prepositions - Meaning of ON at the end of a sentence

There is ON at the end of the following sentence.

Remaining aloof was no longer safe under the restored democracy of 403 on.

403 is the year.

I think without it the sentence makes sense enough. I know there is no usual sentence that ends with a preposition and there is no object of it. If I understand it as an adverb I can't find any verb that matches it.

Does it have any special meaning? If so what does it?

Answer

It is the adverb (more usually "onwards" or "onward") indicating the direction in time from that specified in the sentence (403) or context (the restoration of [Athenian] democracy).

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/onwards

The sentence would be understood with "on" omitted, but the usage implies a continuing danger here, as opposed to a brief period during the restoration year/s.

https://sentence.yourdictionary.com/onwards

verb agreement - Number when using "one of those who..."

Which of the following sentences is grammatically correct?

1. He is one of those who prefer studying over traveling.




2. He is one of those who prefers studying over traveling.

Should the verb after the "one of..." clause agree with the subject in number? Or should it just be plural?

Answer

prefer refers to those guys, and should be in the plural - Those guys prefer.

Those guys prefer studying to travelling. He is one of them. He is one of those guys who prefer studying to travelling.

phrase usage - "I too" versus "me too"

I was talking to someone earlier today, and while trying to relate with them, I suddenly found myself trying to decide between "I too" and "me too". I can't quite grasp their differences.

As I understand it, "me too" is valid only on its own, in response to someone's statement.

Person 1: I absolutely love that new album

Person 2: Me too! Doesn't everyone?

Whereas, "I too" works (I believe) in both that scenario, as well as at (is that wording correct?) the beginning of a response phrase.

Person 3: I too, enjoy the album you mentioned.

Regardless of whether I am right or not, can someone please explain the mechanics behind this?

Answer

In modern English, we don't use nominative case Subjects when there isn't a tensed verb in that clause.

It is rare for [him to miss a class].

*It is rare for [he to miss a class]. (ungrammatical)

The proform too can stand in for a tensed verb phrase. However, because it is not actually a verb and therefore has no tense, we cannot use a nominative Subject with it:

• *I too! (ungrammatical)




• Me too! (grammatical)

grammar - Should "Big Data" be capitalised?

In paragraphs should the term "Big Data" be capitalised? I seam to be finding contradicting information as it is a name for something but also a common term.

Which is correct?

When the volume and complexity of this cannot be supported by off-the-shelf IT solutions, custom IT frameworks are needed; this results in
the data being classed as Big Data.

or

When the volume and complexity of this cannot be supported by off-the-shelf IT solutions, custom IT frameworks are needed; this results in
the data being classed as big data.

Please also explain why - not just which is right!

Differences between Verb + to be + adjectives and Verb + adjective

If you have a more illustrative title, feel free to change it. I searched but I couldn't find one.

This may be an easy and trivial question; if so, I am sorry.

What are the differences between these two sentences?

These two guys seem to be inseparable.

These two guys seem inseparable.

I can intuitively say that the latter one is grammatically wrong. Could you please explain?

EDIT: What I think is John Lawler's and FumbleFingers' answers are worth to read. The reason why I noted that someone who wants to learn the answer of this question, accidentally misses FumbleFingers' answer.

Answer

Your intuition is incorrect. They are both grammatical. And they are identical in meaning. The only difference between these two sentences is how many syllables they have.

The cluster to be, consisting of the infinitive complementizer to, plus the predicate adjective auxiliary infinitive be, is frequently deleted after the predicate seem (or appear) before a predicate adjective, like inseparable (meaning 'very close friends'). There is no specific rule saying when to perform this deletion; it's a matter of individual choice, like many other rules in English.

The reason why to be can be deleted here is that it has no meaning, and serves merely to mark the complement clause as an infinitive (required after seem) and the predicate of the complement clause as a predicate adjective (required before inseparable). So it's dispensable.

There are lots of syntactic rules (which means "processes", btw, and not rules for "Correctness" -- think of them as grammatical apps in your brain) in English that have the effect of shortening, moving, or deleting such frequently-occurring but semantically null chunks, and otherwise make speech faster. And supposedly easier.

Easier for the speaker, anyway. They don't always make things easier for the understander, or the learner, though. Frequently you have to put all that stuff back into the sentence to make it clear.

This rule (or app) is To-be-Deletion; a similar one for a different situation is Whiz Deletion.

grammaticality - What's wrong with 'caught no mice'?

In Kipling's story "Below the Mill Dam", this passage occurs:

"He shouted large and vague threats to my address, last night at tea, that he wasn't going to keep cats who 'caught no mice'. Those were his words. I remember the grammar sticking in my throat like a herring-bone."

The speaker, like all cats, is fastidious to the point of pedantry, so the point of grammar can only be a trivial, or even ridiculous, one; but even so I can't see anything wrong with the expression. Can any fellow-pedant, or cat, enlighten me?

Answer

It's the verb tense.

*I'm not going to keep cats who caught no mice.

is wrong, it should be "catch no mice" or "who have caught no mice."

grammaticality - Mix active and passive voice in the thesis

I am starting to write my thesis and was told not to use passive voice. But the active voice pronouns "I" and "we" do not sound right somehow and I even found this link How to Write... encouraging active voice yet instructing not to use first person pronouns.

So I am planing to mix active voice with passive voice, such that when I refer to my work specifically I will use passive voice and else I will use active voice. I am not a native English speaker, but in my language this sounds fine. Moreover this link Mix... says it is okay in English too.

Is this good practice in dissertations?

If not is there any other solution to this problem?

For instance in the abstract I want to say "In this thesis I prove that the...". How can I write this sentence in active voice without using I?
Thanks a lot.

I believe my question is different from Style Question: Use of "we" vs. "I" vs. passive voice in a dissertation as I am asking about mixing two voices in same document specifically and not about using we vs I.

Answer

This is a tough question. I have faced it myself.

You are caught in a tug-of-war between differing schools of thought in the matter. Unfortunately, it is likely that at least one professor on your dissertational committee feels strongly in the matter. Fortunately, if you just accept your advisor's advice in the matter, then the professor in question will almost certainly take the argument to your advisor and pass your thesis. What you cannot afford to do is to buck your advisor.

Abstracts regrettably are often badly written. The most standard style, recommended by the best editors of U.S. journals, seems in my experience to be not "In this paper I prove that the ..." but merely "It is proved that the ..." or, better, "That the ... is proved." This is not so much English as Abstractese, of course, but Abstractese actually serves a valid purpose. It is a dialect worth mastering.

Regarding the active and passive voices, you have never mentioned your major, but there simply exists no consensus for technical, mathematical and philosophical papers, which are not literature and do not benefit as much as literature does from the active voice. Still, English does like the active voice as a rule. My own view, after many years of trying both styles, is that the passive voice really is better for the kind of paper or thesis in question—but as I said, my view counts for nothing here. Go with your advisor's preference. Even if your advisor's preference disagrees with your own, you will learn something by trying it.

Incidentally, mixing voices in the specific manner you suggest is not always easy but can be done to pleasing effect. Of course you should speak of the work of others in the active voice, as you suggest. The passive voice is usually silly to use in that context.

Good question.

Differences in Past Tense: 'used to have' vs. 'had' (non-native speaker)

I don't understand the difference between these sentences. Is there a special usage for each?

I used to have three cats

and

I had three cats

grammar - Existential sentence...in the passive voice?

Now, a friend over the internet wanted me to explain the passive voice to him. He began by providing his story's "readability statistics" of Microsoft Word, which said that 7% of his sentences were passive. Luckily, this story was at my disposal, so I investigated whether the statistic was correct or not. Then I came to this sentence:

There was something placed on the table...

First off, existential sentences are "newish" to me, but I believe that to be one. I also believe it's passive, but I'm unsure. I made several google searches, with only one outside of google books (the book was probably too advanced for me) talking about it. Now the reason that I think that is passive is the same reason why the person made that post (but in reverse). When turned into a nonexistential sentence it is passive (EDIT: I've been notified that the nonexistential sentence doesn't correspond to was placed but rather had been placed):

Something had been placed on the table [by X]...

Although, another reading could be that it isn't passive. Placed on the table may be seen as a (past) participial phrase modifying something. This interpretation seems untenable to me.

So am I right to think that this is a passive existential sentence?

Answer

This is an example of Whiz deletion. The sentence is short for:

• There was something which had been placed on the table...

The relative pronoun which and the past perfect form of BE (had been) have been omitted. This is a type of reduced relative clause. For more info on Whiz deletion see this post of John Lawler's on Whiz deletion, and also visit the link therein.

The upshot of this is that your sentence is not a passive 'existential' sentence. It is a case of an 'existential' sentence containing a relative clause. The relative clause is modifying the noun something, and this clause does indeed contain a passive.

Hope this helps!

adjectives - use of "as that of" as comparative and possessive case following it

which of the following usage are right ?

1) The life of the rich is as peaceful as that of the poor.
2) the life of the rich is as peaceful as that of the poor's.

3) Your bicycle is as beautiful as that of his.
4) your bicycle is as beautiful as that of him.

now if second sentence is wrong then third sentence should also be wrong.
please explain. I have seen many a time a possessive case followed by "as that of" . so when can we use a possessive case after " as that of"

grammatical number - What is the correct plural form of the word "forum"?

"Fora vs Forums"

I understand that the word "forums" is more acceptable than "fora" because anyone can understand its meaning today and that English is a living language so it's adapting, but except for what opinion each of us have for it, the real question is: What is the correct form to use?

Two points to consider about it:

1. Why the plural form of this Latin word should be excluded? I.e. why "data" instead of "datums", "bacteria" instead of "bacteriums", "alumni" instead of "alumnuses", "media" instead of "mediums" and so on?




2. Why people use the plural form when they usually mean their singular one? The word "fora" refers to several places for discussion but usually the people name their web board as "forums", even if they mean just one.

Answer

This lack of respect for the language of origin not a phenomenon unique to English. When a word is borrowed into one language from another, unexpected things can happen.

I would argue that, for many examples you've given in your question, the actual perception of a singular-plural relationship is messy in practice, and the application of the plural is inconsistent.

Data: Using data as a collective noun with singular agreement is more common than using it with plural agreement. More in another thread from this site.

Alumni: I have heard as many people also use alumni for the singular, or even alum, as I have heard use alumnus for the singular. I imagine my experience with this word is typical (at least in the US), though certainly not universal. In any case, it is messy.

Media: The words media and medium don't even seem to correspond in any meaningful way in actual English usage. The word media has forked off and become a different word entirely. The word media is clearly used as a collective singular noun, as shown in newer constructions like multimedia (not multimedium even though we don't say multistages, multicores, multicycles, multistories, etc.). You will find few people who will ever say "Mass Medium". We talk about someone having "media savvy" even though we wouldn't say "computers savvy" (even though they can work with more than one computer). This is because, in English, these sorts of constructions always use the singular noun, whether it is collective or not. The way that media is used is evidence of how the word is actually parsed, perceived, and used by English speakers.

Another example of how foreign language morphology often doesn't mesh well: people try to pluralize octopus and virus as octopi and viri/virii, respectively. Virus was a mass noun in Latin, where we got the word. The word octopus comes from Greek and would take the plural form octopodes in Greek.

My main point is this: there is only a weak, inconsistent application of this -us to -a or -us to -i to begin with. So forums (like statuses and others) is a word even though we also sometimes have this other rule. Our language seems to continually push us towards either dropping the foreign pluralization in some way or another, or reanalyzing the plural as another distinct word. So I see this confusion as the language trying to mash these words around to make them fit our language naturally.

If we hadn't become so darn literate and knowledgeable in the past few centuries, I imagine these plurals would have regularized by now :)

grammar - 'Editors' picks' Vs. 'Editor's picks'

Some websites use Editors' picks while others use Editor's picks .

Which one of these is correct?

Is Editors' picks correct when the publication have more than one editor?

Answer

Well, depends on how many editors there are.

If you have one Editor, her pick is the Editor's pick. (The pick of the Editor.)

If you have three, their pick is the Editors' pick. (The pick of the Editors.)

punctuation - How to punctuate speech

I am writing speech such as:

"There is just one problem" said she "I don't think my friend will
like it."

What is the correct way of punctuating this? I could put up to three full stops in the text but I am not confident.

Answer

This is a matter of style, like all issues of punctuation, and as such you should consider adhering to the the rules of your manual of style. Since you've already decided to confuse your reader by salting your prose with "a little poetry," you may well decide to adopt your own idiosyncratic standard of punctuation. I, myself, prefer the Chicago Manual of Style, which recommends ending a quoted first declaration with a comma and the speaker-identifying clause with a period:

"There is just one problem," she said. "I don't think my friend will like it."

Should we use past tense in "Lugo admitted he is the father"?

In this sentence, should the is be a was?

On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

Answer

On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

Boofus McGoofus got this right. I am just going to expand on his answer. The heuristic rule taught to ESL learners is that the past tense should be used for indirect quotations, as in

Lugo: "I admit I am the father of a child conceived with V.C."

Indirect quotation form:

On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

But, this rule doesn't have to be applied in the case that the situation is still true, so is can be used. However, in a sentence like

On April 13, 1801, Lugo admitted he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

"is" would be a little strange because both Lugo and his child are long since gone. So basically the heuristic rule can be broken in the case that the quoted fact is still true.

terminology - What do you call a pair of words with opposite meanings that differ only by a prefix?

In general, words with opposite meanings are called antonyms. Is there a word that describes the subset of antonyms that are different only by a prefix where the prefix negates the meaning of the root word?

For instance, hot and cold are antonyms, but don't share a root and would not be described by the term I am looking for.

Paired and unpaired are antonyms and share the same root paired. These words would be described by the term I am looking for.

Other examples:

• Typical - Atypical


• Intended - Unintended


• Enfranchised - Disenfranchised

Lost positives would be a special case of this type of word where only the negated sense of the word is in use, e.g. disgruntled is a commonly used word, but gruntled is not.

A bonus answer would point to a list of such negating prefixes.

Answer

There's a book that might interest you about antonyms in English.

Antonyms in English: Construals, Constructions and Canonicity
by Steven Jones

There's a whole chapter on the difference between "canonical antonym pairs" (such as good/bad) and what the author call "negated antonymous" words (such as good/not good) and if they're an affixal or non affixal negation (such as not happy vs unhappy) . On page 151 the author call these pairs of words that differ only by their affix...

affixal antonyms

as opposed to "lexical antonyms"
note that by using the plural of antonym it implies automatically the pair of words with opposite meaning, there's no need to add "pair".

comparisons - like that of + possessive noun

I came across this sentence:

"His memory was like that of a baby."

I was wondering why the possessive "baby's" wasn't used and why "baby" is acceptable whereas the possessive form is required in this sentence:

"Ian's car was like that of his."

word choice - "What a beautiful day" or "What the beautiful day"? And "why"?

Although we know that day which we are talking about, why don't we say "What the beautiful day!" instead of "What a beautiful day!" ?

In addition, a friend of mine explained the following, but in my mind it is not persuasive—it has not convinced me yet. I am confused.

Generally, we use 'a' for a generic thing, when many of them exist, and use 'the' when there is only one of them. This also depends on the context. Here, we've experienced many other days, and will most likely experience many more, so it's 'a' beautiful day. For another example, you might go to purchase 'a car' (since the place you're going has many), but might take 'the car' to work (if you only own one car yourself). In politics, you would have 'a Senator' (since there are 100, and two to each state), but 'the President' (since there is only one at a time).

grammar - "The government 'is' always changing 'their' mind" in AmEng

Why would using the construct "is/their" instead of "is/its" in the following examples likely be frowned upon by some native speakers and marked as incorrect on tests?

The class is working on its assignment. (AmEng)

The class is/are working on its/their assignment. (BrEng)

The class is working on their assignment. (disputed usage)

-and-

The government is always changing its mind. (AmEng)

The government is/are always changing its/their minds. (BrEng)

The government is always changing their mind. (disputed usage)

-and-

The team is putting on its uniforms. (chiefly AmEng)

The team are putting on their uniforms. (chiefly BrEng)

The team is putting on their uniforms. (disputed usage)

-and-

The Smith family is at the beauty parlor getting its hair and nails done for the wedding. (chiefly AmEng)

The Smith family are at the beauty parlor getting their hair and nails done for the wedding. (chiefly BrEng)

The Smith family is at the beauty parlor getting their hair and nails done for the wedding. (disputed usage)

On the other hand, why might other native speakers consider this usage to be acceptable?

Answer

The disputed usage is due to how although team, government, class, etc., are singular nouns, suggesting that they should be conjugated with the singular verb "is", they are made up of many people. And so, to say that the government is always changing their mind makes sense when you think about so many people in the government changing their mind, but not if you adhere to the strict usage of singular verbs with a singular noun.

grammar - Subject/Complement Agreement. How to describe problem with "The thing is the objects."

In my ell answer, version 32, I provided the following, problematic, wording (especially bold italic), and I need help to better understand this issue so I can fix my answer:¹

The thing is the books. (Reduced form of Sentence 2.a)

Fundamentally, Sentence 2.a (the so-called "correct" answer), is grammatically defective. Recall there is another grammatical rule: the subject and subject's complement should match in number.

A clarification is needed here. I am not suggesting here, in this EL&U question, that there is any such singular grammatical rule as indicated in the quote above. The quote continues as follows:

The reduced sentence makes the disagreement between the subject's and complement's plurality obvious. What is one to do? Language is linear and we know "The thing is X" is better than "The thing are X", so we go with the former, which is the subject-verb agreement rule. But what is "the books" then? It must be thought of as a collective noun, even if it doesn't look or feel like one. Forcing something to be a collective noun is related to the idea of notional agreement.

Others noted that grammatically defective is too strongly worded. There is no such "grammatical rule" for subject/complement agreement. Please help me understand/improve upon my line of thought here. I'm stating that Sentence 2.1 presents a fundamental "conflict" or "error" (however one might define error) at some level (morphological, syntax, grammatical, semantic):

The thing is the books. (Or, "The thing is the objects.")

Based on the "obvious" morphosyntactic plurality conflict, the above sentence feels so wrong that I think many native speakers would think it "simply" grammatically incorrect. However, @F.E. gives counter examples:

And here are some more grammatical examples, where the number of subject and predicative complement don't agree: "They were a problem to us all", "That so-called work of art is simply four pieces of driftwood glued together" (CGEL, page 254-5). As CGEL says: "What is required is semantic compatibility, not syntactic agreement . . .". There are more examples on page 512: "The only thing we need now is some new curtains", "The major asset of the team is its world-class opening bowlers", "Our neighbors are a nuisance", "This gadget is five different tools in one".

I think all the examples given above can be explained as notional agreement.

Question 1: If we explain this phenomena in terms of notional vs syntactic agreement, where does "grammatically correct/incorrect" fit in?

Question 2: Can a simple sentence such as "The thing is the objects." be grammatically incorrect while more complex sentences such as "The thing is four pieces of driftwood glued together." be grammatically correct? (The answer, in my mind, must be no; this is my conundrum.)

Question 3: Would it be better to say that Sentence 2.a has a low level of (linguistic) grammaticality?

Question 4: How about a low level of gradient well-formedness and that it's semantically difficult to be (linguistically) acceptable?

Question 5: Do we simply draw a hard line and say "The thing is the objects." is 100% grammatically correct? I didn't particularly like this option based on intuitive notions of "grammatically correct".

---

^{1. Please help me and be kind; I'm trying to improve my understanding. I'm looking for cool, objective advice on how to look at this.}

^{I numbered my questions so they can be easily referenced, if desired. My preference is the final answer would sufficiently answer all the questions, but of course that can be done explicitly or implicitly.}

Answer

The thing is the books.

As the preponderance of comments suggests, an appropriate way to describe the grammar of this sentence, along with a host of others just like it, is: it is aces:

Exclamation that expresses something as being exceedingly good.
Urbandictionary.com

Divorcing the reduced construction from its larger context might give some native speakers pause, because the reduction eliminates contextual signals of the idiomatic usage:

thing

noun

6 (the thing) informal Used to introduce or emphasize an important
point:

ODO

One might argue that the thing is the books is inappropriate for a formal lecture or paper, but one cannot argue that it is grammatically defective. The reduced expression is correct, and in its original context, it doesn't sound the least bit strange:

The only thing that I want you to hit right now is the books.

One might forgive an untrained writer for the erroneous proximity agreement, and even decipher the meaning of it in the full sentence:

*The only thing that I want you to hit right now ?are? the books.

But it is, in fact, erroneous proximity agreement between the verb and the predicative complement, as the reduced construction reveals:

*The thing ?are? the books.

It is one thing to forgive an error. It is quite another thing to teach an error, and the OP's rule may seem correct under cursory inspection, but it is spurious. Must the subject and subject complement match in number?

The only reason the thing is the books might sound strange is that our ears are more familiar with common predicative expressions of similar construction:

• The girls are musicians. But not: The girls are musician.


• The car is a clunker. But not: The car is [the] clunkers.


• The actors are men. But not: The actors are man.

Even if the vast majority of predicative complements happens to match the number of the subject, there is no universal syntactical rule requiring it. Consider how simple it is to generate exceptions to this imaginary rule:

• Taxes are the issue. Or The issue is taxes.


• The prices are my concern. Or My concern is the prices.


• The mosquitos are his problem. Or His problem is the mosquitos.


• Her clothes are the point. Or The point is her clothes.


• Flowers are today's subject. Or Today's subject is flowers.

In the five constructions above, mismatching the number of the subject and predicative complement works in both directions:

plural X are singular Y
AND
singular Y is plural X.

The reason is quite simple: regardless of which is the subject, the predicative syntax cooperates with the semantics of the singular noun to put the plural noun in a single collective bucket. An idiomatic usage of the thing exerts the same collectivizing influence on the books:

• The books are the thing. Or The thing is the books.

The thing is singular, and the writer has chosen to equate the books with the thing. Apparently, the writer intends the reader to recognize the collective nature that turns the books into the thing. Should the reader respect the intentions of the writer, or cast pseudo-grammatical insults at the writer?

---

Prescriptive grammarians presume to keep our language "manageable" by giving arbitrary orders to native speakers. Deep in their intuitive understanding of how English really works, native speakers know better, but tragically, they cave in to the intimidation of seventy-five-cent obfuscations like morphosyntactic plurality conflict. [People who can say such big words with presumptive authority probably know more than us, right?]

Since there is no morphosyntactic plurality conflict in the sentence, what is it that bothers the prescriptive grammarian? It is the words, the intelligent arrangement of the words, and the intelligent speaker's refusal to fill the erroneous prescription. Please notice the previous sentence:

It is the words [that bother the prescriptive grammarian].

We might call it a dummy-subject, but it is singular, because the larger context invited it to match the interrogative what is it. The syntax of English requires the verb to match the singular subject with the singular form: is. After that, the predicative complement offers an intelligent answer to the question: the words bother the prescriptive grammarian. Again, notice how the larger context welcomes the plural words, because a long list of perfectly intelligent constructions irritates prescriptive grammarians.

The coup de grâce for the prescriptive grammarian's imaginary morphosyntactic plurality conflict is that the sentence answers the question with a compound complement in addition to a plural complement:

It is the words, the intelligent arrangement of the words, and the intelligent speaker's refusal to fill the erroneous prescription.

Semantics is about the meaning of words. Syntax is about the intelligent arrangement of words in sentences. When native speakers understand they are not sick, they just refuse to fill the erroneous prescription. The thing is the books is not at all grammatically defective, and the prescriptive grammarian exposes his own ignorance of English grammar by asserting the imaginary defect.

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Question 1: If we explain this phenomena [sic] in terms of notional vs
syntactic agreement, where does "grammatically correct/incorrect" fit
in?

The premise of contradiction is flawed. From grammar.about.com, the definition of notional agreement is:

Agreement (or concord) of verbs with their subjects and of pronouns
with their antecedent nouns on the basis of meaning rather than

grammatical form. Also known as synesis.

The singular verb is agrees with the subject, so it is agreement, not "notional agreement." Even if there were a universal syntactical rule requiring the agreement of the subject and the predicative complement, it would be a discrete rule with no hard and fast bearing on the agreement between subject and verb. Regardless, the predicative syntax operates with the semantics of the singular subject to collectivize the plural predicative complement.

---

Question 2: Can a simple sentence such as "The thing is the objects."
be grammatically incorrect while more complex sentences such as "The

thing is four pieces of driftwood glued together." be grammatically
correct? (The answer, in my mind, must be no; this is my conundrum.)

Although confused prescriptive grammarians might hope to salvage their sullied reputations, the simple sentence is just as correct as the more complex sentence, because in both situations, the predicative syntax operates with the semantics of the singular noun to collectivize the plural noun.

In the more complex sentence, the the semantics and syntax of the modifying phrase glued together reinforce the collectivization of the perfectly grammatical reduced expression: The thing is four pieces of driftwood. Please, notice that even this non-idiomatic use of The thing works quite well to break the imaginary rule about matching the number of subject and complement.

---

Question 3: Would it be better to say that Sentence 2.a has a low
level of (linguistic) grammaticality?

Since the expression is perfectly grammatical, it might be better to say that the prescriptive grammarian making such a claim has a low level of insight into English grammar.

---

Question 4: How about a low level of gradient well-formedness and that
it's semantically difficult to be (linguistically) acceptable?

Since the expression is well-formed and quite easy to understand, only a frustrated prescriptive grammarian refusing to abandon an imaginary rule would find it difficult to accept.

What is truly unacceptable is instructing students to break a real syntactic rule for the sake of applying a spurious rule. It would seem acceptable to lay out a descriptive rule for students: The subject complement normally agrees with its subject.

---

Question 5: Do we simply draw a hard line and say "The thing is the
objects." is 100% grammatically correct? I didn't particularly like
this option based on intuitive notions of "grammatically correct".

Intuition informed by error is erroneous intuition. Native English-speaking Everyman has drawn an intelligent intelligible line, and most intelligent people are delighted to talk and write on Everyman's side of the line. What is it that bothers the prescriptive grammarian?

It is semantics, syntax, and the intelligent speaker's refusal to fill an erroneous prescription.

"Sally & Rhod's Wedding" - where should the apostrophe go?

"Sally & Rhod's Wedding" - where should the apostrophe go?

Answer

You have it correct. You would not want to place the apostrophe after the s in Rhod. That would imply that it belonged to multiple Rhods. (i.e. Rhods')

Plural possessive with compound subject

Which of the following is correct?

• John and Becky's knowledge


• John's and Becky's knowledge

vocabulary - Where do you come in your family?

I am looking for some common questions used to ask about a person's birth order in their family (to ask if he/she is first, second, third, etc. child).
Do the following questions sound natural?
Where do you come in your family?
How-manyth child are you in your family?

Are there any other alternatives?

Nested quotation with ellipsis

Suppose that Mr. X writes a book that says the following:

In his essay on biscuits, Mr. Y says "the crux . . . is the apostrophe" which goes to show that you can't trust everything you hear.

Suppose now that I wish to write an essay of my own, and that I wish to embed thecited excerpt from Mr. X's book as an inline quotation in the essay. My essay would then look something like this:

Via his publications on philanthropic metaphysics, Mr. X has been foundational in the development of modern anthrophysiology. As Mr. X writes in his book Something Fishy, "In his essay on biscuits, Mr. Y says "the crux . . . is the apostrophe" which goes to show that you can't trust everything you hear" (Mr. X, 2015). This book Something Fishy, in particular, has been very well received by the academic and philanthropic communities.

Note that the ellipsis in my essay will not be due to an omission of my own! It will be due to an omission made my Mr. X in his quotation of Mr. Y.

Here is my question: should I make some special note or mark in my essay so as to indicate that the ellipsis in my quotation is not due to an omission by my self?

Answer

To indicate that the ellipsis occurred in Mr. X's version of the text, you can make that fact explicit in the parenthetical note where you identify the source of the quotation. This is consistent with the treatment endorsed by Chicago Manual of Style, fifteenth edition (2003):

11.70 Italics added. An author wishing to call particular attention to a word or phrase in quoted material may italicize it but must tell readers what has been done by means of such formulas as "italics mine," "italics added," "emphasis added," or "emphasis mine." This information appears either in parentheses following the quotation or in a source not to the equation. ...

Occasionally it may be important to point out that italics in a quotation were indeed in the original. Here the usual phrase is "italics in the original" or, for example, "De Quincey's italics."

Instead of italics in a quoted block of text, you're dealing with ellipsis in such a block, but the situation calls for similar handling. In identifying the source of the ellipsis in your quotation, you can't simply say "ellipsis in original" because the reader might stumble over the issue of whether you mean X's original or Y's original. Hence, "X's ellipsis" may be the simplest and clearest explanatory wording to use. That yields this form of your paragraph:

Via his publications on philanthropic metaphysics, Mr. X has been foundational in the development of modern anthrophysiology. As Mr. X writes in his book Something Fishy, "In his essay on biscuits, Mr. Y says 'the crux . . . is the apostrophe' which goes to show that you can't trust everything you hear" (Mr. X, 2015; X's ellipsis). This book Something Fishy, in particular, has been very well received by the academic and philanthropic communities.

You'll notice that I also altered the embedded quotation marks from double quotation marks to single quotation marks in order to avoid clashing double quotation marks. If you are using standard U.S. style conventions, the embedded quotation marks should be single, and the surrounding quotation marks double; in standard UK style, I believe, the positions are reversed.

Ultimately we're discussing an arbitrary approach to styling a complicated quotation, and various alternative approaches are undoubtedly possible. The important point, as Chicago emphasizes, is not to distract readers with multiple approaches within a single book or essay: "Consistency in usage throughout a work is essential."

pronouns - "that" or "this"

I know a trivial difference of "that" and "this" uses. Such as the difference between "this chair" and "that chair".
But I don't understand one case. When one person is coming into a room and another has been doing something. And the first one asks him "Why are you doing that?". I heard about the same questions with "that" in many analogous situations in different movies. And the main question is why "that", not "this". I think that "this" more fits here, because a situation is in front of an asking person.

Answer

Although the action may be taking place in front of the person asking the question, it is nevertheless taking place at a distance, both physically and situationally. It's the OTHER person who is performing the action, and so it's taking place 'over there', in a different personal space. Why are you doing this, on the other hand, would often refer to an action that affects both parties.

articles - Difference between "a" and "the"?

I have a question regarding the usage of articles.
What is the difference between "a" and "the"?

Why do I need to use "a" in "that was a winter I"ll never forget."? Can I use "the" instead?

Also, why do I need to use "the" in "that was the winter we went to Norway"?

Thank you very much!!^^

Answer

The is used to refer to specific or particular nouns; a is used to modify non-specific or non-particular nouns.

the = definite article

a = indefinite article

For example, if I say, "Let's read the book," I mean a specific book. If I say, "Let's read a book," I mean any book rather than a specific book.

Another example, "I went to a forest. *The forest was big.". In this first forest was indefinite one, and after I said the first sentence it became definite one and used the instead.

And in your example, winter is indefinite on "that was a winter I"ll never forget." and become definite and used the in "that was the winter we went to Norway".

Reference

conditional phrases

I am confused regarding conditional. I know, for example, if I say:

If he had not insulted me, I wouldn't have slapped him.

this means in reality, he insulted me and I slapped him, but if I am talking about this incident with my friend and my friend says:

You shouldn't have slapped him

and then I ask my friend:

If he had insulted you, what would you have done?

in this situation if my friend says:

If he had insulted me, I wouldn't have slapped him

I know this mean in reality he didn't insult my friend, and this is confusing part. When my friend says "I wouldn't have slapped him" in the above context, does this mean in reality my friend slapped him or not?

differences - "identical with" vs. "identical to"

I find myself always wondering which is the grammatically correct expression or, provided that both are correct, whether there are differences between their meaning. One example:

Passage A in this book is identical to/with passage B in that book.

To me it seems as if both could be used here.

Nonetheless, someone on the net claims that his university's style sheet says that "identical to" is grammatically incorrect and ought to be avoided. (I mention this just as an example)

Yet, the online version of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary allows both and even makes a difference between their meaning:

Her dress is almost identical to mine.

and

The number on the card should be identical with the one on the chequebook.

Use of "THE" article in passage

In some passage, I've noticed that the "the" article is used before some words at the first time but it is not used at the second time before the words.

As example, In this passage:

You might be wondering about the origin of the C language and where it got its name. C was created by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1972. The language was created for a specific purpose: to design the UNIX operating system now known as Linux. From the beginning, C was intended to be useful—to allow busy programmers to get things done.

Because C is such a powerful and flexible language, its use quickly spread beyond Bell Labs. Programmers everywhere began using it to write all sorts of programs. Soon, however, different organizations began utilizing their own versions of C, and subtle differences between implementations started to cause programmers headaches. In rresponse to this problem, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) formed a committee in 1983 to establish a standard definition of C, which became known as ANSI Standard C. With few exceptions, every modern C compiler has the capability to adhere to this standard.

ow, what about the name? The C language is so named because its predecessor was called B. The B language was developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Labs. You can guess why it was called B.

Ref: Teach yourself C in 21 Days. Bradley L. Jones, ‎Peter Aitken, ‎Dean Miller. 2013.

You may noticed in the passage that, "the" used before Bell Laboratories at the first time but the second time, the article "the" is not used. Why?

Is this is a rule of article? Or something else?

questions - Which one is right "Think bad of someone" or "Think badly of someone"?

1. In my opinion, "Think badly of someone" is right. But when I was watching a Vietnamese film with English subtitles "Think bad of me".
   
   Apologize for my bad English.

Present Perfect or Past Simple to express duration in the past?

Have you ever danced?

This is kind of a usual question. What if I want to ask someone about his experience and find out how long it lasted. Can I say

Have you ever danced for 5 hours?

(and we're just sitting in a cafe and talking about it) Or do I have to put it like this

Did you ever dance for 5 hours?

clauses - Is this dependent or independent sentence?

"Making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her."

If it is an independent clause, could you please tell which is the subject and which is the verb.

grammar - Why is there no plural indefinite article?

The takes either a singular or a plural subject. A/an only takes the singular.

When we pluralize a noun preceded by an indefinite article, we simply drop the article (sometimes replacing it with some). Why is this?

---

3 years later:

Whilst on a separate goose-chase, I came across Greg Carlson's 1977 paper A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural, which addresses this issue in refreshing detail. It does not answer my question etymologically, but it substantiates the premise that the so-called null determiner is ambiguous:

ABSTRACT. It is argued that the English ‘bare plural’ (an NP with plural head that lacks a
determiner), in spite of its apparently diverse possibilities of interpretation, is optimally represented in the grammar as a unified phenomenon. The chief distinction to be dealt with is that between the ‘generic’ use of the bare plural (as in ‘Dogs bark’) and its existential or ‘indefinite plural’ use (as in ‘He threw oranges at Alice’). ‘Ihe difference between these uses is not to be accounted for by an ambiguity in the NP itself, but rather by explicating how the context of the sentence acts on the bare plural to give rise to this distinction. A brief analysis is sketched in which bare plurals are treated in all instances as proper names of kinds of things. A subsidiary argument is that the null determiner is not to be regarded as the plural of the indefinite article a.

The primary distinction is summed up in these examples:

Weeds grow refers to all weeds, or weeds in general. It is not equivalent to Some weeds grow.

Weeds grow in my garden refers to some weeds, and is equivalent to Some weeds grow in my garden.

I understand that context is often sufficient to determine the scope of the noun without a plural indefinite article¹ - but that applies to the singular indefinite article a/an as well. In fact, it seems that a/an is even more redundant, since both Dog barks and Dog barks in my garden are equally indefinite, not generic.

---

¹Carlson 2001 is further germane analysis. In here, he gives examples of sentences for which context is not sufficient to determine the scope of the null determiner. For instance, I only excluded old ladies can mean I excluded all old ladies (generic), or that all those whom I excluded happen to have been old ladies (indefinite - some old ladies may have gotten in after all).

Answer

In most languages indefinite articles stem from that language's word for one. For instance in French un, or in German ein, In Italian and Spanish uno or in Portuguese um.

English is no exception: an was derived from one. Note that an was the original indefinite article; the shorter a came later when the final "n" was dropped before consonants.

In some of the languages I mentioned above, the plural form of the indefinite articles is simply formed by applying the noun plural inflection: unos/unas or uns/umas.

In others, such as German and Italian, there is no plural form to the indefinite article. Italian use the partitive article degli/delle as a substitute and this is probably also the origin of the French plural form des.

For some reason English did not go through this last step either. To understand why we need to go back to the way Old English solved the problem.

In Old English adjectives have a different declension depending on whether the noun they qualify is determined or not.

"The glad man" reads

se glæd guma

whereas, "a happy man" is:

glæda guma

As one can see, only the adjective changes.
For one given adjective, you could therefore have different inflections depending on:
- the noun gender (masculine, feminine, neuter)
- the noun being singular or plural
- the four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative)
- whether the reference is definite or indefinite.
So that the same adjective would have to follow either the "definite" declension or one of three "indefinite" declensions.

þa glædan guman

Edit

The theory I'm trying to check (community please feel free to edit) is that in various languages (Icelandic for a language very close to Old English or Romanian) the article is added as a suffix to the noun. Then it often "detaches" and passes in front of the noun. Icelandic is half way through for the definite article in that matter.

As for the Old English indefinite article, my conjecture is that the process never went through for a number of possible reasons:
- The "loss of inflection" of early Middle English won the race
- The plural of "an" was not easy to evolve at that time (the Romance "-s" plural had not imposed itself yet).

But the need is still there, just as in any other language where a specific word emerged for the plural indefinite article. This gap is filled by placeholders such as some or a number of.

Most linguist agree that Proto Indo European did not use articles.
Latin does not have any kind of article, and Ancient Greek arguably had no indefinite article either - it was using something very much like present-day English some (τις - "a certain"). And I believe that Old German did not have any article either.

It is a very remarkable fact that articles appeared in many modern Indo European languages in a largely mutually independent yet very similar manner. My feeling is that their emergence compensates for the gradual loss of inflection in these languages. But then present-day German is a powerful counterexample...

Word for: "dislike of people that has same gender as speaker"

Is there a word for "disliking people of same gender"? I.e. man that dislikes men in general (but not women), or woman that dislikes women in general (but not men)?

There's "misanthropy", but it means "dislike of humans in general", and "misogyny"/"misandry" do not satisfy "same gender" requirement. Is there a specific word for that?

Answer

Misogyny/Misandry can absolutely satisfy the 'same gender' requirement if applied appropriately. If you're looking for a word that can be applied across the board for what feminists call 'internalized misogyny', though, I don't think there is one.

syntactic analysis - Should I use the word "that" in a sentence when it is not required?

In this sentence

My sister told me that she didn't want pancakes for breakfast.

The sentence would still make sense even if the word "that" is taken out. How would one decide to use the word "that" in a sentence? Is it considered better writing when "that" is not used when it is not required?

Answer

Short answer

As a rough rule of thumb, if the verb in the main clause is both high frequency and simple, we tend to prefer to omit that [except in highly formal writing]. In other circumstances we normally prefer to leave it in.

---

Full answer

My sister told me that she didn't want pancakes for breakfast.

In the sentence above, the phrase she didn't want pancakes for breakfast is a Complement of the adjective told. This type of clause is known as a content clause (as opposed to a relative clause, or a comparative clause).

Content clauses are often introduced by the subordinator that:

• I know [that you ate my last chocolate biscuit].

We only use that with declarative content clauses, not interrogative ones or exclamative ones:

• *I wonder that if she is going to the party. (ungrammatical)


• *I saw that how big the elephant was! (ungrammatical)

When to use that in declarative content clauses

We always use that with a content clause when a content clause is the Subject of a sentence:

• [That you were late again] will not impress the powers that be.


• *[You were late again] will not impress the powers that be. (ungrammatical)

We also always use that if the content clause has been moved to a position before the Subject:

• [That I need help] I freely admit.

The sentence above is a version of I freely admit that I need help, where the Complement of admit has been moved to before the Subject, I.

We rarely use that if the content clause is the Complement of a preposition:

• I will see you after you've finished your meeting.



• *I will see you after that you have finished your meeting. (ungrammatical)

[There are a handful of very unusual prepositions such as notwithstanding which allow that.]

In nearly all other cases where the content clause is the Complement of a verb, noun, or adjective the word that is optional. It can be omitted or included as you see fit:

• I know that you ate my biscuits.


• I know you ate my biscuits.



• I'm happy you ate my biscuits


• I am happy that you ate my biscuits.


• The fact you ate my biscuits really gets my goat.


• The fact that you ate my biscuits really gets my goat.

We are far more likely to omit that it's the Complement of a simple high frequency verb, adjective or noun. We are also far less likely to omit that in formal writing:

• The notion you ate my biscuit is laughable. (slightly awkward because of notion)



• We therefore need to underline we going to be there. (awkward because formal and because of the long as well as low frequency verb underline)

Conclusion

In the Original Poster's sentence the content clause is the complement of the simple and high frequency verb tell. The context is also not formal. The Original Poster can therefore freely omit that. The sentence will be both grammatical and appropriate.

---

References

^{Most of this information is available in: A Student's Introduction to English Grammar Huddleston & Pullum, 2005.}

possessives - Can we say "the problem's"?

Can we add apostrophe S, 's, to a word for an inanimate object as in the phrase

the problem's underlying assumptions

to denote possession? Would it be natural and grammatically correct?

possessives - "My wife and I's seafood collaboration dinner"

I just stumbled upon a Reddit post titled:

My wife and I's seafood collaboration dinner. How does it look?

Sure enough, the top comment immediately points out that it should be "my wife's and my". However, a cross-post to the Grammar subreddit produced the following comment:

It's fine as it is written. "my wife and I" is a noun phrase, functioning as a subjective pronoun in the singular and made possessive with the apostrophe. It is exactly the same as "our".

It seems weird because you would never use "I's" on its own but it is not on its own here - it is part of a noun phrase.

That's a rather intriguing argument. Does it hold any water?

Answer

Short answer

Yes, this argument does have a basis in linguistic fact, which is why some people do it in the first place, but that doesn't mean it must be correct in Standard English (and it isn't).

Longer Answer

This argument does hold water in the linguistic sense. "My wife and I" is, in fact, a phrase — a syntactic constituent. The fact that this phrase happens to end with the word I does not preclude it from taking the Saxon genitive as a whole unit. There are many cases where people apply the Saxon genitive ('s) to entire phrases in everyday speech:

1. John and Marsha's house was robbed last night.


2. I'm not a fan of 1995 to 2005's music scene at all.



3. The plants were eaten by the man next door's cat.

In the case of (1), if we follow the logic of "my wife's and my", we should have to say "John's and Marsha's house" — the genitive should have been distributed among the nouns in the conjoined phrase. Same for (2) and (3). And in (3) the 's is directly next to an adjectival phrase "next door", not even a noun phrase.

Now, people may have different opinions about which of these types of constructions they would allow and in what context; the fact is that people say these sorts of things all the time, and for most people they don't even register as anything out of the ordinary when they happen.

In Standard English, when a pronoun is involved in a conjoined phrase like "my wife and I", the genitive marker is distributed to all the noun phrases in the conjoined phrase. This would yield the construction "my wife's and my".

However, in the case of "my wife and I's", what we are seeing is one or more dialects extending this phrasal Saxon genitive to include some conjoined phrases that include pronouns. So the phrase is getting the genitive marker, rather than each of the units within the phrase.

Both approaches are linguistically sound, but only one is accepted as a standard; namely, "my wife's and my". Standard forms are chosen somewhat arbitrarily. This means that they don't have some sort of objective "correctness"; it also means that you can't argue for the correctness of a non-standard form based on logic. There are many logical ways to convey ideas, and one was chosen to be the standard. If you wish to communicate in a context where adherence to formal/standard rules is beneficial, then you should choose the standard form.

grammar - First year's conference or first years' conference?

As in, a conference that is for people in their first year of, say, University.

grammar - Is there any difference in meaning between the definite, the indefinite, and the zero article when we make generic nouns?

I learned in class that:

a. A tiger is a dangerous animal.

b. Tigers are dangerous animals.

c. The tiger is a dangerous animal.

These three sentences are used generically.

But I just saw:

1. The tiger is in danger of becoming extinct.



2. Tigers are in danger of becoming extinct.


3. A tiger is in danger of becoming extinct.

the previous sentences and number '1' and '2' are used generically but example 3. is not.

Is there anyone who can tell me why the latter examples are different from the former ones? Also, is there any difference in meaning depending on the article?

phrase meaning - What exactly does "up to 3 months before" mean?

When it says:

You can apply for a visa up to 3 months before your date of travel to
the UK.

Source: gov.uk

Does it mean the latest I can apply for a visa is 3 months before the travel date, or the earliest I can apply for a visa is 3 months before the travel date?

Answer

There are a number of ways in which the statement may be analysed.

You can apply for a visa up to 3 months before your date of travel to the UK.

The ambiguity is in the interpretation of up to: it could mean until or it could mean a maximum of.

You can apply for a visa until 3 months before your date of travel to the UK.
You can apply for a visa a maximum of 3 months before your date of travel to the UK.

In this case, up to should almost certainly have the second meaning. There's no point in applying for a visa years before you intend to travel, because your circumstances could change in the meantime. So the authority seeks to limit the possibility of changes by forcing you to apply fairly close to the date of travel.

past perfect - "Get used" vs "got used"

I'm learning English grammar with the book by Raymond Murphy: English Grammar in Use [3rd Edition]. In the exercises for unit 61, I have to complete the sentences using used to. I can't understand why I have to say get used to living instead of got used to living for this example:

Sue moved from a big house to a much smaller one. She found it strange at first. She had to __________ in a much smaller house.

Is it past simple or past perfect?

Answer

I can see why this would be confusing.

• She would have to get used to living in a smaller house.


• She had to get used to living in a smaller house.


• She had gotten used to living in a smaller house.



• She got used to living in a smaller house.

All of these are acceptable. Each has a slightly different time reference; the first one is looking ahead, and the last two are looking back.

As Brett indicated, the problem with the one in the book (had to got used to) is you don't use "got" after "to".

What are the individual rooms at a cinema called in British English?

In the US, we call the place we go to watch movies a "movie theater" and then if I were walking into one of the large rooms with the movie, I'd call it either the screen or the theater. For example, the movie is in theater 8 or on screen 8.

I know in the UK that the building is called a cinema, but what are the individual rooms called?

meaning - Word for when: two people are attempting to use a doorway at the same time

Word for when: two people are attempting to use a doorway at the same time.
I'm sure this is an all too common phenomena we have all witnessed. Either you are trying to exit/enter someplace when at that exact moment someone is trying to do the same so you are stuck in a game of who goes first, until someone initiates and someone cedes.

This came up as I working on actually documenting this phenemonon. I happen to be a student studying sociology, ie people interacting with other people, when i realized there is no word for this phenomenon. I thought how could this be! Surely the internet must know! But alas here I am.

I will surely cite anyone who can answer my quandary in my paper!

Thanks

Answer

You might consider doorway stalemate, which is used here to mean a situation where there are people on opposite sides of a door, each waiting for the other to enter first.

You could easily use it to describe the situation where there are two people on the same side.

Urban Dictionary also defines chivalrous stalemate as "When two people are trying to pass through a doorway and both insist that the other goes first." But this entry doesn't have many upvotes.

Urban Dictionary also uses the situation you describe as an example of a Canadian Standoff.

grammar - How should lists of questions be punctuated?

If one wishes to pose a series of questions in the form of a list, how would one go about punctuating that list?

For example:

I write to a colleague asking for an update on a project he is working on. I phrase my request like so:

Dear xxx,

How are you doing with regard to:
- Sourcing the moose hair
- Reticulating the splines
- Extolling the virtues of silk underwear
- Estimating the project completion time

In this case, should question marks be placed after each bulleted item? Or should one only be placed after the last item? If this is the case, should semi colons be placed after each item?

E.g.

• Extolling the virtues of silk underwear?


• Estimating the project completion time?

or

• Extolling the virtues of silk underwear;


• Estimating the project completion time?

Answer

I'd do something like

Dear xxx,

How are you doing with regard to

• sourcing the moose hair,


• reticulating the splines,


• extolling the virtues of silk underwear, and


• estimating the project completion time?

Basically, this just takes an ordinary list, punctuated as an ordinary list would be, and adds list bullets to aid readability. If you really wanted to, you could retain the colon after "with regard to", but I don't think it's necessary.

As with an ordinary list, if any of the list items contains a comma already, then replace the list-separator commas with semicolons:

How are you doing with regard to

• sourcing the moose hair, lamb tail, and armadillo feathers;


• reticulating the splines;


• extolling the virtues of silk underwear; and


• estimating the project completion time?

grammatical number - Pluralization of names

If I were to use the sentence "There are lots of John Smiths" in the world, would that be the correct use for saying that there are a lot of people named John Smith in the world?

I don't think there should be an apostrophe as that would imply ownership of something.

If my first example is correct, then what would you do if the name referenced already ended with an 's'?

Answer

In order to pluralize a name, this guide says:

There are really just two rules to remember, whether you’re pluralizing a given (first) name or a surname (last name):

1. If the name ends in s, sh, ch, x or z, add es.



2. In every other case, add s.

Similarly, there are two fundamental no-no’s:

Never change a y to ies when pluralizing a name; and
Never, ever use apostrophes!

Examples:

Incorrect:

• The Flaherty’s live here.


• The Flaherties live here.

Correct:

• The Flahertys live here.


• Sandra’s two favorite boyfriends are Charleses.


• There are seven Joneses in Stuart’s little black book—three of them Jennifers.


• The Hopkinses are coming over for dinner tonight.

So your instinct is correct -- do not use an apostrophe as that indicates possession. Your first example would be:

There are a lot of John Smiths in the world.

personal pronouns - Usage of "Me and yours"

I was having a chat to my girlfriend when something came up and I said

"Speaking of dads, I had a dream where me and yours were going...".
Here "me" refers to myself and "yours" to her dad.

She corrected me saying that this was incorrect, however could not quite identify where. Later I said that I should've replaced "me" with "I" and swapped the order around. However, this still felt clumsy and she insisted that was still incorrect.

What is a good, conversational, way that this might be said? Furthermore, are there any correct uses of "me and yours" , idiomatic or otherwise?

Answer

I had a dream where me and your's were going...

It still feels clumsy, because your omission of "dad" adds unnecessary implications.

Let's simplify first, then add onto it again:

I had a dream where I was going...
I had a dream where me was going...

Clearly, the first one is correct. You need to use "I", not "me" because it is the subject of the second clause.

But the further confusion stems from "me and yours". You mean that you and her dad are the subjects, but because you omit the "dad" from "yours", you imply that it was also your dad instead of you.

"My dad and your dad." can change into "My dad and yours". The second "dad" can be omitted because the first "dad" reference is already there. Without that prior reference, omitting "dad" only leads to unintended implications.

It seems best to avoid that implication as it only makes an already loaded phrasing much more prone to be misunderstood.

And since we're reworking anyway, let's flip it to "your dad and I" because of politeness.

I had a dream where your dad and I were going...

Edit

I had a dream where me and your dad were going...

Would be the way I expect to hear it when spoken, but isn't grammatically correct. As you can see from this example though, even by only removing the "dad" omission, you solve most of the confusing language problem.

Edit 2

If you are Irish, the possessive "my" is often pronounced as "me". In case you are Irish, I would interpret the following:

Speaking of dads, I had a dream where me and yours were going...

as the Irish equivalent of

Speaking of dads, I had a dream where [mine] and [yours] were going...

Which would also be correct (that is to say, accepted informally), assuming it's about both your dads, not you and her dad.

word choice - Should I use "his/her" or "its"?

Possible Duplicates:
Gender neutral pronoun
Is it correct to use “their” instead of “his or her”?

I am writing software documentation. I have this issue: I am talking about a generic user of the software.
Should I say “his preferences”, “his/her preferences” or “its preferences”?

Answer

The links Reg supplied are good advice, but be aware that gender-neutral language used at length can start to become clunky and unnatural to the ear. One trick I have seen to avoid that problem is to assign genders to particular use cases. In your case, you might refer to a generic user using male pronouns, while an administrator gets female pronouns. Obviously this only works when you have a reasonably good mix of cases or relative importance.

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

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

grammar - using of inversion in english

Only when is the green light on vehicles may cross the train track.

Only when the green light is on vehicles may cross the train track.

which of these is grammatically correct to use, as I have learnt the word only at the beginning of the sentence followed by auxiliary verb(inversion), but it sounds a bit odd to me.

meaning - "our bodies lose their rhythm" vs. "our body loses its rhythm"

In this above situation, the question is that “What happens if we change our sleep pattern often?” and my brother had to fill in the blanks.

A: ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ .

So he answered, “Our bodies lose their rhythm.”.

But his teacher said the answer was wrong. The correct answer which she wants is

“Our body loses its rhythm.”

My brother’s answer is wrong?
I would like to know if this answer is incorrect or not and if not, what is the difference in meaning between them.

past tense - I noticed vs I have noticed

Is there a difference between I noticed and I have noticed? What is the correct use of each of these?

Thanks

Should I use past perfect tense here?

I was thinking about a certain situation.

Suppose that one week ago, I played basketball once, and that today I was talking with a friend.

I: I played basketball once last week.

My friend: Did you have fun?

I: Not bad, but I didn't play well because I haven't played in a long time.

I am really not sure whether I should use "haven't" or "hadn't" here.
Please let me hear your opinions.

personal pronouns - Usage of "Me and yours"

I was having a chat to my girlfriend when something came up and I said

"Speaking of dads, I had a dream where me and yours were going...".

Here "me" refers to myself and "yours" to her dad.

She corrected me saying that this was incorrect, however could not quite identify where. Later I said that I should've replaced "me" with "I" and swapped the order around. However, this still felt clumsy and she insisted that was still incorrect.

What is a good, conversational, way that this might be said? Furthermore, are there any correct uses of "me and yours" , idiomatic or otherwise?

Answer

I had a dream where me and your's were going...

It still feels clumsy, because your omission of "dad" adds unnecessary implications.

Let's simplify first, then add onto it again:

I had a dream where I was going...
I had a dream where me was going...

Clearly, the first one is correct. You need to use "I", not "me" because it is the subject of the second clause.

But the further confusion stems from "me and yours". You mean that you and her dad are the subjects, but because you omit the "dad" from "yours", you imply that it was also your dad instead of you.

"My dad and your dad." can change into "My dad and yours". The second "dad" can be omitted because the first "dad" reference is already there. Without that prior reference, omitting "dad" only leads to unintended implications.

It seems best to avoid that implication as it only makes an already loaded phrasing much more prone to be misunderstood.

And since we're reworking anyway, let's flip it to "your dad and I" because of politeness.

I had a dream where your dad and I were going...

Edit

I had a dream where me and your dad were going...

Would be the way I expect to hear it when spoken, but isn't grammatically correct. As you can see from this example though, even by only removing the "dad" omission, you solve most of the confusing language problem.

Edit 2

If you are Irish, the possessive "my" is often pronounced as "me". In case you are Irish, I would interpret the following:

Speaking of dads, I had a dream where me and yours were going...

as the Irish equivalent of

Speaking of dads, I had a dream where [mine] and [yours] were going...

Which would also be correct (that is to say, accepted informally), assuming it's about both your dads, not you and her dad.

verbs - Which is correct? If I was or If I were for this particular sentence

Which is correct?
1) If I were a little taller, I would be able to reach the top of the shelf.

2) If I was a little taller, I would be able to reach the top of the shelf.

politeness - Is it impolite to say "me" first?

Having been raised with German as my first language, my parents took very much care that I would not mention myself fist: If I told them that I did something with my friends - "me, Bob and Andrew" - I was always corrected to say "Bob, Andrew and me" instead.

Is there a similar rule or is it perceived to be similarily impolite to mention oneself first in the English language?

grammaticality - When should I use "a" versus "an" in front of a word beginning with the letter h?

A basic grammar rule is to use an instead of a before a vowel sound. Given that historic is not pronounced with a silent h, I use “a historic”. Is this correct? What about heroic? Should be “It was a heroic act” or “It was an heroic act”?

I remember reading somewhere that the h is sometimes silent, in which case it’s an, and when the h is pronounced, it’s a. But then I also remember reading that it depends on which syllable is stressed. And I also think I read somewhere that it might differ between British and American English.

Personally, I pronounce the h, and believe that a is correct. I find that it sounds incorrect to use an and pronounce heroic without the h.

So how do I know when to use a and when to use an with a word beginning with the letter h? Are both acceptable or is there one that is correct?

Answer

Indeed, you are correct.

In certain accents, history, hotel, etc. are pronounced with an h sound. In those accents, a should be used. In other accents, such as my own, it is pronounced without an h sound, and therefore starts with a vowel. In that accent, it would be correct for one to say an.

Queen Elizabeth II is one such person who could correctly say an historic event. President Obama is one such person who could correctly say a historic event.

In writing, it doesn't really matter which one is used.