCA lists 142 entries for "help me understand" versus only 18 for "help me to understand". The results are similar for other constructions involving "help me ..." versus "help me to ...".




I think that the confusion stems from the way you must use the infinitive in other cases, for example: "I want to understand this", or "I am trying to understand this". In these cases, the particle is an absolute neccesity.


word choice - "won't" vs. "wouldn't"



Are these two words interchangeable? How do you know when to use one or the other?




For some sentences it is easy to know which one to use, but not for others. The type of sentences that are difficult are those that begin with "if" or "should."



Here's some example sentences:





  • Should you ever break up with your girlfriend, wouldn't you become lonely?

  • Should you lose this, won't finding another one be difficult?





Or any kind of sentence that is like "Should ___, wouldn't/won't ____?"


Answer



Contrary to what you seem to think, wouldn't and won't are almost never interchangeable.



The simple negative won't is used for future negative actions or for refusals.




  • I won't go to the store tomorrow if it's raining. (Future negative.)


  • I won't go to the dance with you. (Refusal.)



The negative wouldn't is used for counterfactual statements, and for future statements embedded in a past-tense narrative.




  • I wouldn't shout if I were you. (Counterfactual)

  • He said he wouldn't like it. (Future embedded in past narrative.)




In every case here, replacing won't with wouldn't results in something either ungrammatical, or it changes the meaning of the sentence.



Edit: An additional requirement for will/would is tense concord, which means that subordinate verbs in a complex or compound sentence must agree in tense with the main verbs. This applies to the two halves of an if/then construction, as well as to verbs in relative clauses. For this purpose, will is considered to be present tense, and would is past tense. So you see things like:




  • He will be dead if he goes to the store.

  • He would be dead if he went to the store.


  • He says he will open the envelope.


  • He said he would open the envelope.




In this case, the distinction between will/would doesn't carry any semantic weight, but is required by English grammar. Swapping will and would in any of the preceding sentences results in an ungrammatical utterance.


prepositions - Is this question correctly constructed?

The word order in this interrogative sentence does not convince me.





'Le marteau sans maître' is a famous composition of which composer?





  • How can it be put in a clearer way?


  • What is the best place for a preposition in an interrogative sentence?


  • Can sentences begin or end with prepositions?


Monday, September 23, 2013

grammatical number - Is 'bags/heaps/loads/oodles/stacks of + uncountable noun' always treated as singular?

CGEL* lists these nouns as "number-transparent":





lots, bags, heaps, loads, oodles, stacks




According to CGEL, these nouns are number-transparent in that they allow "the number of the oblique to percolate up to determine the number of the whole NP."



I can see how lots can be number-transparent. For example, lots of people is treated as plural whereas lots of money as singular. I can't think of any exception to lots being number-transparent.



But are the other nouns really number-transparent as well?
Here are counterexamples of each of these nouns:





Police officers walk in and out of the bank in what is supposedly a hostage situation, bags of money are exchanged, and corrupt politicians are brought to book without so much as a care about logic or believability. (News article 1)



From velvet chokers to oversized denim, heaps of the decade’s clothing have snuck their way back into my wardrobe, but nothing quite holds the nostalgic charm of concert apparel. (News article 2)



Bucket loads of money were poured into investigating and prosecuting crimes, while legal aid programs for impoverished defendants were starved. (News article 3)



The B.C. Liberals defend the practice on the grounds the donations are publicly disclosed. But the disclosure comes long after a donation has been made, and all they show is that oodles of money are given to the Liberals by resource companies and Vancouver-area real-estate developers – who based on the track record of donations must feel they are getting value for money. (News article 4)



The man also asked where the stacks of money were, and whether Fisher kept any gold, but Fisher had neither. (News article 5)





Are these all somehow mistakes on the part of the editors of these articles? Or these nouns are not really number-transparent, unlike lots?



*CGEL: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 350) by Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

word choice - Is 'set phrase' a set phrase?



Some words or phrases have 'special' meaning beyond the combination of constituent parts.




For example:




  • 'White House' is the white house where the US president lives.

  • 'black board' is where you draw on with chalk at school [actually more recently a green board and in the past 20 years a 'white board' (which is white)].



Negative examples (phrases or constructions that are not examples of the concept):





  • 'quasi-' anything: (I find) is -not- a 'special thing' for me, it is not a new word with a meaning all its own, 'quasi' is just a productive modifier that doesn't mean anything more than itself and the new word it makes can be judged simply as 'almost like an X'

  • colors usually (with some example exceptions above) don't make anything 'new' - a 'red door' is just a door colored red. If it took on some cultural connection, then it might need an additional dictionary specification for that term 'red door'.



I'm not talking about the figurative (non-literal, metaphorical) uses of such terms, but certainly metaphor ("White House' as the seat of American government), and idiom ('raining cats and dogs') are examples of the idea 'a set phrase'. When a neologism or coinage becomes an accepted item.



For example, if you look at a list of words that begin with the prefix 'quasi-', almost entirely, these words are not special or used ever again, or if they're used again it is simply out of logical need of the construction. They don't describe a recognizably repeatable 'thing'.



What I'm looking for is the appropriate way to designate a locution that is more than the sum of its parts.




I've been using the bland term 'set phrase' to call this phenomenon. It itself is not particularly evocative of the 'noncompositional' aspect of some phrases.



Is set phrase the best way to name this phenomenon? or is there another?


Answer



A set phrase, a fixed expression, an idiomatic expression: all these would seem excellent terms to describe what you mean. They all imply that the phrase means more than the sum of its parts, as one would ordinarily expect, and is often found in this exact form. These terms serve their purpose quite well; I doubt whether anything better exists.


grammar - Should I use “me” or “myself” here?



I know that many questions on topics similar to this one have been asked before, but I have read many of them and still not able to solve my problem. You could attribute it to my poor command of English. My question relates to two weird sentences, and I want to know which sentence is correct:





I am so hungry, it feels like my tummy is eating myself.




or




I am so hungry, it feels like my tummy is eating me.



Answer




The reflexive pronouns (which end in -self) can only be used when the person or thing they refer to is the same as the subject in the clause where it appears.



In the clause in question here, the subject is my tummy, the verb is is eating, and the problematic pronoun at the end (the object) is me/myself.



If you use a pronoun instead of the noun phrase my tummy, it has to be it: “How is my tummy? It is hungry”. That means it is a pronoun in the third person—not the same as me, which is the first person.



Therefore, you cannot use the reflexive pronoun; it must be:




I am so hungry it feels like my tummy is eating me.





If the object being eaten were not you as a person, but the tummy which is also doing the eating, a reflexive pronoun would be called for—but then it would not be myself, since the tummy is third person; it would have to be itself:




I am so hungry it feels like my tummy is eating itself.



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.


grammar - Help me cook vs help me to cook?

This question has been rounding my head for a while, id say help me cook but then i think about omitting "to" which i think isn't correct. Can you give me more examples about this situation.



Thanks in advance

Saturday, September 21, 2013

relative clauses - Whoever or whomever: 'happy for ___ has the pleasure of working with you next.'




So sad to lose you, yet happy for whomever has the pleasure of working with you next.



Answer



No, that is wrong. It should be whoever, because it is the subject of whoever has the pleasure.



Don’t be distracted by the for: it’s just a decoy, for the entire clause is its object, not just the next word.


tenses - What is the Holocaust, or what was the Holocaust?

I am writing a piece of history coursework about the Holocaust. One of the section titles is What is the Holocaust, or What was the Holocaust? Could somebody please confirm which of these two is grammatically correct? Much appreciated...

Possession in Business Name With Apostrophe

In the following sentence, how would I indicate possession if the word "business'" were replaced by the name of the business: like "Fry's" or "Wendy's"?




Some business' employees are happy.




It seems strange to say that Wendy's employees are happy, since I'm referring to the business, and not just Wendy.

prepositions - What/Which train are you going on/by?





What is the difference between the following interrogative structures?





  • What train are you going on/by?


  • Which train are you going on/by?





And which of the prepositions, given at the end of both structures, would be appropriate?



Answer



Practically speaking, they both mean the same thing. Perhaps if there were a number of trains at a station, someone would say "which" train, but "what" is also acceptable.



In terms of the preposition, I have heard both prepositions used.



Personally, I would say either "Which train are you taking?" or "Which train are you on?"


grammar - Are there other grammatical ways to say, "I'm reading a novel of Steinbeck's"?

I would like to ask why the following sentence is only possible according to grammatical rules:





I'm reading a novel of Steinbeck's




What's wrong with "I'm reading a novel of Steinbeck" or "I'm reading Steinbeck's novel"?

word choice - What's the difference between 'group' and 'grouping'?



I'm not a native English speaker and I was wondering the difference between those two terms.



From what I understood so far 'group' is a generic word used to denote a number of persons/things considered related in some way.
'grouping' is used to denote a group of people sharing a common intent or interest.



Is this the case? It seems that 'grouping' has a more specific meaning and that 'group' can be used always in place of 'grouping' (because it's a more general term).




So in which case do you use 'group' and in which one do you use 'grouping' instead?


Answer



When you use the word group your emphasis should be on the collection of things in the group.



How many people do you have in your group?



When you use the word grouping your emphasis should be on the act of forming the group rather than the group itself.



Which grouping would be better- girls in one group and guys in another, or else adults vs children?


word choice - When to use "we" and "us" — specific SAT example











I am confused about the usage of the words 'we' and 'us'. I am using a Princeton Review 11 SAT tests 2011 edition, practice test 7, section 6, number 29 (just in case anyone actually had that book).



This question was a "find the incorrect word or phrase in the following section" question. For those of you who don't know, this kind of question gives you a sentence. Four different phrases or words are underlined in that sentence and labeled A, B, C, and D respectively. The objective is to find the phrase that is incorrectly used. The particular question I need help with says:




As finalists, Mark and I were both shocked by the decision; it seemed to us that the winner of the contest was far less talented than we.




A: both shocked
B: it seemed
C: far less
D: we
E: No error




So of course, everything seemed right till I got to that last word. My thinking was to use 'us' instead of 'we'. However, the answer in the back of the book says the answer is:




E. There is no error in the sentence as written. The we in (D) may sound strange, but the subject pronoun is correct here.




Can someone please explain this to me? Why am I wrong in saying that the word us should have been used instead?



Answer



This is one of those messy situations the exam writers should know better than to dump you into.



Very rigorous judges have long held that constructions of the type "X is better than Y" (substitute your own comparative for 'better') should be parsed as elliptical reductions of "X is better than Y is", and therefore require Y to be realized in the nominative case, if that's distinct from the objective (which is only the case with the pronouns "I", "he", "she", "we" and "they". That's the "rule" which the exam requires you to follow.



Unhappily for those rigorous judges, the "rule" is not, and never has been, followed in the language-as-she-is-actually-spoken. In ordinary speech virtually everybody has virtually always said "She's better than me", "He's better than her, "I'm better than him", "We're better than them", and "They're better than us". That's the "rule" recognized by most descriptive linguists; and many people who offer advice on how to say stuff promote that rule.



So there's a fundamental disagreement between two schools of prescriptive grammarians: which "rule" should you follow?



This will probably sort itself out on the "me/him/her/us/them" side by the time you retire. But right now you're stuck in the middle.




The "I/he/she/we/they" rule is a bad one. But you're applying for admission to a discourse community which very largely observes it; so choke down your annoyance and follow their rules until you have enough seniority to follow your own rules.



Just wait for them to die and you'll be fine.


Friday, September 20, 2013

word order - Should personal pronouns always be placed at the end of a list?








Today I made a post on Facebook in which I copied a conversation from somewhere else. To preface my post, I wrote:




A conversation between me and John:




There were a number of comments on my use of pronouns, but the one I am most interested in was on the word order. One commentator said that the personal pronoun must always come last. I admit that I was raised to always use the personal pronoun last and simply did not type what I felt was correct, but I honestly don't know whether what I was raised with was correct. So,




Should you always place the personal pronoun last in a list? If so, why?

articles - Should "an" be used before words beginning with "h"?








Should an be used before words beginning with 'h'? What about when the 'h' is silent and is followed by a vowel?

grammar - "sit back down again" — Tautology or no?

I'm curious about whether the phrase "sit back down again" (along with anything similar, like "stand back up again") would be considered a tautology or if another term would be a better fit here. To clarify: I feel plenty confident in saying that it isn't a perfectly grammatical construction (both "sit back down" and "sit down again" are far better options), so my question is specifically regarding what label might fit best in this situation. Again, my educated guess is that it would be a tautology, but I figured I should hear other opinions to be sure!



Any and all help is much appreciated~~ ^^

grammatical number - Using apostrophes with plural and possession



We have something going to print today, but everyone in the office is arguing as to where to correctly place the apostrophe in the sentence (if at all!)



The sentence is:





Bring your event into the palm of your guests hand



Answer



Assuming you're referring to a single "guest", the possessive apostrophe should come before the s:




Bring your event into the palm of your guest's hand.





But I have a suspicion that guests was meant to be plural (because of the context). In that case, you should pluralize palm, hand and guest, and put the apostrophe after the last s in guests:




Bring your event into the palms of your guests' hands.



Thursday, September 19, 2013

grammatical number - Either of two [subject]s was/were?



Is it correct to use "were" or "was" in the following?




whenever either of two somethings [were/was] applied [...]



Answer



it's contentious, but I would lean towards "was", since it is acting up the individual "either".



possessives - "Whomever runs it's" or "whomever runs its"?




I know that "its" is the possessive form of "it", but does this rule apply to the possessive form of phrases ending in "it"? Should I say, "the program runs on whomever runs its computer" or "the program runs on whomever runs it's computer" (also I hope I'm right that that should be "whomever" and not "whoever")?


Answer



NOTE: Ignore this first bit and skip down to the EDIT section for the right answer. I misread the sentence on first (and second, and third) reading.






The closest sentence with correct grammar (but not sense) that matches your own is:





The program runs on whoever runs its computer.




Because the object of the preposition on is not **whomever*, which is wrong, but rather the entire clause whoever runs its computer, in which whoever acts as the subject of the verb runs. The proximity of on is a red herring — or strange attractor, depending on which metaphor you prefer.



Since you can replace its with his — and not with it is — this shows that its must be correct.



However, all that said and done, I am unconvinced that this sentence makes sense. I bet you want:





The program runs on the computer of whoever runs it.




Because I don’t think it runs on people, but rather on computers.



Maybe you could almost get away with:




The program runs on whosever computer runs it.





But that seems a bit off, too.






EDIT



Now I see what you were going for! You were trying to use the Saxon genitive on the entire noun phrase:





The program runs on (whoever runs it)’s computer.




Which is just like:




The program runs on (the person who runs it)’s computer.




That way it would work the same way as these do:





It’s (the Queen of England)’s castle.
It’s (the man at the door)’s hat.
It’s (my wife and I)’s dinner.
He’s (all of those kids)’ friend.
He’s (all of us)’s friend.




Unfortunately, without parentheses, people will too easily misread it, as in fact did I the first few times through it.



While there is certainly some sense in what you say, it if nothing else garden-paths to the wrong it’s, which makes it look like a mistake even when it isn’t.



I’d still say it runs on the computer of whoever runs it myself, just to make sure.



grammar - "an (among other things) schizophrenic" or "a (among other things) schizophrenic"?

I'm lost on whether I should use "a" or "an" in the part of the sentence: "an (among other things) schizophrenic". How does the part in the brackets affect the rest here?

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

dashes - Student t-distribution: why the dash



In statistics, the t-distribution is important. It is an approximation to the normal distribution. Of course we don't say "normal-distribution" (with the dash).



Well then, what exactly is the grammatical justification for calling it




t-distribution





as opposed to just




t distribution




?




Or to put it another way, is there a good name for the practice of using a dash in this kind of context?


Answer



A hyphen — not a dash — commonly joins an initial single letter/digit to form a compound word. Left to its own devices, general usage will capitalize:




A-side, B-side, T-shirt, A-shirt, O-level, X-ray




Otherwise, various commercial or scientific fields set their own conventions. There is no particular reason why, for instance, it's t-distribution but T-cell beyond the tendency in mathematics not to capitalize letters except in special circumstances. In other words, it’s E = mc2 by community agreement and convention.




Many e-words such as e-commerce, e-learning, and especially e-mail are dropping their hyphens. I've also seen B movie both ways.


word choice - She/he to refer a user












Programmer here. I am confused with the usage of the term "She/he" when referring a prementioned and undefined user. Below is a sentence found from MSDN magazine:



"When the user decides to create a new customer, she must fill in the data entry form in Figure 2."



I myself use the term "She/he" is this context, since without mentioning both can be regarded as gender discrimination, and placing 'she' before 'he' is respecting the ladies.



So, can I just use 'She' in this context, that will save some typing.


Answer



Most people, until recently, preferred the use of masculine pronoun. But with the rise of female writers, feminist literatures, and feminist movements, the trend has changed dramatically, with many writers inclined toward the use of feminine gender.




That said, the use of he/she is a bit awkward and is better avoided. From the other two, it doesn't matter which one to choose as long as you are consistent.


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

grammatical number - Adjective pluralization





  1. A 16-year-old girl.


  2. She is 16 years old.




I've read somewhere that the reason the year in the first example is singular is that it functions as an adjective, and adjectives can't be plural.



Looking at the second example, doesn't the years also function as an adjective? If so, why is it in plural form?


Answer



A 16-year-old girl:
1) "16" and "year" are linked by the hyphen to create a single term ("16-year") that modifies "old."
2) "16-year" and "old" are linked by the hyphen to create a single term ("16-year-old") that modifies "girl."




She is 16 years old:
1) "old" is a predicate adjective for "girl." (as in "She is old.") As a single-word adjective for "she," it is not joined with a hyphen to the previous adjective, "years."
2) "years" modifies "old," and "16" modifies "year. "16" and "years" are not acting as a single adjective for "old," so they, too, do not need a hyphen.



The easy way:
If the adjective string serves as a single modifier before the noun, it needs a hyphen (or hyphens, as in this case). If it is after the noun, it doesn't need a hyphen (or hyphens).



This is the same as "3-day weekend" and "The weekend has 3 days." In the first case, "3" and "day" are linked to create a single term that modifies "weekend." In the second case, "days" is the object of "has," and "3" is a modifier for "days."


grammaticality - Is “Write something also on. . . .” ok?




In the following sentence, is the usage of also considered grammatically correct, or is there something wrong with it?




Write something also on an alternative approach to this problem;
explain the pros and cons of that alternative.




The sentence doesn't feel right, but I thought I would seek the input of the well-informed before jumping to conclusions.



I would like to make it known that I am not the one responsible for this sentence, nor will the person responsible ever know of this inquiry — it is purely for the sake of self-satisfaction.



Answer



It’s not flat-out “wrong”, but this doesn’t sound anything as good:




  • Write something also on an alternative approach to this problem.



As any of these:





  1. Also write something on an alternative approach to this problem.


  2. Write something on an alternative approach to this problem as well.


  3. Write something on an alternative approach to this problem, too.




The first is probably the best of those.


Monday, September 16, 2013

compound possessives - "Sally's and Mike's bikes" or "Sally and Mike's bikes"?

The title really says it all. When there are two subjects in the possessive, what do we do?



If "Sally's and Mike's bikes" is correct, isn't this ambiguous? (As the phrase could either be referring to the bikes that are owned by both Sally and Mike, or to one bike that is owned by Sally and one that is owned by Mike.) Furthermore, doesn't the sentence "My mother's and father's marriage seems awkward, clunky, and badly thought out" seem awkward, clunky, and badly thought out?




If "Sally and Mike's bikes" is correct, isn't this also ambiguous? (As the phrase could refer to either the bikes that are owned by both Sally, and Mike, or to Sally and the bike that is owned by Mike.) And the sentence "Joe Biden and the President's daughters get along famously," as much as some slash political fanfiction authors may protest, seems far more likely to be saying that Joe gets along with Sasha and Malia than that Joe and Barack have secretly eloped and have had multiple children, who get along with each other well. But if this sentence is incorrect, how would you refer to these clandestine daughters? ("Joe Biden's and the President's daughters" seems to refer to two different sets of daughters.)



Finally, does this get even more complicated when you add pronouns into the mix? ("My and her house" is a repulsive sentence. How can we rephrase it without losing information? (Which "Our house" would certainly do.)

grammar - Can an adverb be a noun?



I have seen this post for the answer to my question, but this is not much help in case of the question I am going to ask.




Here is an example sentence -




The new design of Twitter profile is more of a Facebook profile than never before.




than here is a preposition, there is no doubt about that. But before after than acts like a noun. But from dictionary entry against before doesn't say it's a noun.



So what is the explanation?



Answer




'[T]han here is a preposition, there is no doubt about that.' [OP]




and




'A noun is the only part of speech possible after a preposition'





and




In the accepted phrase 'better than ever before', 'ever' cannot be a noun.




So we have a contradiction. The only question to address really is how many of the above assertions are not true?



If we look at





'It is better than [it] ever [was before]




we find a construction which presents no problems. Here, 'than' is a conjunction; there is no doubt about that. 'Ever' is an adverb.



But in the ellipted version, 'than' is now an ex-conjunction and 'ever' is an ex-adverb. In other words, forcing traditional analyses on elliptical structures will lead to extra-grammatical analyses (ie 'the rules' will be broken).


Sunday, September 15, 2013

grammatical number - What is the correct plural of "mantis"?

This question is related to the plural of "octopus" (yet another ancient Greek loanword animal):




What is the plural of "mantis"?



Oxford Dictionaries suggests "mantis" or "mantises".



Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com suggest "mantises" or "mantes".



This page from the Iowa State University Entomology Department suggests "mantids" (emphasis mine).





Praying mantids (preferred plural form of mantis) have never been
numerous in Iowa and historically they were only common in the far
southeastern corner of the state.




Personally, I use a mixture of "mantises" and "mantes" and find the usage of "mantids" strange, but what is the most etymologically correct / most recommended plural for the animal?

Saturday, September 14, 2013

usage - "Thousands-Dollar" or "Thousand-Dollar"?

If a prize is worth thousands of dollars, is it called




a thousands-dollar prize




or





a thousand-dollar prize


Pronunciation of letter y: asylum vs syrup



I want someone to clarify if there is a rule about how to pronounce the letter Y



I've read in another stackexchange post that when it is in a Greek-origin word it is pronounced as uh e.g. analysis, paralysis.



However in another Greek-origin word, asylum, it is pronounced as i while the in the latin word syrup it is pronounced as /i/.


Answer



No.




There are no rules for how to pronounce the letter Y -- or rather there are too many rules, and none of them work. Similarly, there are also no good rules for how to pronounce any other letter of the English alphabet. Modern English spelling does NOT represent pronunciation in Modern English.



Rather, it represents one spelling (there were many) for Middle English pronunciation, which got fixed when printing became established in England, right before the end of the Great Vowel Shift. Spelling used to be free, like handwriting is now; but printing froze it, a little too soon to get a good spelling for Modern English. Too bad, but we're stuck with it now.


pronouns - Which one is correct to say: "It's me" or "It's I"?



I was taught at school that the following expression is not grammatically correct:




Who is there? It's me.




The correct one is:





Who is there? It's I.




Can you let me know which one is accurate?



Here is a good explanation about both forms.


Answer



As reported from the NOAD:





me /mi/
pronoun [first person singular]
1. used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself as the object of a verb or preposition:




Do you understand me?
Wait for me!




• used after the verb to be and after than or as:





Hi, it's me.
You have more than me.




• informal to or for myself:




I've got me a job.






It's then correct to say it's me.


Friday, September 13, 2013

Can ellipsis at the end of a sentence be used this way?

This is something I find myself doing quite frequently, but I don't know if it's correct. Whenever I want to end a sentence in a "sad" or "depressing" tone, I usually add ellipsis at the end of the sentence. Here's one:




"Someone stole my bag today..."





As I already know, an ellipsis can be used to indicate phrases being left out, and that's not what I'm trying to do in my example. With that said, is there any rule that says what I'm trying to do is correct? Or is it just wrong?

Inversion after "than"/"as"



I'd like to know (1) which of the following is the most natural and (2) whether any of the following is unnatural or ungrammatical:



(A) My system is no more expensive than yours would be.



(B) My system is no more expensive than would be yours.




(C) My system is no more expensive than would yours be.



Edit: I'm adding three more examples with "as". The same question as above.



(D) My system is expensive, as yours would be.



(E) My system is expensive, as would be yours.



(F) My system is expensive, as would yours be.



Answer




(A) My system is no more expensive than yours would be.



(B) My system is no more expensive than would be yours.



(C) My system is no more expensive than would yours be.




Version #A is a sorta default kinda version. Version #B might be preferable when the speaker wants to put a contrastive subject in end position. Version #C is ungrammatical: ". . . the subject follows the sequence would be: it cannot invert with would alone, . . ." (CGEL, page 1107).




Inversion in the comparative clause can occur under certain conditions. This topic is discussed in the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), page 1107.


questions - Help us decide vs. help us to decide

I'm having a hard time to decide between the correct form. Is it "help us decide" or "help us to decide"? Please also state the reason for your answer. Thank you very much!

grammar - photo caption ... me or I?

In a photo caption, if we use the elliptical 'My kids and me', would 'me' be correct, or would 'I' be correct? It seems as though it could go both ways.



[This is a picture of] 'My kids and me' or 'Me and the kids'.



Or,




'My kids and I' [are in this picture]



Which is the correct choice -- 'me' or 'I' in these elliptical constructions?



Thank you

Thursday, September 12, 2013

grammar - What principle guides word combinations with "almost"?

I am trying to explain to non-native speakers how to use "almost." I can't formulate (a) rule(s) to follow with regard to nouns/pronouns. So far, my only ideas are that almost can be collocated only with words (or in situations) that describe measurement or comparison. However, even this seems to fail.



For example:



almost they = incorrect (no concept of measurement or comparison)



almost everyone = correct (measurement of individuals)



A platypus is almost a duck. = correct (comparison)

They are almost the same. = correct (comparison)
It is almost midnight. = correct (measurement of time vs. temporal adverbial)
We are almost there. = correct (but spatial adverbial)



However:



He wrote almost a book. = incorrect, although in this case "book" would be a comparison or perhaps a measurement of the written material







I am pretty much at a loss. Thanks.

Proper punctuation and quotation marks when 2 separate quotations

“It doesn’t have to be a huge event to make a difference, Jones said. “Any kind of activity-related event that can include a fundraising component can be directed toward charity.”

grammatical number - When should a singular word ending in "y" end in "ies" plurally?



Words like "sky" and "money" have "ies" as a plural suffix (i.e. "skies" and "monies") but other words like "monkey" and "Emmy" do not ("monkeys" and "Emmys"). Is there a rule dictating the use of "ies"?


Answer



It's determined by the letter before the y:





monkey: vowel + y => monkeys
sky: consonant + y => skies


Exception: proper nouns like "Emmy" sometimes form the plural by adding "s".



Monies I don't know about, so hopefully someone else can fill in that detail.


word choice - Why "themselves" instead of "himself" when referring to third-person singular?




I've read today a comment from a UK user that sounded weird to me:




so the OP is shooting themselves in the foot here with the tone then.




I would have said instead:





so the OP is shooting himself in the foot here with the tone then.




I've taken a look at this but it's way out of my league, and appearently doesn't even answer this question.



Why did he use the third person plural while referring to a third person singular ?


Answer



In English, "they" is used as a singular personal pronoun when the gender of the subject is not known.



As gender politics have evolved over the past half-century, and the pace of that change has accelerated in the last decade, personal pronouns have proven fraught with risk and created traps for the unwary.




In response to this, commentors have increasingly started using the non-committal -- and more importantly, safe -- singular they to refer to people whose gender is not known with absolute certainty.



Please note that I'm using the word "gender", not "sex", here quite advisedly; sex is biological, gender is psychological (or, in another school of thought, sociological). This (rather new) distinction is yet another driver behind the recent popularity of singular they: even if a person's sex is quite evident (or you believe it is), their gender may not be (e.g. a person who looks like a man may nevertheless wish to be identified as a woman), and using the wrong personal pronoun can land you in a lot of hot water.



In your particular situation, circumstances which may have contributed to the commentor's circumspection are that your avatar depicts both a man and a young girl, and while your name is quite masculine in your homeland (and its own history as you so perspicuously pointed out), in the US, names ending in -a are considered feminine, and "Andrea" is reserved for naming girls.


meaning - "Between a mother and daughter" vs. "between a mother and a daughter"

What is the difference in meaning between these two sentences?






  1. The relationship between a mother and daughter.

  2. The relationship between a mother and a daughter.




I know both are correct, but do they differ in meaning? If so, how? What does it mean when the article is placed before daughter?

british english - “If I was to” vs. “If I were to”










  1. If I was to sum up my computer knowledge in one word, it would be “destitute”.


  2. If I were to sum up my computer knowledge in one word, it would be “destitute”.





Which is correct?