punctuation - Placement of full stops and inverted commas (not a duplicate, per se)

Do you agree with my rationale below? This is with regard to British punctuation. The specificity of this particular question has not previously been posted.

'I need to visit the mall', said Aunt Emma, 'to pick up some party supplies.'
(The comma goes outside the introductory quote {'I need to visit the mall',} because it is not part of the original sentence. The original sentence isn't 'I need to visit the mall, to pick up some party supplies.' Logically, a comma would not follow the word 'mall' in that sentence; hence the comma goes outside the quote mark in the introductory quote. Make sense?)

But if the sentence were 'I need to visit the mall,' said Emma, 'but I need to stop by the bank first', the comma would go inside the quote mark (in the introductory quote). This is because the comma is an inherent part of the original sentence ('I need to visit the mall, but I need to stop by the bank first.'). The comma separates two independent clauses connected by the coordinating conjunction 'but'.
By the same respect, 'Well,' said I, 'I'm sorry, but I can't do anything there' is correctly punctuated with the comma inside the quote mark in the introductory quote. The reason is that a comma naturally follows an introductory expression like 'well'.

And, finally, the comma would go outside the ending quote mark in the following example: 'Good-day, sir', said I. The reason is that the comma is not part of the initial quote.

Based on this infrastructure, I'd also propose that the following are punctuated correctly per British criteria:

•When Mike said 'Be careful what you wish for', Janet listened. (Not sure whether a comma follows 'said' here.)

•I won't accept your proposal', Dave said.
(The comma goes outside the ending quote mark here because it technically is not part of the original sentence. The original sentence would require the full stop (i.e. 'I won't accept your proposal.').

Is my explanation valid, and are all my examples punctuated correctly?

nouns - Why does the incorrect plural "aircrafts" seem to be occurring more often?

My first reaction to aircrafts was to think it was a typo, but I just checked usage on NGrams...

...and compared it to usage for the singular / collective noun form aircraft...

...which seems to indicate that the "regular" plural form is gradually being taken up. Does this represent a tendency for English speakers to enforce regularity on the language? Are there any other examples? I'm not expecting to find that "sheeps", for example, is displacing "sheep" for the plural meaning, but maybe there are other "less established" usages that could be changing.

EDIT Please note that I'm not asking whether "aircrafts" is correct, or common. I'm asking if there's any reason why it seems to be occurring more often over recent decades (even though it's still pretty rare). And whether this effect occurs with other nouns having "non-standard" plural forms.

Answer

Well, this is an example of why Google NGrams isn't a precise indicator. When we compare the two directly, aircrafts simply can't get off the ground:

Now, this result is also flawed since it is impossible to separate uses of aircraft (singular) and aircraft (plural). It is also impossible to factor out typos (aircrafts vs. aircraft's) and so on.

The point is, don't read too much into what an NGram shows (or at least take the graphs with a grain of salt), because a great deal of the time what you wind up with is this sort of thing:

(BTW, the huge spike in the use of aircraft in the early '40s is almost certainly due to the air war in Europe and the Pacific.)

grammaticality - "I and someone", "me and someone" or "I and someone we"

A friend of mine asked me for advice about an e-mail he was writing. There was a sentence like this:

I and my partners we are interested in investing in your product.

I figured it was wrong, so I suggested:

I and my partners are interested in investing in your product.

This looks grammatical to me but sounds strange. Also, I have seen a lot of people writing this:

Me and my partners we are interested in investing in your product.

which I believe is not grammatical.

So, which one of the options above is correct? Also, what would be a better choice of words?

Answer

"I and someone are interested" is grammatically correct. It is the convention in English that when you list several people including yourself, you put yourself last, so you really should say "Someone and I are interested." "Someone and I" is the subject of the sentence, so you should use the subjective case "I" rather than the objective "me". "Someone and I" clearly means two people, so you should use "are" and not "is". If it was "Someone or I ..." then you would use "is", because only one person is interested, either "someone" or "I".

It is not uncommon to hear people say "Me and someone are ...", but this is wrong because it's the wrong case. When an educated person hears "Me and Billy is going to the ball game", he immediately thinks this is either a child or a very uneducated person speaking.

"I and someone we ..." is incorrect because it is redundant. "We" is simply another way of saying "I and someone". It adds no new information to the sentence, and so there is no reason to include it. You can't just string together alternative ways of expressing the same idea: If you really need it for clarity or emphasis, you have to surround it with some additional words, like a "that is", or sometimes just punctuation that show its purpose in the sentence. You could say, "We, that is, Bob and I, are interested ..."

All that said, "I and someone" or "Someone and I" sounds strange to me, and I suspect most English speakers, because it is an unusual use of the word "someone". When "someone" is used in a list with identifiers of other people, we usually say "someone else". Like, "Bob and someone else are interested ..." rather than "Bob and someone are interested ..." (I have no idea why this is so; it's just the convention.) "Someone" without "else" is normally only used when it's the only person: "Someone is interesteed ..."

"Never" and past tense

Considering these two sentences in the past tense, using "never":

The film has never been released

The film was never released

Are they both correct? If so, is there a difference in the meaning, or usage?

Answer

The first, using the present perfect construction, relates the non-release of the film to the time of speaking or writing. It might continue with the words ‘up until now’. The second, using the past tense, places the non-release at some specific period or time in the past.

That said, the meaning depends very much on the context. For example, the second sentence might continue ‘during his lifetime’, and there might then be another sentence saying ‘But there are now plans to make it available to the public.’

punctuation - How to punctuate an embedded quoted question within a declarative sentence?

I'm having a devil of a time trying to determine how to punctuate an embedded quoted question within a declarative sentence. A comma is used to introduce the quote, but things get hairy at the end of the quote.

When Ms. Peremptory asked, "Are you ever going to be ready?" I was unable to respond.

Is this situation best handled with no closing comma? Placement in any of the possible spaces between the closing "y" in "ready" and the subject of the sentence produces visually confounding -- though possibly grammatically correct -- results.

Why are present participle and infinitive equally acceptable for some verbs, but not others?

This question about "started teaching/to teach" made me realise that even though the present participle and infinitive are both acceptable after "started", that's not the case with other superficially equivalent "auxiliary" verbs...

She began crying/to cry. (both okay - and to me, mean exactly the same thing)

She ceased caring/to care. (both okay, but the infinitive seems slightly more "natural" to me)

It commenced raining/?to rain.

It stopped raining/*to rain.

He quit gambling/*to gamble.

We gave up trying/*to try.

What is it about those last four that prevents the infinitive form being acceptable?

I have a vague sense that in some usages the infinitive might have been more acceptable in the past ("It commenced to rain" sounds a bit "Victorian" to me), but I can't square that with my preference for "I ceased to care" over "I ceased caring".

grammar - Reason for "the" as whole class

I am learning uses of articles.

And the book i am using tells that

"article the is used when a singular noun is meant to represent a whole class"

For example
The cow is a useful animal.

I want to know the reason how the above example represents a class.
How can I prove it represents a whole class

This question seems foolish but I am really confused please help me

And correct me where I am wrong

grammatical number - Plural of an initialism that ends with the letter S

I was answering something on Super User and wrote OSes as part of my normal flow without really thinking about it. On a re-read I decided that it didn't look right, so I changed it to OSs, which still felt incorrect. I also considered OS's, but that didn't feel right either, so I thought I'd ask on here.

In this specific case, what is the written plural form for OS?
The intention is to mean multiple Operating Systems.

And, is there a general rule for the plural form of an initialism that ends with the letter S?

Answer

A search on Google for OSes returns results from several established websites such as infoworld.com, osnews.com and linux.com, which suggests OSes is the accepted form.

grammaticality - Is it "to my attention or to mine attention"?

I ran into this example at one of the EDX.org courses. This was said by a native English speaker. The phrase is

Please bring them [concerns] to mine or my teaching assistants' attention

I feel that this is incorrect and should be

Please bring them to my or my teaching assistants' attention.

The transcript of the course's video also says "mine".

Answer

I once told a student "fill free to correct each possible
error you think a native speaker might be saying. That sounds like a good hobby." I was being sarcastic.

In the meantime the text in your question title does not appear in the body of the question. Mine attention would be odd (because it's archaic) unless one wanted to sound really Germanic, but to mine or my teacher's attention, while seemingly incorrect to a potential pedant (and I'm sure you, like that student, are not one), is generally acceptable in conversational English. Not all utterances adhere to logical proof. And English possessive pronouns can get awkward at times, especially when coupled, (eg, my wife and I's), which some native speakers here have almost ridiculed but I don't have a problem with.

Is capitalization of special words acceptable without another rule to justify it?

I've found that it's a rather contentious issue in the Pokémon fandom whether names like "Pikachu" should be capitalized when referring to the general species (and similarly for certain other words). Such as:

If your team consists of six Pikachu, you're going to have a hard time against Ground-types.

Many people who I've seen talk about the subject believe that those bolded letters should not be capital, because there are no rules to make it such.

However, I've also noticed this "special capitalization" of words in other, actually literary series as well — for example, the Dementors, Boggarts, or Hippogriffs from Harry Potter, or the Yeerks and Andalites of Animorphs fame.

Any arguments I've seen on the subject have invariably degraded into bickering about different sides of the debate. Are there any more authoritative opinions on such a phenomenon, and if so, where can I find them?

(What's special about the Pokémon case is that the species as a whole is usually only referred to by a "characteristic instance" of it — while you wouldn't say "I like dog better than cat because it's more loyal", you could definitely say "I like Squirtle more than Charmander, because it's cuter".)

grammaticality - Shortest correct sentence in English- use of contractions

I often hear people saying that "I am" is the shortest sentence in the English language. I know that there are also discussions about sentences using the imperative mood such as "Go." that would be shorter, but my question is this:

Why would we (the people saying "I am" is a full sentence) not accept "I'm" as a complete sentence? Is there some unwritten rule about contractions that says "I'm" wouldn't be correct?

Answer

In English, any clause has one mandatory stress slot: there must be at least one element that has stress (optionally more than one). That slot lies in the predicate of the clause, which must always be stressed. The subject (which stands outside the predicate) can receive stress, but does not necessarily have to, and even when it does receive stress, the predicate retains its stress.

Within the predicate, a verb that has one or more complements of a certain type (a generic object [i.e., one without an article], an adverbial phrase, a predicative expression, etc.) is unstressed (or at most secondarily stressed) unless it is emphasised for effect. In such a case, the predicate’s only stressed element(s) is/are the complement(s) that is/are considered most important.

Conversely, if the verb either does not have any compliments or has a non-generic object (i.e., an object with an article, a proper noun, etc.), it is stressed. Any following complements can also be stressed, but they do not have to be.

So for example (using the IPA character “ˈ” before a word to indicate stress, and the entirely ad hoc notation “ˣ” to specifically denote lack of stress):

He ˈran.
He ˣran ˈhome.
He ˈran a ˈmile.
He ˣran ˈfast.

As mentioned above, complements also include predicative expressions like subject and object complements—like what you have in ‘to be’ phrases. These follow the same rules (note that the distinction between generic and non-generic elements goes only for objects, not for predicative expressions):

He ˣis a ˈman.
He ˣis ˈgood.

Now very importantly: a stressed syllable cannot be syncopated. Only unstressed (or sometimes secondarily stressed) syllables can be syncopated away, leaving contractions in their wake. Of course, when you contract something, you are removing a syllable, and if that syllable is stressed, where would the stress go when you remove it? There has to be a stress somewhere.

As such, the following is possible:

He ˣis my ˈfather --> He’s my ˈfather.
I ˣcan ˈtell you ˈwhy --> I c’n ˈtell y’ ˈwhy.

– because the elements that are syncopated (is in the first, can and you in the second) are both unstressed. The following, however, is impossible, because here we’ve emphasised (= stressed) the verbs. Emphasising an element reduces other elements nearby to lose their stress entirely—it’s basically overriding the ‘natural’ assignment of stress—and the emphasised verbs end up being the only elements that carry any stress. If you syncopate those away, the stress would disappear entirely from the clause, which is not possible:

But he ˈis my ˣfather --> †But ˣhe’s my ˣfather.
I ˈcan tell you ˌwhy --> †I ˣc’n tell y’ ˣwhy.

Now recall that the predicate must be stressed. In a case like “I am” (with nothing more following the verb), where the verb has no complements at all, there is only one element that can be used to fill this stress slot: the verb itself, which is thus automatically stressed. And since the verb is stressed, it cannot be syncopated or contracted: that would remove the mandatory stress slot altogether, which is not an option.

grammaticality - Shortest correct sentence in English- use of contractions

I often hear people saying that "I am" is the shortest sentence in the English language. I know that there are also discussions about sentences using the imperative mood such as "Go." that would be shorter, but my question is this:

Why would we (the people saying "I am" is a full sentence) not accept "I'm" as a complete sentence? Is there some unwritten rule about contractions that says "I'm" wouldn't be correct?

Answer

In English, any clause has one mandatory stress slot: there must be at least one element that has stress (optionally more than one). That slot lies in the predicate of the clause, which must always be stressed. The subject (which stands outside the predicate) can receive stress, but does not necessarily have to, and even when it does receive stress, the predicate retains its stress.

Within the predicate, a verb that has one or more complements of a certain type (a generic object [i.e., one without an article], an adverbial phrase, a predicative expression, etc.) is unstressed (or at most secondarily stressed) unless it is emphasised for effect. In such a case, the predicate’s only stressed element(s) is/are the complement(s) that is/are considered most important.

Conversely, if the verb either does not have any compliments or has a non-generic object (i.e., an object with an article, a proper noun, etc.), it is stressed. Any following complements can also be stressed, but they do not have to be.

So for example (using the IPA character “ˈ” before a word to indicate stress, and the entirely ad hoc notation “ˣ” to specifically denote lack of stress):

He ˈran.
He ˣran ˈhome.
He ˈran a ˈmile.
He ˣran ˈfast.

As mentioned above, complements also include predicative expressions like subject and object complements—like what you have in ‘to be’ phrases. These follow the same rules (note that the distinction between generic and non-generic elements goes only for objects, not for predicative expressions):

He ˣis a ˈman.
He ˣis ˈgood.

Now very importantly: a stressed syllable cannot be syncopated. Only unstressed (or sometimes secondarily stressed) syllables can be syncopated away, leaving contractions in their wake. Of course, when you contract something, you are removing a syllable, and if that syllable is stressed, where would the stress go when you remove it? There has to be a stress somewhere.

As such, the following is possible:

He ˣis my ˈfather --> He’s my ˈfather.
I ˣcan ˈtell you ˈwhy --> I c’n ˈtell y’ ˈwhy.

– because the elements that are syncopated (is in the first, can and you in the second) are both unstressed. The following, however, is impossible, because here we’ve emphasised (= stressed) the verbs. Emphasising an element reduces other elements nearby to lose their stress entirely—it’s basically overriding the ‘natural’ assignment of stress—and the emphasised verbs end up being the only elements that carry any stress. If you syncopate those away, the stress would disappear entirely from the clause, which is not possible:

But he ˈis my ˣfather --> †But ˣhe’s my ˣfather.
I ˈcan tell you ˌwhy --> †I ˣc’n tell y’ ˣwhy.

Now recall that the predicate must be stressed. In a case like “I am” (with nothing more following the verb), where the verb has no complements at all, there is only one element that can be used to fill this stress slot: the verb itself, which is thus automatically stressed. And since the verb is stressed, it cannot be syncopated or contracted: that would remove the mandatory stress slot altogether, which is not an option.

capitalization - Capital letter in the word "one"?

Suppose I have a headline for a subsection of a book or article that goes something like: Everything Collected in One Place.

Is this correct or should it be: Everything Collected in one Place. ?

grammar - "Please join me, my family and [my] crew." Can the second "my" be left out?

Is it proper to say:

Please join me, my family and crew in celebrating my Bat Mitzvah?

Or should there be a 'my' before crew?

"Only until" requires subject inversion?

Is this sentence correct?

It also may explain why only until the economics was relaxed after a difficult period, the policies to solve EVD crisis could attempt to get openly involved in the response to EVD.

Is there subject inversion because of "only until"?
How should I write it?
Thanks

word choice - "I hope this could help you" vs. "I hope it can help you" vs. "Hoped this may help you"

Which of the following is grammatical when giving someone something they want?

• I hope this could help you.


• I hope it can help you.



• Hoped this may help you.

grammar - Choice of an agent to give an active voice - me or the computer program

Background

I am writing a scientific article that describes a computer program. Although it is common in the field to use a passive voice, it is also acceptable, and my preference, to diversify the text with an active voice.

That said, the focus of my paper is a computer program, and I am describing what it does. I am having a difficult time determining when it is appropriate to say that the program does something versus when I (or we) did something.

Example

Call the program 'FOO' (all caps since it is an acronym, though presumably, since I am introducing FOO in this paper, I could change this to only have a capital first letter)

FOO uses addition to determine Y,

versus

we use addition to determine Y,

or

Y is determined by addition

I think that giving agency to Foo makes it easier to write, but then my text becomes 'FOO does this ... FOO does that'; making the name 'FOO', which is really incidental, dominate the page when looked at as a whole. In addition, it can feel awkward to writing about a computer program as a protagonist (however, this is my first attempt to describe such a program).

Question: What is the best way to write about software in an active voice?

In my field, the passive voice is dominant so I am having difficulty finding good examples of the use of an active voice.

Answer

FOO uses addition to determine Y

If you wish to use active voice, this is the best construction. "We" and other first-person pronouns are generally discouraged in academic papers.

I think that giving agency to Foo makes it easier to write, but then my text becomes 'FOO does this ... FOO does that' and the page starts to look awkward. Perhaps it is only because I am not used to writing about a computer program as a protagonist.

You can add variety by using the pronoun "it", as well as also using the passive voice. There's no problem using both voices in one paper.

subjects - there + semantic verb

What semantic verbs are used with there besides the verb to be?

I'm looking for the cases when there is used as a formal subject.
For example in:

• There came a knock


• There comes a point in life

etymology - Origin and usage of "safe and sound"

I've often wondered about the phrase "safe and sound." It seems like a common phrase that most English speakers understand, but it also seems quite old-fashioned to me. I read about it, and I understand it goes back all the way to the 14th century, but I've been unable to find its first use. Are people aware of any other popular usages over the years that would explain how it would remain commonplace after all these centuries -- despite "sound" not commonly meaning "whole" in modern times?

Answer

It is the ancient and still used meaning of sound of free from injury, healthy that is used in the common saying "safe and sound":

Sound:

• "free from special defect or injury," c.1200, from Old English gesund "sound, safe, having the organs and faculties complete and in perfect action," from Proto-Germanic *sunda-, from Germanic root *swen-to- "healthy, strong".

Safe and sound:

• Out of danger and unharmed, as in It was a challenging climb, so I'm relieved they got home safe and sound. [c. 1300 ]

(AHD)

Early usage examples:

1594, William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, act 4, scene 4,:

• Fetch our stuff from thence:
  
  I long that we were safe and sound aboard.

1570 The Scholemaster: Or Plaine and Perfite Way of Teachyng Children:

• Who, by his wisedome and honestie, by his example and authority, may be able to kepe them safe and sound, in the feare of God...

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) uses hole and sounde with the meaning of safe and sound.

OED - s.v. sound a. sound, healthy; safe, unharmed [See hole3 adj., sounde2 adv.]

(A Lexical Concordance to the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer)

When is an event so old that the phrase "the other day" no longer applies?

I went to the dentist half a year ago, but when I mentioned that to my girlfriend, I said that I went there "the other day." She said that events which happened such a long time ago definitely did not happen "the other day", but this violated my understanding of the phrase; I would use it to refer to any event that happened in the relatively recent past—maybe at some point in the last two years. My girlfriend would not use it to refer to any event that happened less recently than last month. Neither of us is a native speaker of English, so I would like to ask: which understanding is closer to common English usage? When is an event so old that the phrase "the other day" no longer applies?

Note: I understand that phrases like this are of course not clearly defined and usage may depend on the speaker and the context. But nevertheless there must be some kind of vague time frame at work here; one would not say that an event which happened twenty years ago happened the other day, but it would be fine to say so if it happened a week ago. So what I want to know is if there exists a bit tighter limit on this time frame.

grammaticality - It is I who am at fault?

Which one of these is correct?

It is I who am at fault.

It is me who is at fault.

The word "is" is a conjugation of "be" which is a linking verb.

I also want to know the same for 2nd person.

It is you who are at fault.

It is you who is at fault.

tenses - Going back and forth in time gramatically?

The sentence(s):

The ice breaks beneath them, and they are stuck in their car while it is being filled with ice-cold water. Dawn’s mother had tried to convince Sam, Dawn’s father, not to go on the trip as she suspected it would be dangerous. Sam simply shrugged off her concerns. Should Dawn’s mother have acted differently? Moreover, is it fair that Dawn’s mother may blame herself for the accident?

My question is whether it is correct for me to write "Suspected" instead of "suspects", "shrugged" instead of "shruggs" and "had tried" instead of "tries", the thing is: the story goes back and forth in time, should the words then be in past tense or present tense? It sounds wrong when they are in present tense, I am not quite sure...

Answer

There's nothing inherently wrong with referencing a past event partway through a present-tense narrative, as it clarifies the situation. If I were writing something like this I would probably start a new paragraph when the tense switches to make it more distinct from the rest.

So on that note, you're quite right to use the past tense for those verbs; the reason it sounds wrong when they're in present tense is because it is wrong.

I would even go so far as to recommend saying "Sam had simply shrugged off her concerns" to make it clear that this also happened at the same time as she was trying to convince him, but is now being referenced in the present.

grammaticality - "This chapter, and the following chapters in this section" — singular or plural?

I have some technical documentation that has the phrase:

This chapters describes how to...

And I need to upgrade it to refer to the current and following chapters. What is the correct English phrase to use?

This chapter, and the following chapters in this section, describes how to...

or:

This chapter, and the following chapters in this section, describe how to...

In other words, is the thing doing the describing a multitude of chapters (that would "describe" something), or are the multitude considered a single item here (needing "describes")?

Or, are both phrases wrong?

Answer

There is no need to repeat "chapters":

"This and the following chapters describe how to ..."

Plural verb agrees with the compound subject in this case.

There's a good segment on compound subject verb agreement here:

http://www.towson.edu/ows/moduleSVAGR.htm

If you need to include information about the section, then you can get away with something like:

"In this section, this and the following chapters describe how to ..."

If you like, you can get away from the use of "in this section" altogether by doing something like:

"This chapter through chapter 15 describes how to ..."

Oddly, the singular verb seems to agree here since now it is a single subject--a nounal phrase which operates as a collection--rather than a compound subject. It is like saying:

"This collection of chapters describes how to ..."

compounds - Correct names for lycanthrope species with abnormally named base creatures

It's normally easy to name a lycanthrope species: just place "were" in front of the name of the base creature, i.e. "werewolf", "werebear", or "weredragon".

Sometimes, though, the base creature's name is an open compound word, i.e. the komodo dragon. The "komodo" part of the name is crucial to the identity of the creature; komodo dragons are not remotely regular dragons. Is the lycanthrope form a "werekomodo dragon"? The sounds like a dragon species with "werekomodo" as a qualifier. Someone once suggested "komodo weredragon", but that doesn't sound right to me, either. That sounds more like a dragon-based lycanthrope (which it is not), with "komodo" as some sort of qualifier. The final option I suppose would be "werekomododragon", which I favor most, but I still don't feel right about it.

How about the Mongolian death worm? This one not only has spaces in its name, but "Mongolian" is capitalized. Does the lycanthrope form end up being a "wereMongoliandeathworm"?

Answer

The "were" always prefixes a noun and does not prefix an adjective. Also, I don't think taking a group of words and gluing them together would be proper nomenclature.

So I would definitely go with

• Komodo weredragon


• Mongolian death wereworm

and my personal favourite:

• Three-toed weresloth

grammaticality - "One of my friend's father" vs. "one of my friends' father"

What is correct:

• One of my friend's father is serving in the Navy.


• One of my friends' father is serving in the Navy.

Or is it grammatically wrong to have such a possessive construct and the correct form is:

The father of one of my friends is serving in the Navy.

prepositions - "seminar on" or "seminar in"?

Helping a friend writing a description of the courses taken, we seem to not find information about which is the correct preposition to put with "seminar". After looking through the Internet, in particular, university webpages, I found examples of both, so I cannot arrive to a final answer. I tried to check also some grammar references, but I was unsuccessful.

Which one is correct? "seminar on" or "seminar in"? In particular, is it "seminar on topology" or "seminar in topology"? And more generally, which is the rule to use "in" or "on" related to areas and fields of knowledge?

Answer

‘Seminar on X’ and ‘seminar in X’ are both acceptable; which one will sound more natural depends on what X is. ‘Seminar on X’ can be regarded as a shorter version of ‘seminar on the topic of X’, while ‘seminar in X’ can be regarded as a shorter version of ‘seminar in the discipline of X’. Whether ‘on’ or ‘in’ will be more apt thus depends on whether one would be more inclined to say that X is a topic or that it is an academic discipline.

prepositions - Is the structure "X, whom I've had the pleasure of being the mentor of" proper?

John is the mentor of Anna. John introduces Anna as:

1. "Anna, whom I've had the pleasure of being the mentor of".

Would the following be more correct?

2. "Anna, of whom I've had the pleasure of being the mentor"

Answer

The second way is only "more correct" if you don't like ending phrases like that with prepositions. Many people might think it sounds weirdly formal.

grammatical number - Singular or plural verb after collective noun initialism

Are companies/groups of people considered plural? What about their initialisms?

I'm unsure if I should use have (plural verb) or has (singular) in the following situations:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation have developed a prototype ...

or

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has developed a prototype ...

and when using just the initialism:

The FBI have ...

or

The FBI has ...

If I'm referring to the FBI as a group of people, then I'd obviously go with have, whereas if it's an entity on it's own, then it'd be has.

Is there a preferred/recommended use in this case?

Answer

Recommendation:

The FBI have...

if you're writing/speaking British English, and

The FBI has...

if you're writing/speaking American English.

Yanks don't often think of companies/groups of people as collections of individuals, but Brits much more often do. That's my justification for my recommendation.

And if you're writing a formal paper, don't switch back and forth. Journal editors don't like it when you mix BrE and AmE idioms and spellings. They prefer consistency, if they care at all.

commas - Is this kind of syntax correct?

I wonder if a sentence is still correct if you use an introductory adverb as well as an introductory phrase in front of it? If this is the case would you have to use two commas?

Moreover, according to the text, Thomas is the one who breaks down
after the infanticide took place and his heartbreaking cries resound
through the house and even the neighborhood (6).

It sounds weird to me...

There is another reason why I find his sentence strange: it kills the reading flow of the sentence. If you used parentheses, it would sound much better from my point of view, but I don't know if that is a wrong thing to do because I have never seen it before in writing: "Moreover, (according to the text), Thomas is the one..."

Revised version after discussing this in the comments:

Moreover,(according to the text) Thomas is the one who breaks down after the infanticide has taken place, and his heartbreaking cries resound through the house and even the neighborhood.

or

According to the text, moreover, Thomas is the one who breaks down after the infanticide has taken place, and his heartbreaking cries resound through the house and even the neighborhood.

linguistics - How do you proceed from pronouncing "t" in the regular way to t-glottalization, as found in various English accents?

It's just strange to me because "t" is pronounced with the front teeth, while the glottalized "t" is produced with the back of the throat; that seems like quite a noticeable journey that couldn't have happened all at once. If I'm correct, do linguists have any clue what intermediate steps would have been taken, and can someone demonstrate a couple of those pronunciations with English words?

Answer

Short answer: The transition from /t/ to glottal stop does not require intermediate steps.

Explanation:

There are three main factors involved in the production of a consonant: place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing. The glottalization of /t/ is essentially a loss of place.

/t/ is a voiceless alveolar stop. These three words in the name represent the three main factors. Voiceless means there is no voiced 'hum' (as in /d/). Alveolar means that the sound is produced on the alveolar ridge (the place). Stop (also called plosive) means that the sound is made by a full closure of the oral cavity followed by a burst of air.

/ʔ/ is the (voiceless) glottal stop. As you can see by the name, 2 out of the 3 parts of articulating the sound are the same as /t/. Glottal sounds are produced in the glottis itself.

When a consonant that is normally (or formally) articulated in one part of the mouth is articulated instead in the glottis, this is a form of lenition known as debuccalization. As you can see, lenition and debuccalization are phenomena that occur independently in a vast number of languages. It is essentially a "weakening" of a consonant.

Since this is simply the loss of one feature, there are no intermediate steps — except that, in cases of a total and permanent loss of place in some context within a language, there is usually (if not always) a period where there is free variation between the lenited form and the full form, until eventually the full form becomes so rare it falls out of use.

In American English, we currently have free variation in the way we pronounce /t/ at the end of many words, like get, hat, astronaut, and so on. In careful pronunciation, a full /t/-sound (closure followed by release) is made. But often the /t/ is articulated but never released, and in many dialects (including my own), the /t/ is realized as [ʔ], the glottal stop. So, I often say [gɛʔ], [hæʔ], [æstrənɔʔ], and so on. This is an example of an intermediate stage of lenition. Perhaps, in a couple hundred years, speakers of my dialect will never pronounce the /t/ in that context.

grammatical number - Correct plural form of a noun preceded by "zero"

When using zero as a quantifier, is it correct to use the singular form on the object of the quantifier, or the plural form?

It sounds confusing when I put it that way, but what I mean is: Which is correct?

• Your password expires in 0 days.


• Your password expires in 0 day.

Essentially I suppose I'm asking, does "singular" mean "one" or "the opposite of more than one", as zero is not "plural" in the traditional "more than one" sense?

I'm pretty sure "days" sounds correct, but I can't be sure.

Answer

In English, every number that is not 1 is considered plural. The correct sentence is the first you wrote.

Your password expires in 0 days.

hyphenation - Does "Sure fix for conflicts" need a hyphen between "Sure" and "fix"?

A friend is using the tagline Sure fix for conflicts. He says sure fix needs a hyphen (Sure-fix). I'm not sure. Which is correct and why?

word choice - Which pronoun should be used with "anyone"? "They" or "you"?

Sample sentence: If anyone has the files, could (they or you) please upload them to a file-hosting website?

Context: I am writing an email to a group of people requesting that if anyone has the files I mentioned, to please upload those files to a file-hosting website. "Anyone" could be one person or more.

Answer

Surely, my first choice out of your dilemma would be to change the sentence slightly and write "if anyone has the files, please upload them to a file-hosting website".

Otherwise, although I feel that they would be the right pronoun to use to refer to anyone, because you don't know how many people could have the file and also because you don't know whether these people are men or women, still I would write you in the sentence you mention, because the context is rather friendly and they might be interpreted as overly rigid and formal.

grammar - My vs Mine confusion

Is it "They are friends of my son and I" or is it "They are friends of my son and me" or is it this which I think correct "They are friends of mine and my son"?

possessive pronouns - Mass of people its/his/their

In a phrase where the subject is "mass of people", should I use "its"?

e.g.

A mass of people and its flag.

Mass is an abstract word, so it sounds strange to me to use their; but I'm not sure.

EDIT:

Seems that according notional agreement I should use their

but

If the mass of people act like a cohesive body, e.g.

a mass of people is/are united in its/their flag

Is this a situational agreement and is the use of plural forms wrong?

Could you help me?

Why does English employ double possessive pronouns such as theirs and ours?

I am a native speaker of AmE. I understand when and where to use their vs theirs, etc. etc. (i.e. Don't migrate this to ELL!). I've searched the site and google, and I have not quite seen an answer to my question.

Etymonline describes the word theirs as:

possessive pronoun, "their own," early 14c., from their + possessive -s, on analogy of his, etc. In form, a double possessive.

And, their:

plural possessive pronoun, c. 1200, from Old Norse þierra "of them," genitive of plural personal and demonstrative pronoun þeir "they" (see they). Replaced Old English hiera. As an adjective from late 14c. Use with singular objects, scorned by grammarians, is attested from c. 1300, and OED quotes this in Fielding, Goldsmith, Sydney Smith, and Thackeray. Theirs (c. 1300) is a double possessive. Alternative form theirn (1836) is attested in Midlands and southern dialect in U.K. and the Ozarks region of the U.S. Emphasis mine

(Parenthetical question, what do they mean by use with singular objects in this case?)

The entires for our and ours are similar.

Why does English have a double possessive pronoun? And why does modifying it thusly change its usage? Singular-plural possessive pronoun - possessive adjective; double-plural possessive pronoun - possessive pronoun?

Theirs is used when there is not a following noun, but, I don't understand why a double possessive would be used in this way.

The book is theirs.

That is their book.

We cannot say:

The book is their.

nor

That is theirs book.

But, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why making it a double possessive would make this happen!

Answer

I don't know why etymonline calls theirs 'a double possessive', but it's not.

The unfortunate terminology of 'the double possessive', aka 'the double genitive', is not due to the pronoun theirs itself but to the common construction like a friend of theirs where traditional grammar treats the preposition of as another possessive on top of the possessive pronoun theirs.

So in a construction that doesn't contain of, theirs itself is no double possessive:

The book is theirs.

This example of yours, for example, doesn't contain of, so there's only one possessive, the possessive pronoun theirs, which means their book. (Note the subject of the first clause does contain of, so you can call it a double possessive.)

Now, some grammarians don't like the term 'the double possessive/genitive' even for constructions like a friend of theirs.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 468), for example, treats She's a friend of Kim's not as a double possessive/genitive but as a oblique genitive:

...we do not regard of as a genitive case marker, and hence there is only one genitive here, not two.

As for the distinction between their and theirs, CGEL classifies the former as a dependent genitive (possessive) and the latter as an independent genitive (possessive), which easily explains why these don't work:

*The book is their.

*That is theirs book.

grammar - Reading books and checking websites has/have helped them

Which is more correct to say?

Reading books and checking websites has helped them.

Reading books and checking websites have helped them.

pronouns - Something versus anything

"They disregard social conventions without being conscious that they are doing anything extraordinary."

Is it also fine（or more appropriate） to replace "anything" with "something" in the sentence above.?

Whole paragraph:
True eccentrics never deliberately set out todraw attention to themselves. They disregard social conventions without being conscious that they are doing anything extraordinary. This invariably wins them the love and respect of others, for they add colour to the dull routine of everyday life.

Answer

Any and its extensions anything, anywhere, anyone, etc. is a negative polarity item. In other words it is more usual in negations than its some (something etc.) equivalent. For example:

• I don't have any money. (?I don't have some money.)


• I don't have anything to wear. (?I don't have something to wear.)


• I don't know anyone who thinks that. (?I don't know someone who thinks that.)

The sentence They disregard social conventions without being conscious that they are doing anything extraordinary is a far less clear-cut example of negation. But negative polarity is present in the word without. The sentence could be rephrased:

They disregard social conventions and are not conscious that they are

doing anything extraordinary.

This explains the use of anything in the original sentence. Nevertheless, something is also fine in this context - albeit with, for me, a different connotation.

In the original version, the writer is simply saying that eccentrics don't think they are doing anything extraordinary. I get no sense of whether the writer thinks they are or are not doing anything extraordinary.

The version with something (They disregard social conventions without being conscious that they are doing something extraordinary) can be interpreted that the writer does believe they they are doing the extraordinary.

Such an interpretation is given some support by the sentence that follows:

This invariably wins them the love and respect of others, for they add
colour to the dull routine of everyday life.

Can adverb be a subject in english? What part of speech can be a subject?

Many part of speech can be a subject in my native language (Russian)
For example - a noun, a adverb, a pronoun, verb etc.
But I think in English it isn't the same.
So what can be a subject in English?

I know it can be a noun (A dog is barking)
A pronoun (I'm running, everybody needs friends)
Perhaps, "It" is a pronoun in role of subject (It is cold), but I'm not sure.

What parts of speech can be a subject in English?

Answer

Nouns, pronouns, and verbs can serve as subjects.

(noun) The dog ate the cake.

(pronoun) She died after the meal.

(verb, gerund) Eating the cake led to her death.

(verb, infinitive) To eat the cake was a risky move.

For verbs, present participles (often defined as gerunds) or infinitives serve as subjects. (The Critical Reader chooses to specify these in their answer for "What parts of speech can be subjects?") The colloquial explanation, represented in places like ThoughtCo, is that the gerund or infinitive is a verb that serves as a noun phrase, which allows it in turn to serve as a subject.

Other parts of speech are trickier. In general, the words will serve as a noun or noun phrase, most likely due to a process of nominalization or due to an implied noun phrase serving as subject. Note: you want to be deliberate about what you are doing and how the nominalization will be understood; you cannot slap any adjective at the start of any verb and say, "That's my subject."

First, implied noun phrases. Take these examples:

(adjective) Slow and steady wins the race. (Source: idiom)

(adjective) Rare is fine. (Source: Cowboy's Mail Order Bride)

These adjectives have an implied noun phrase that is the subject; they have entered such wide usage that the noun need not be specified. (Examples: slow and steady pacing OR slow and steady action; rare steak.) Context or idiomatic usage suggests how the adjective should be understood.

There are also adjectives and (occasionally) other parts of speech that can be nominalized, or made into nouns:

(nominal adjective / adjective turned into noun) The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

(nominalized preposition) For is used to specify who will receive the gift card.

Usually these forms are treated as nouns.

Finally, and especially with linking verbs, it is possible to move the grammatical subject to the end of the sentence.

Red is the color of my car.

The subject has been moved to the back of the sentence, and another element has been moved to the front (ThoughtCo gives many examples of subject inversion and fronting). The subject is still the color of my car.

meaning - "I just ate them" and "I've just eaten them" — What's the difference in American and in British?

I know there are differences between American and British English in this area. So when answering, please specify whether you speak American or British English.

Answer

The answer is that "I have just eaten them" is normal in British and I think US usage, but "I just ate them" is not normal in British use, or at any rate wasn't until recently (except in the different sense of mplungjan's answer).

The aspectual difference between the simple past and the present perfect is that the perfect is used for past-with-present-relevance, the simple past for, well, simple past.

So "I have eaten it" has some present relevance - perhaps I can still feel the curry burning in my belly; or somebody has just discovered the cake has gone and wants to know where it is now; or I am in the (present) state of having eaten polar bear at some time in my life. "I ate it" is regarding the event on its own without considering any present relevance - even possibly those same acts of eating the curry, the cake and the polar bear.

In a similar way, some expressions of time encompass the present. "Just" and "just now" do, and so normally do "today" and "this afternoon" (assuming it is still this afternoon). "Yesterday", "once", and "this morning" (if it is no longer morning) do not.

In British usage (more than US), we don't tend to use a present-related expression of time with a simple past, or a non-present-related time with a perfect; if we do the latter, it implies that the relevant time is in fact finished.

So (all judgments with regard to UK usage):

• "I have just eaten it" but not "I just ate it" (in that sense)


• "I saw him yesterday" but not "I have seen him yesterday"


• "I have eaten polar bear" and "I ate polar bear once", but not "I have eaten polar bear once"¹.

"I have seen him today" and "I saw him today" are both acceptable, but have slightly different meanings: "I saw him today" implies that the time within which I might have seen him today is over — for example he has gone away. This is even clearer in negative and interrogative cases: "Have you seen him today?" implies that you might still be able to, while "Did you see him today?" implies that you have missed him.

As I say, the judgments above are for UK English: I am aware that US English is not the same in this regard, but I wouldn't like to specify exactly how.

¹ Actually, I've realised that "I have eaten polar bear once" is acceptable, but with a different meaning, "on exactly one occasion" as opposed to "at some time in the past". "I ate polar bear once" is ambiguous between these, but unless "once" is emphasised, will usually mean "at some time in the past". "I have eaten polar bear once" can only mean "on exactly one occasion".

meaning - "Needs repairing" vs. "needs to be repaired"

Do the following two sentences mean the same thing? If so, which is more commonly used?

1. My car needs repairing.


2. My car needs to be repaired.

grammar - where should the adverb 'yet' be put in the sentence?

I am always not sure where to put the adverb 'yet' in a sentence.
In my example below, for me, both versions seem to be correct but if anyone could
double check that would be great.

I was wondering if you have heard anything back from ... regarding my ... yet?

Or

I was wondering if you have yet heard anything back from ... regarding my ... ?

Best wishes!

nouns - Between abstract and concrete

Does such a word that teeters, or overlaps, between abstract and concrete exist?

For instance, consider violence. It's a term that varies in meaning or definition from person to person until the type of violence is given. And while we may have different understandings of what violence is, a major portion of people recognize when violence is occurring. So terms like violence overlap between the concrete and abstract.

This is very different when it comes to terms like faith, which is almost entirely abstract.

word order - Can adjectives be placed before gerunds?

My question relates to the possibility of placing an adjective before a gerund if a sentence begins with the gerund.

For example, I'd like to prepare a list of my skills for a CV like 'Brief reading a text' (or the only option would be 'Reading a text briefly), 'Attentive proofreading' and so on.

Thanks in advance to native speakers for advice!

usage - "You're reading this because..[reason]..aren't you."

I came across an image of a toilet cleaning product, which had the following printed on the label:

You're reading this because you forgot your smartphone when you went to the toilet didn't you

Forgiving the lack of punctuation, someone on the online forum pointed out that the correct format would be "aren't you", not "didn't you".

To me, both make sense, as you could be referring to the first part of the sentence ("you're reading"), or the middle part ("you forgot").
Could they both be appropriate?

american english - Non in front of hyphenated adjective

If one wishes to add "non" in front of a hyphenated adjective, should one add a hyphen after "non?"

Answer

The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition, addresses this question indirectly in section 5.117:

The en dash is also used in place of a hyphen in a compound adjective when one of the elements of the adjective is an open compound (such as New York) or when two or more of the elements are hyphenated compounds:

New York–London flight
post–Civil War period
quasi-public–quasi-judicial body
    but
non-English-speaking countries
not-to-be-forgotten moments

Since your usage is of the latter form (a normally hyphenated element in front of a hyphenated compound adjective), the use of multiple hyphens is therefore recommended:

He was the only non-red-haired person in his entire family.

Which preposition to use with "interface"

What is the best preposition at/for/on to use in sentences like these:

Configure CoS queue parameters at interface

or

Configure CoS queue parameters for interface

or

Configure CoS queue parameters on interface

These sentence fragments are help messages for CLI commands in the networking device. Articles are intentionally omitted to shorten them.

UPDATE #1:

What should the prepositions be if I use Set and Enable instead of Configure?

Enable 'something' on interface

and

Set 'something' on interface

UPDATE #2:

Meaning of these fragments is the following:
There is a device and it has some ports (I call them interfaces). There are some parameters that can be configured for the particular interface. There are some parameters that can be enabled on the interface. There are some attributes that can be set on the interface.

Answer

As an (ex) network engineer, I would use on for the "enable" case, and generally use for in the "QoS parameters" case.

The rationale is that in the former I am performing an action directly on the interface, but in the latter I am performing actions on settings of the interface.

grammar - Is it grammatical to say "I saw her dropping the ticket" as opposed to "I saw her drop the ticket"?

What is the difference between using the past tense and the present participle, since both sentences indicate the speaker witnessed the action of the ticket being dropped?

meaning - What is the difference between valorization and commercialization of education?

What is the difference between valorization and commercialization? And what do precisely each of these words mean, when applied to education?

valorize to enhance or try to enhance the price, value, or status of by organized and usually governmental action [MW]

commercialize to use (something) as an opportunity to earn money [MW]

To me, the meaning of valorization seems to rather be more accurate of how we use the word commercialization. At the same time, different dictionaries present differing definitions and then there are even more different definitions for these words as terms.

That's the reason why I am asking here, hoping that someone familiar with these terms could explain them. What does it mean to commercialize education and what does it mean to valorize education?

meaning - "I’ve just arrived" vs. "I just arrived": Are they both correct? Do they mean the same thing?

My grammar book suggests that when using words like just, that you should “always” use present perfect. So the correct form should be I've just arrived according to my book.

Is this true?

I ask because I see a whole lot of people using I just arrived all over the place. I therefore cannot help but wonder whether this is an incorrect form that is somehow nonetheless in wide use by native speakers, or whether it's also a correct form just with a subtly different meaning.

Answer

Neither. This is a case (one of many) in which the two forms are equivalent in meaning.

This is aided by the fact that in English the two sentences are pronounced identically, since the /vdʒ/ cluster in /ayvdʒəstə'rayvd/ I've just arrived is very difficult to pronounce, and is normally shortened to just /dʒ/, which makes it indistinguishable from I just arrived.

Since people hear them identically, they are apt to spell them identically, especially if they mistakenly believe, as many do, that English spelling represents English pronunciation.

The same phenomenon is responsible for such confusions as I would of gone vs I would have gone, I got a cold vs I've got a cold, etc.

Subjunctive mood: were or was?

Here, I copied a sentence from a book published by Cambridge Press: ''Nusselt number is the ratio of the actual heat transfer to what it would be if there were conduction but no convection.''

This may be a simple question for you. But I confused about the ''were'' in the subordinate clause and supposed it should be was since conduction is in singular form. Could you please explain this issue?
Thanks for your comments.

Answer

This is an example of an "unreal conditional clause".

See:

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/conditional-sentences-was-instead-of-were/

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?

word choice - Which is more correct: "Plug-in" or "plugin"?

What is the correct word, plugin or plug-in? Does it depend from the context?

Answer

As others have mentioned, most dictionaries (including the OED) list plug-in as appropriate. I'd seriously shy away from calling plugin incorrect—I mean, just look how many hits you can get with Firefox and plugin. In my experience, especially with computer programs and on the Internet, plugin is much more common than plug-in. Taking a descriptivist standpoint, I'd put my weight behind plugin.

grammatical number - The last few years "has seen" vs "have seen"?

Consider the following sentences:

The last few years has seen the building of the new church.

and

The last few years have seen the building of the new church.

As a native speaker, both of these sentences "sound" correct to me. Is only one of them correct, are they both correct or is each one only correct in specific circumstances.

This was a question one of my students asked me, so if there is a relevant grammar rule, that would be great.

Answer

Years, being plural, takes the plural form have. But the last few years, being a single span of time, takes the singular form, has.

That's why they both sound okay to you. The first option is generally preferred in formal writing.

grammar - Which is correct (if any): "please let me know what do you think"? or "please let me know what you think"?

I find myself unsure which of the following is more correct:

please let me know what do you think

Or

please let me know what you think

My gut feeling tells me that it's the latter...

Or are both incorrect and there is a better way to say the same thing?

Answer

Please let me know what you think

is correct. Even if do were to be included, the correct form would be

Please let me know what you do think

but this should only be used for emphasis (for example, to contrast with don't think).

grammar - "Four plus two equals six" (or "is equal to six" or "is six")

You write

4 + 2 = 6

and say "four plus two equals (or is equal to or is) six."

In the question “Is equal to” or “equals”, I read the following comment:

Equals is equal being a verb, in the present tense. Is equal to is equal being a predicate adjective, with its auxiliary verb in the present tense. English is full of pairs like this, useful if one needs an extra syllable. [...] – John Lawler Jun 16 at 16:18

I am thoroughly confused about the bit "Is equal to is equal being a predicate adjective, with its auxiliary verb in the present tense". Is the verb in the present tense the word is? and is to the predicate with the adjective being equal?

Also, does the word is represent a verb in the present tense in the phrase, "four plus two is six"?

Finally, could you please provide another example that is useful if one needs an extra syllable.

Yes, I understand that they all mean the same thing. What I'm looking for is a grammatical syntax analysis with more examples, since, as John Lawler says, "English is full of pairs like this, useful if one needs an extra syllable."

(As an aside, I once read that this symbol "=" is called an "equals sign" in British English and is called an "equal sign" in American English. A related post can be found here.)

Answer

If one wants a complete grammatical analysis, one should be prepared for the view that be equal to is a transitive multi-word verb, a single lexeme.

("A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain. Thus, fibrillate, rain cats and dogs, and come in are all lexemes, as are elephant, jog, cholesterol, happiness, put up with, face the music, and hundreds of thousands of other meaningful items in English. The headwords in a dictionary are all lexemes."
(David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003) )

The fact that is equal to etc can readily be substituted by equals etc strongly supports the multi-word single-lexeme analysis. It then becomes arguable whether it is helpful to try to analyse within the fixed expression (along the lines: is equal more closely bound to the 'verb' or the 'preposition'? if the 'adjective'-'preposition' binding is tight, is to better analysed as a particle?).

Of course, the verb-form is not invariant: So, the left-hand side must be equal to the right-hand side.

Also, be equal to meaning measure up to (the demands of) is not synonymous with equal:

Do you think he is equal to the task?

*Do you think he equals the task?

grammar - Using "required" in sentences

In the following sentence, I do not know if the preposition "for" after "required" is correct. I think I can use "to" after "required", but I do not know which one is more grammatically correct? Please help me out with this issue. Thanks!

Solving the mentioned problems can contribute to finding key answers required for enabling this technology.

sentence - How do you capitalize a proper noun such as "iPhone"?

I was always taught to capitalize the first letter of the first word in a sentence, and also the first letter of proper nouns. In the last few years it's been common for certain firms to name their brands something that is always spelled with a small first letter and a capital second letter. It is almost as if they demand the rules of usage are changed. What do you do about this? Where is the inquisition when you need it? Should you start a sentence with "IPhone"? Should you use "iphone" in the middle of a sentence?

Answer

You should never change a brand name. 'iPhone' should always be spelled as 'iPhone,' no matter where in the sentence it is. 'IPhone,' 'iphone,' 'I-phone,' 'i-phone' or 'I phone' are always wrong. 'iPhone' is the only good one:

Good

iPhones are the best selling smartphones.

Wrong

IPhones are the best selling smartphones.

Terrible

Iphones are the best selling smartphones.

This is the same for all brand names, but this can also be for other (nick)names invented by people, for example 'rms' which should always be spelled lowercase.

---

There could be, however, one exception, when the sentence is spelled in all caps, usually for styling purposes:

Good

IPHONES ARE THE BEST SELLING SMARTPHONES.

Acceptable

iPhones ARE THE BEST SELLING SMARTPHONES.

grammar - Could "are he" be correct?

I was just trying to formulate a sentence in an email, and wanted to reference a third person, inquiring as to which of something that person was referring in the forwarded mail message.

Is it:

"About which things is he talking?"

or

"About which things are he talking?"

Just FYI I originally had the "about" at the end. Not grammatically correct but no one talks like that anyway.

There seem to be conflicting rules here, but I don't know which one applies. Normally, with sentences like "What is he doing?" the "is" is part of "is talking," and similarly the second person "are talking." This would indicate that the first version is correct. But you could also argue that the helper verb applies to "things", and so should be "are" because "things" is plural.

I started to think that "is he" is correct, because if you turn the sentence around to answer it, you get "He is talking about those things" and not "he are talking". But still, there are other sentences like "Which gifts is he bringing to the party?" Now that just feels wrong, saying "gifts is" like that. But is it correct?

Answer

As, he is the subject of the sentence here, you need to match the singular, so the correct construction uses is.

About which things is he talking?

Similarly, your other example also needs is for the same reason.

Which gifts is he bringing to the party?

Things and gifts are the objects of these verbs and not the subjects so don't let them fool you. Imagine replacing them with what, for example and see how it sounds.

What is he bringing to the party?

vs.

What are he bringing to the party?

nouns - "The news is good." Why?

We use "the news is good" instead of "the news are good."

What is the rationale behind this? Are there similar situations in English?

Answer

News is uncountable and is used with singular verbs. The -s is there because etymologically, it used to be a plural form. Etymonline says:

late 14c., plural of new (n.) "new thing," from new (adj.), q.v.; after Fr. nouvelles, used in Bible translations to render M.L. nova (neut. pl.) "news," lit. "new things." Sometimes still regarded as plural, 17c.-19c.

As to other nouns like this, I have looked through a number of Wiktionary and Wikipedia categories, and the closest I could come to similar examples is measles and billiards.

Yet another interesting (but not really similar) case is species. Wikipedia says:

Specie and species make a fascinating case. Both words come from a Latin word meaning "kind", but they do not form a singular-plural pair. In Latin, specie is the ablative singular form, while species is the nominative form, which happens to be the same in both singular and plural. In English, species behaves similarly—as a noun with identical singular and plural—while specie is treated as a mass noun, referring to money in the form of coins (the idea is of "[payment] in kind").

indefinite articles - Does one use 'a' or 'an' before the word X-Ray?

I was asking this question on Area 51: "How do I tell if an airport scanner is a X-ray scanner?", but I keep wanting to put an 'an' in front of X-ray because it starts with the 'eh' sound.

So is it 'a' or 'an'?

Answer

Definitely "an". The word X-ray is never pronounced any way other than "exray", and as has been discussed before, the choice of a or an is based solely on pronunciation, regardless of spelling. Since X-ray is pronounced beginning with a vowel, it must be preceded by an.

Why can't the word "can" be used in future tense (will can)?

I'm curious about why the English word can cannot be used in future tense (e.g. will can).

An example unrelated to English is French term je pourrai, but that's exactly what I mean.

Compare German ich werde können which translates exactly to I will be able, and literally to I will can, given that können and can have the same origin. I feel that this is confusing.

Answer

This is a good example of the problems caused by lying to students in saying that will is "The Future Tense". There is no future tense in English. There is likewise no perfect tense, no progressive tense, no pluperfect tense, no future perfect tense. There are also no moods or voices. No matter what you've been taught. Sorry about that.

What English has is a present tense and a past tense, both managed by suffix or root change (deletes/deleted, drives/drove). That's it for tenses. There are various constructions like the Perfect construction, the Progressive construction, the Passive construction, etc. All of them take several words and don't require endings or prefixes, and word order is important.

One of the constructions that occurs in practically every sentence is the Verb Phrase, which usually starts with an auxiliary verb of some sort: some form of be or have for Perfect, Passive, or Progressive, and, at the beginning of the verb phrase, a modal auxiliary verb. When modals occur, they are always at the beginning of the verb phrase, because they only have one form (they are "defective verbs"), and that form is not an infinitive form or a participle form, so it can't go after be or have as the constructions require.

This results in modal auxiliaries always occurring alone at the beginning of a verb phrase -- or inverted with the subject in questions -- whenever they occur; and it also has the effect of limiting modals to one per verb phrase, at the beginning.

Why is this relevant to the "future tense"? Because what students are erroneously taught is not that will is one of the modal auxiliaries, and therefore behaves like can, may, must, should, would, could in not appearing together, but rather that will is "The Future Tense", a different category entirely, which can apply to anything, including uninflectable modal auxiliaries like can. Hence the question.

The answer is that English has special constructions that mean the same as modals, but have infinitive and participle forms, so they can be used in past tense, or in the Perfect or Progressive. These are called Periphrastic Modals, and the one associated with can in the sense you indicate is be able to.

That is, one can't say

• *I will/should can do that by next year.

but one can say, with the same intended meaning,

• I will/should be able to do that by next year.

grammar - "I hope there is no error in my essay" vs "I hope there are no errors in my essay?"

Are both Okay?
I guess the problem is I could have made more than one error, but I could have made only one error

Difference between that and which. Can that follow a comma?

1) Eventually, we developed a strategy, grounded in prospect theory and its associated biases like loss-aversion and availability heuristic, which exploited the tendencies of players to fold too often when they did not have money invested and fold too infrequently when they had money invested.

2) Eventually, we developed a strategy, grounded in prospect theory and its associated biases like loss-aversion and availability heuristic, that exploited the tendencies of players to fold too often when they did not have money invested and fold too infrequently when they had money invested.

My question is whether "which" or "that" is appropriate. Which word is better? Word says that "that" cannot follow a comma. Is there any basis to this?

grammar - Is the sentence "There is a large number of labourers who want to migrate to Japan for work." correct?

There is a large number of labourers who want to migrate to Japan for work.

I type this sentence in a word processor, and it reports an error that "is" should be "are" (subject-verb agreement).

I doubt this is a valid error. Could anyone confirm this?

Is "a software" really never correct?

In France I have always been told that saying "a software" is not correct English (as a nominal compound), and that "a piece of software" or "a software program/package/product/system" must be used instead.

Recently I have doubts... is there any case where it is actually correct?

Examples found on the Internet:

• SalsaJ, a software for data analysis at school


• So if you sold a software which required your customer to pay a monthly fee, [...]

Answer

No, this is always wrong. Both examples you provide contain incorrect usage of the term "software." (A mistake is still a mistake even if many people make it.)

However, there might be special cases where you'd see the article preceding software.

For example:

A software solution would be better for the problem than a hardware one.

The indefinite article "a" modifies "solution", not "software", in this case in spite of preceding "software" in this case.

word choice - Alternative ways to say "I am feeling pushed to the ground"

Assume a get together where a group of friends are having chit chat over tea. Suddenly they plan to pull someone's leg together. No matter what the person in the spotlight says, people are not supporting him and teasing him playfully or in malice. This is the point where the person can use the above statement which means nobody is supporting him. Is there any other way (s)he could say it? I need both the formal and informal ways preferably with a humorous yet firm connotation.

Edit 1: I need an expression which would provide an indication to others to let you go/cut you some slack in a very friendly way like the above the expression does.

grammar - Behavior of a person towards 'others' or 'to other people'. Which is correct?

Our instructor ask us a question about what attitude is and I recited with this answer, "behavior of a person towards others" but she add some words when she write it on whiteboard, "others" to "to other people". Is my sentence valid or lack of some words as what my instructor does?

I'm not really good at English, and it's my first time to ask question here. Please help me, thank you.

Answer

Both sentences are correct, the first one is more common, the second is slightly softer.

nouns - Is the word "management" singular or plural?

Which one of the following is correct?

Management gets its ideas from its employees.
Management gets their ideas from their employees.

grammatical number - "There Is"/"There are" depends on plurality of the first list element or not?

It seems I put a stick in the anthill at ELL.

Bounty assigned by outside party, two lengthy, reference-citing answers, one "-1" (awarded the bounty), one "-2", two others scored "0" and "-2" respectively, the answers suggesting one or the other is correct, 73 comments and no consensus so far - and me, as the asker, lost without a clue what to think of the answers anymore - this is no longer "Learners' Level" question, so I thought I'd bring it here and hear what the experts have to say.

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Original question:

An edit was suggested to my sentence.

There was were an orange, some grapes, two apples and a small pile of cherries on the plate.

In my native language plurality of the verb always follows plurality of the first element on the list. There were an orange,... sounds awkward to me, no matter what follows up. My simple solution was reordering:

There were some grapes, an orange, two apples and a small pile of cherries on the plate.

But that's not the first time I faced this situation and I'd like to know what the rules of grammar say about that - was my editor overzealous or am I trying to copy rules of my language that don't apply in English?

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Someone linked a related question for negatives, where the situation is more clear-cut ("There is no..."). Same applies to connection with "or" apparently, per accepted answer there. Still, nothing for "and".

It seems there is a consensus that in that if the verb goes after the list, it will be plural.

an orange, some grapes, two apples and a small pile of cherries were on the plate.

There doesn't seem to be clear consensus for:

On the plate { was | were } an orange, some grapes, two apples and a small pile of cherries

Adding more to the confusion is the abbreviated form: "There's"

One last note. In North America, at least, there is a widespread use of using a singular form like "there is" and "there was", without regard for the subject item or items, and this "there is" is often shortened to "there's":

There's three apples on the table!

Could you please clarify this mess?

Answer

‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’ deals with this pragmatically, as with much else:

Existential there couples with either singular or plural verbs (there
is / there are, according to the following noun phrase) . . . This
formal agreement is strictly maintained in academic writing. But in
narrative and everyday writing, there is and especially there’s is
found even with plural nouns . . . In conversation the combination of
there’s with a plural noun is in fact more common than there are,
according to the 'Longman Grammar' . . . Negative statements also seem

to attract there’s . . . When a compound subject follows, there’s
rather than there are is selected . . .

In such cases both formal and proximity agreement help to select the
singular verb. These various uses of there’s with plural (or
notionally plural) noun phrases show how the structure is working its
way into the standard. It seems to be evolving into a fixed phrase,
rather like the French C’est . . . serving the needs of the ongoing
discourse rather than the grammar of the sentence.