Well, we know don't is the same as do not, right?
Therefore, can I say "Do not you know?", instead of "Don't you know?"?
Well, I know that chances are I can't do that, but technically that should be correct, no?
Answer
You should also be able to say 'Are I not?' instead of the typical 'Aren't I?' Presumably these colloquialisms result from the fact that neither 'Do you not know?' nor 'Am I not?' have a contraction that is at once easily pronounceable and logical.
I've read today a comment from a UK user that sounded weird to me:
so the OP is shooting themselves in the foot here with the tone then.
I would have said instead:
so the OP is shooting himself in the foot here with the tone then.
I've taken a look at this but it's way out of my league, and appearently doesn't even answer this question.
Why did he use the third person plural while referring to a third person singular ?
Answer
In English, "they" is used as a singular personal pronoun when the gender of the subject is not known.
As gender politics have evolved over the past half-century, and the pace of that change has accelerated in the last decade, personal pronouns have proven fraught with risk and created traps for the unwary.
In response to this, commentors have increasingly started using the non-committal -- and more importantly, safe -- singular they to refer to people whose gender is not known with absolute certainty.
Please note that I'm using the word "gender", not "sex", here quite advisedly; sex is biological, gender is psychological (or, in another school of thought, sociological). This (rather new) distinction is yet another driver behind the recent popularity of singular they: even if a person's sex is quite evident (or you believe it is), their gender may not be (e.g. a person who looks like a man may nevertheless wish to be identified as a woman), and using the wrong personal pronoun can land you in a lot of hot water.
In your particular situation, circumstances which may have contributed to the commentor's circumspection are that your avatar depicts both a man and a young girl, and while your name is quite masculine in your homeland (and its own history as you so perspicuously pointed out), in the US, names ending in -a are considered feminine, and "Andrea" is reserved for naming girls.
How does one go about taking a name (or word) from another language and making it an English name? I know of examples such as Yeshua being turned to Joshua or Yonatan turning into Jonathan, but I do not know the rule itself.
Edit: To help specify my question: I am trying to change is the Malayalam word for "Heart" (Hrdayarn) I want to use it as a name but it sounds just a little off.
I have always been taught that I should use the base form of a verb after the word 'to'. But I sometimes see sentences such as 'I am looking forward to meeting you' & 'She has devoted her life to doing charitable works'. So how to know when to use base form or verb+ing after the word 'to'? Thank you.
The following quotes all seem to contain agreement errors between their subjects and predicates:
A total of five youths were arrested in both incidents.
Shouldn't it be "A total . . . was"? The sense is plural overall, but the subject is the singular "total." The object of the preposition is "five youths." Nonetheless, the verb should be the singular "was," agreed?
Early returns from rural areas indicated that support from the Communists remain strong.
Shouldn't it be ". . . support . . . remains strong"?
A group of neighborhood volunteers are identifying these houses and forcing owners to fix them up or tear them down.
Shouldn't it be "A group . . . is"?
The council's actions, concluding more than six hours of testimony on the matter, effectively nullifies a city hearings officer's decision.
Shouldn't it be "The council's actions . . . nullify"?
You can measure the weight – it is called weighing.
If you measure time, what is that called? Is there a single English word for this?
I'm thinking especially in the context of measuring the performance of something, for example, to measure the time it takes for a computer program to complete a specific task or to measure the time it takes a runner to run 100 meters.
Answer
If you're measuring the time it takes a runner to run 100 meters, you are timing the runner, or clocking the runner.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Clock: transitive verb 1a: to time with a stopwatch or by an electric timing device
Time:
transitive verb 4. to determine or record the time, duration, or rate of
Hello everyone! I have a very easy question. Why aren't these sentences correct?
-I haven't received an answer (on my mobile phone) for more than a week.
-This offence is called XxXxXx and occurs when you comment on a thread that hasn't received an answer for more than a week.
I'm using Present Perfect with the duration form: "for a week" but I found out they're not correct and I personally can't understand why.
To be possible/impossible can be followed by an infinitive verb only when the subject of the finite verb is the introductory "it". With any other subject the infinitive would be wrong, so I've learnt.
For instance, it is correct to say
- "It is impossible to grow oranges here." or "It was impossible to hear the lecturer."
but not
- "Oranges are impossible to grow here." or "The lecturer was impossible to be heard."
However, I've read (in newspapers) or heard (from native speakers) sentences that do not follow the rule, as for example:
"A result not possible to foresee."
"A question impossible to answer."
"A situation possible to arise."
Are these examples grammatical? Should they be, then either the rule has exceptions or there is no such rule. Should they be wrong, then are the three last sentences colloquialisms, or are they really wrong?
Answer
The Original Poster was given the following rule:
To be possible/impossible can be followed by an infinitive verb only when the subject of the finite verb is the introductory "it". With any other subject, the infinitive would be wrong.
However, these examples which are wrong according to the rule, are in fact perfectly grammatical:
So this clearly shows the rule is wrong.
However! Hang on one second! Part of the rule seems to be correct. The Original Poster's examples all used impossible and not possible. The following are indeed ungrammatical, or at least a bit wonky:
Now this is properly, bona fide crazy. Who designed this language? Shame on them whoever they are. We have one rule for possible and a different one for impossible. It is, of course, completely natural, and indeed commonsensical, and intelligent, to extrapolate that if there's a rule for possible, that impossible will work the same way. But it doesn't.
There are a couple of other unusual and interesting things hidden in the OP's post. First their example:
This is clearly wrong in the passive like this, but it's difficult to see why. The active version above is, of course fine. Secondly, it's not immediately clear why the first example here is wrong - although it is:
Here we see that both possible and impossible seem to be problematic. On the other hand likely seem to be entirely acceptable.
Now if you want to know why possible and impossible behave so differently, the answer is: I don't know. I can however explain how they behave, which will get us half-way there.
Infinitives as clauses
We might think of infinitives as kind of free-standing verbs. Most of the time when we see them, they have no subject, and they often have no visible object either:
However, these verbs always have some kind of unexpressed subject. The example above means:
Note that if the subject of the infinitive is different from the subject of want, it must be overtly expressed:
The fact that we can omit subject of the infinitive here is a property of the verb want. If the subject position of the infinitive is not expressed, the subject of want controls its interpretation:
So the subject of to be rolled in marmalade here is controlled here by the hephalumps, the subject of want. The hephalumps want the hephalumps to be rolled in marmalade. Because it behaves in this way want is known as a control verb.
Adjectives 1: Control
Adjectives work this way too. Adjectives often occur as complements of verbs. These adjectives often take infinitive clauses as their own complements. These clauses may also have positions that are controlled. Take the adjective keen:
Here the adjective keen is the complement of the verb BE. In turn keen is taking an infinitival clause as complement. When the subject of the infinitive isn't expressed, it's identity is controlled by the subject of the verb - in the case the hephalumps. The second example above means:
Again this is a property of the adjective keen. Some other adjectives that have this pattern are anxious, delighted and eager. However, neither possible nor impossible pattern this way. For this reason the following are unacceptable and the grammar prevents accidents from being the subject of happen:
Adjectives 2: Hollow clauses
With the adjective difficult, the subject of the infinitive is freely interpretable. We can extrapolate who was trying to read the book from the surrounding discourse. The subject of to read is not being stipulated by the subject of the main verb, the book. The book was not reading the book!
However, if you look carefully at the other side of read you'll realise that the book is being interpreted as the Object of read. The sentence means something like:
In some grammars they stipulate that the object has been moved from that gap at the end there to the subject position of the main verb. Tough is one of the adjectives that behaves in this way, and for this reason this is often called tough-movement. In the CaGEL these clauses are known as hollow clauses, because they have that gap at the end.
One of the adjectives that takes hollow clauses is impossible. For this reason the OP's examples were correct:
These work like this:
Possible
Possible does not occur in control constructions. It's also said that possible doesn't take hollow clauses. It cannot control the interpretation of the subject in an infinitival clause, and does not allow for the gap at the end of a hollow clause to be interpreted through a subject higher up in the sentence structure.
The reason the example above fails is that the speaker wants to use possible in a control construction meaning something like this:
Unfortunately, this won't work. Similarly the problem with:
..is that again, the speaker here is trying to use impossible like a control adjective, whereas as we have have seen, it actually takes hollow clauses. They expect the sentence to be heard like this:
Because the adjective is impossible, the item lecturer here cannot be interpreted as the subject of to be heard. In fact lecturer cannot be processed properly as an actor in the infinitival clause at all, because there is no object position in the clause - it's passive!
Did you hear the song?
Is this the correct expression, or should I say the following:
Did you listen to the song?
time-sensitive documents, goods, articles or cargo
In the phrase reproduced above, does it mean that only documents are time-sensitive or does time-sensitive apply to goods, articles and cargo as well?
While chatting with a friend about Rio 2016, I wanted to write the following sentence:
The medal standings you should be looking at is the one per capita.
Is this correct (grammar-wise, of course)? Does the word "standings" in this context hold a singular verb?
What confuses me is the s at the end of the word and the fact that the word translating it in my native langauge is singular.
To the best of my understanding 'an' is used when a word starts with a vowel (an occasion), or sounds like it does (an honour). Ukulele sounds like it start with a u, so why isn't it prefixed with an 'an' ?
"Would " & " Used to ".
They both are used for repeated action in the past tense. Then what is the difference between them?
Answer
'Used to'and'would' are modals; though both apply to habitual action of the past,'would' carries with it a sense•• had it been so it might have been such••examples of which are there in UNCLE PODGER's absurdities. As regards use of the two,you're your best judge. Ask yourself--does it sound fine?
Is anyone familiar with, or know the origin of, the use of "guy" as an interjection at the beginning of a sentence, as a substitute for "gosh!" or "golly!" (or "God"?) ?
For example:
"Guy, Holl, that's the most heartrending story I ever heard."
(YouTube: How to Frame a Figg)
(This includes closed-captioning which reproduces the phrase exactly as I have given it here.)
"Well guy, grandpa, I got a job."
(YouTube: The Munsters: Season 2, Episode 6, 'Happy 100th Anniversary')
"Guy, Chief, that legend's 200 years old!"
(YouTube: The Munsters: Season 2, Episode 18, 'Big Heap Herman')
I had never encountered this usage before, so I consulted a half-dozen standard dictionaries of the English language; two slang dictionaries (including the most recent edition of Partridge); two books on word origins; and two books specifically on interjections.
These examples are from between 1965–1971; to me, this implies some sort of period slang, which may only have had a brief vogue.
The fact that major production companies were involved in making the material suggests that the writers employed language that they felt was common enough that it would be recognized by most of their intended audience — which in all cases consisted of native English-speaking Americans.
That neither I, nor several other Americans I've asked can remember ever encountering this particular usage before suggests that the popularity of this usage was short-lived, and possibly also regional.
I'm writing a school paper on linguistics and the English language and I'm curious about whether a theory exists outlining why larger words appear louder? That is, why words either of a greater font size or simply capitalized appear LOUDER than those which are not?
I know publically appears as an incorrect spelling in most dictionaries (in fact as I type this up on my Safari browser it keeps trying to correct the spelling to publicly).
However I have seen the word spelled in that manner before in certain places so I did a search on Google and found that there is a definition for the spelling publically at dictionary.com and the free dictionary as well. The English wiktionary site considers it an alternate spelling.
Are both spellings valid or are there some subtle differences I am missing? Which version would you accept as correct in a spelling bee?
Answer
Publicly is certainly the commoner version, but publically is a logical alternative, mentioned in the OED with half a dozen citations from 1727 to 1998, so it can't really be called a mistake.
I'm not sure what the grammatical terms are called so please accept my apology if I explain it a bit unsophisticatedly (is that a word?).
First, let's take a simple example.
living room
work method
dog party
Those are self-explanatory. It's a room used for living (activities), a method of conducting a work and a bunch of four-leggers getting together. But how about constellation of three word, such as this?
human computer interaction
Of course, we know what this means, because there's a consensus on the term (and it's vastly known from it's hyphenated correspondent). But what implies that it's not an interaction between computers (across the web using services) which is humanized? Or a cyborg (humanized computer) that's interacting?
So, the question pondering me is this. How should one interpret grammatically based correctly an ambiguous phrase on the following form?
something-a something-b something-c
Are there any rules or preferences as to whether it's:
Answer
Op's construction involves one or more attributive nouns functioning as adjectives before the "actual" noun. So the default interpretation (if it makes sense) is the same as for consecutive adjectives in general - each term modifies the immediately-following term. Thus...
a car radio aerial wire connector
...is a type of connector.
What type of connector? One on the end of a wire.
What type of wire? One carrying the signal from an aerial.
What type of aerial? One used by a radio.
What type of radio? One fitted in a car.
But note that the default principle isn't particularly strong compared to the if it makes sense caveat. So if I refer to...
a big car radio aerial wire connector
...then it's only really the exact context that can clarify whether I'm talking about...
a wire connector for aerials attached to radios fitted in big cars
a wire connector for aerials attached to big radios fitted in cars
a wire connector for big aerials attached to radios fitted in cars
etc., etc.
According to Merriam-Webster, the pronunciation of alcohol is "ˈal-kə-ˌhȯl" while the pronunciation of hollow is "ˈhä-(ˌ)lō." Why are they pronounced with different vowels? I think I've figured out the reason (my explanation is further below) but I haven't been able to find any source to confirm my guess.
In case you're wondering how they could possibly be pronounced differently, or what Merriam-Webster's pronunciation symbols mean, here is some background information. For many American English speakers, the words "cot" and "caught" don't rhyme because they have different vowels. (For many others, they do: speakers like this have merged the vowels.) In this question, I'll use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and follow the usual convention of representing the North American vowel in words like "cot" and "lot" as /ɑ/ and the vowel in words like "caught" and "thought" as /ɔ/ (for speakers who have not merged this vowel with with /ɑ/). Standard British English also makes this distinction, but uses slightly different vowels; the usual IPA transcription for the British "cot"/"lot" vowel is therefore slightly different (it's /ɒ/) and the British "thought" vowel is standardly transcribed as /ɔː/ (with a vowel length marker ː). Anyway, Merriam-Webster uses a different transcription system that represents the vowel in cot (IPA /ɑ/) as \ä\ and the one in caught (IPA /ɔ/) as \ȯ\.
Generally speaking, the "lot" vowel, /ɑ/ (or for British speakers, /ɒ/), is used in words spelled with "short o" (like don, cot, body), and the "thought" vowel, /ɔ/, is used in words spelled with "aw" or "au" (such as dawn, caught, bawdy). There are several other more minor spelling patterns that you can generally find described in works on English phonology.
The most important exception to the generalization I made above is that certain specific words spelled with "short o" in American English are pronounced with /ɔ/ instead of /ɑ/. This group of words is exemplified by the word "cloth" /klɔθ/, and is the result of a historical sound change, the LOT-CLOTH split, that has gone to completion in American English, but not in British English. Generally, the sound change occured in specific, predictable contexts.
Wikipedia says:
The lengthening and raising generally happened before the fricatives
/f/, /θ/ and /s/. In American English the raising was extended to the
environment before /ŋ/ and /ɡ/, and in a few words before /k/ as well,
giving pronunciations like /lɔːŋ/ for long, /dɔːɡ/ for dog and
/ˈtʃɔːklᵻt/ for chocolate.
All the sources I have found agree with this: they say that this change affected "short o" before the sounds f, th, s, ng, g, and a handful of words with n (gone and on).
I have not found any source that says that words spelled with "ol" are included in the "cloth" set. As you can see, Wikipedia doesn't mention words like "alcohol" or "golf," and even though I've done some Google searches to look for more information on the "cloth" set, I didn't find anything that discusses "ol" words.
The dictionaries that I've looked at only list /ɒl/ in the British pronunciations of these words; I would expect this to correspond to American English /ɑl/ (as it does in the words dollar /ˈdɑlər/ and tolerate /ˈtɑləˌreɪt/).
However, I have found many words spelled with "ol," such as alcohol, parasol and aerosol, that dictionaries say are pronounced in American English with /ɔl/ (as if they were spelled with "awl").
I believe I have identified the condition for this sound change, thanks to the helpful comments from people like Peter Shor who described their pronunciations. The /ɔl/ pronunciation seems to occur mainly when "ol" is at the end of a word or before a consonant. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the preceding consonant: complare golf, alcohol, aerosol (all words that may be pronounced with /ɔl/), and golliwog, hollow, solid (words that as far as I can tell are always pronounced with /ɑl/).
Pronunciations with /ɔl/ are listed for a few words where the "l" is between vowels, such as alcoholic and cytosolic, but when this occurs it always seems to be due to analogy from the above set of words (Merriam Webster only lists a pronunciation with /ɑl/ for melancholic, which does not have a corresponding noun melanchol to influence its pronunciation).
As a bonus, I would appreciate if an answer addressed the phonetic reason for this sound change. Is it due to the lengthening process that seems to have created most of the rest of the CLOTH set? Or is it a separate change caused by the rounding/backing effect of "dark l"? Ben Trawick-Smith has a post about "The Cloth Set" on his dialect blog where he suggests that velarization may have been the reason "o" is pronounced /ɔ/ before some words with /ŋ/, /ɡ/, and /n/; since "dark l" is velarized, this seems like it would also be applicable here.
Here is a list of words spelled with "ol" that are, or can be, pronounced with /ɔl/. I consulted online versions of the Merriam-Webster dictionary (MW), the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD), and the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD):
Two pronunciations /ɔl/, /oʊl/ listed in MW, AHD
thymol
Two pronunciations /ɔl/, /oʊl/ listed in MW; only /ɔl/ listed in AHD
menthol
Two pronunciations /ɔl/, /oʊl/ listed in MW; three pronunciations /ɔl/, /oʊl/, /ɑl/ listed in AHD
ethanol
methanol
Two pronunciations /oʊl/, /ɔl/ listed in MW; two pronunciations /ɔl/, /ɑl/ listed in AHD
diol
Only /ɔl/ listed in MW; /ɔl/, /ɑl/ listed in AHD and OALD:
alcohol
alcoholism (pronunciation with \-kə-hə-\ also listed by MW)
Two pronunciations /ɔl/, /ɑl/ listed (MW, AHD, OALD all agree):
alcoholic
workaholic, workaholism
parasol
Two pronunciations listed: /ɔl/, /ɑl/ in MW, AHD and /ɑl/, /ɔl/ in OALD
chocoholic/chocaholic
Two pronunciations listed: /ɑl/, /ɔl/ in MW and /ɔl/, /ɑl/ in AHD, OALD
aerosol
Two pronunciations /ɑl/, /ɔl/ listed (MW, AHD, OALD all agree):
golf (MW says l can be dropped)
solv- in solve, absolve, resolve, solvent, solvency...
Two pronunciations /ɑl/, /ɔl/ listed in MW, OALD; only /ɑl/ listed in AHD:
-volv- in evolve, revolve, involve, devolve...
Two pronunciations /ɑl/, /ɔl/ listed in MW, AHD; only /ɑ/ listed in OALD:
dolphin
Two pronunciations /ɑl/, /ɔl/ listed in MW; only /ɑ/ listed in AHD, OALD:
doll
moll
Two pronunciations /ɑl/, /ɔl/ listed in MW; no entries in OALD
sol (as a unit of currency, or "a fluid colloidal system")
cytosol, cytosolic
hydrosol
Similar words for which MW only lists /ɑl/
Sol (the Roman god) (AHD lists /ɑl/, /oʊl/)
pol (short for "politician") (AHD lists only /ɔl/)
For comparison:
Similar words for which dictionaries list only /ɑl/, not /ɔl/ (MW, AHD, OALD all agree)
col
loll
hydrosolic (not in OALD)
melancholic
metabolic
vitriolic
diastolic
Similar words MW, AHD list with /ɑl/,/oʊl/ (but not /ɔl/)
olfaction, olfactory
I want to know which one is correct ?
"New" is age and "Difficult" is observation so it should be difficult new question but I think it's not ! why?
Example: If someone says they're wrong and they're right, so someone corrects them, telling them they're right, they deny it again, can you say "You're" instead of "You are"
I just read this sentence and was wondering if it is okay to write it like this.
You can use your device worldwide, as if it was directly connected to your
PC.
Are there better alternatives for writing this sentence? Maybe:
You can use your device worldwide, just like it is directly connected to your
PC.
Why should I use the in the first case and a in the second?
The novel is the most popular form of fiction.
A novel is a long narrative.
My thoughts:
For the first case I could think of the rule:
Use THE with superlatives such as "the best", "the biggest", "the most
important", "the least interesting", etc.
So it's necessary to use a definite article because of the most popular.
For the second case the relevant rule seems to be:
Use A(AN) when you are talking about a thing in general, NOT a
specific thing.
Answer
As you've probably discovered, the simple rule is that the definite article the refers to one particular thing while the indefinite articles a and an refer to an unidentified thing. Thus when we read
The critic panned the novel
we know the critic didn't like one particular novel named in his review. And for
I picked up a novel at the library
you know that I checked out some novel, but you don't know which one.
Unfortunately, things aren't always that simple. The definite article can mean the entire field of things under consideration, so for
The novel is the most popular form of fiction
you're talking about novels as an art form. The article doesn't have to associated with the superlative. For instance
The course will cover the novel from its beginnings in the early 18th century to the present.
The indefinite article may be used to refer to a representative singular to indicate the entire field as in your example
A novel is a long narrative.
Here you're not talking about a single book (like the one I checked out of the library) but any novel, and by implication all novels. In these uses, you may substitute the plural without changing the sense:
Novels are the most popular form of fiction.
Novels are long narratives.
With the "simple usage first mentioned, this isn't so. If I say
I picked up novels at the library
I checked out more than one book.
If we are using both singular and plural in the same sentence, how do we say or write it?
For example, which one is correct?
I am unsure whether to use comma after the example list while using e.g. Any ideas?
these functions, e.g., delay, capacity, throughput, represent better...
or
these functions, e.g., delay, capacity, throughput represent better...
There are other similar questions, but I couldn't find this particular answer in either of them.
Answer
The sequence e.g., delay, capacity, throughput is an interruption to the sentence and commas both before e.g. and after throughput will make this clear to the reader. You can compensate for the additional comma by omitting the one you have inserted after e.g.
Much of (what/which) scientists know about dinosaurs has been recently discovered.
The phenomenon of (what/which) are known as corporate networks has also attracted attention.
And yes, the answer is what. But why?
Answer
Both of the clauses beginning with what are noun clauses. You can tell they're noun clauses because they're both the object of the preposition of.
Noun or complement clauses can function like nouns -- as subject, direct object, or prepositional object.
There are four types of complement clauses in English, and this is the type called an embedded question (or headless relative -- they're not that different) complement. (the others are Infinitive, Gerund, and tensed That-clause.)
Embedded questions are just regular Wh-questions, but they have three peculiarities that mark them as subordinate clauses:
It's the third peculiarity that's responsible; the normal distinction between open what and closed which is simply not available in embedded questions, just like the usual future sense of will is unavailable in if-clauses. There's a reason.
Which already has a role as a relative pronoun (and you can't use what as a relative pronoun). Relative pronouns are Adjective clauses, while Embedded Questions are Noun clauses. The purpose of an introductory marker like what or that or which is to indicate -- before it's parsed -- what kind of clause is coming up.
If which already marks adjective clauses, it's confusing to have another which that marks noun clauses. So we don't. What marks noun clauses and which doesn't, while which marks adjective clauses and what doesn't. That's all, really. It's kind of like opposing metal to colour in heraldry -- it improves clarity and avoids confusion in the signal.
"The writer mentioned although it deals with eastern mysticism and sexuality, the content is not erotic." - This is a sentence I am copy editing. I am under the impression that "mentioned" should be followed by "that" in this sentence. Could you please let me know your thoughts on this as well?
When I wrote about this to the person who wrote this sentence, this was their response "I have checked it through several proofreading sites like Grammarly, Paperrater, Scribens, etc. The sentence is correct with or without inserting "that" after "mentioned."
Answer
They're wrong. The subordinating conjunction "that" is required in this case. In fact, there's a punctuation issue as well—the sentence should be written as:
The writer mentioned that, although it deals with eastern mysticism and sexuality, the content is not erotic.
Hopefully someone with more technical knowledge of English grammar rules can cite what rule was violated, but I'm 100% sure that it's required in this case (even though it can be omitted in certain contexts).
Just goes to show how little one can depend on Grammarly et al. :)
Suppose I'm talking about some design scheme. I say something like
"foo was once designed and implemented in a way called bar that ...". Then I want to introduce the original scheme "bar", for example, "in the bar method, foo ...". To describe the behaviors of "foo" in the old design scheme, what tense should I use here? And are there any general rules about these cases?
Answer
In technical writing (and indeed in most expository writing) the best rule I've found to be useful is tense consistency.
So if you say
foo was once designed and implemented in a way called bar that required X to do Y
you should continue along the lines of
In this scheme, bar caused farf to jiff and klurg was responsible for regulating the status of kling..."
i.e., continue with the past tense.
Then, when you move to describing the new way of doing things, you can choose present or even future. They have different connotations. Here is the future option:
In the new system, foo will be implemented by first jiffing and then kluring the inputs, after considering the status of bar. Bar will take the place of shlimpf when vlerg finishes.
Choosing the future case requires that the implementation work has not yet been done, and maybe that the whole setup is open to revision. But you can also use the present tense in this case, especially if you are trying to resist revisions. And you would also use the present in the case where the implementation has already been done:
In the new system, foo is designed and implemented by first jiffing and then klurging the inputs, after considering the status of bar. Bar takes the place of shlimpf when vlerg finishes.
(Notice that the present tense of passive verb forms end in -"ed"; it's the auxiliary (is vs. was) that determines the tense of passive forms.)
Could you use the past tense as well? Consider
In the new system, foo was designed and implemented by first jiffing and then klurging the inputs, after considering the status of bar. Bar took the place of shlimpf when vlerg finished.
There are two problems here. The bigger one is that the choice of tense in the second sentence is incorrect. The second sentence describes a continuing tendency, rather than a result (something done and over with), and so by the general rules of English grammar the past tense is prohibited. But then the first sentence sounds too disjoint with respect to the second if you leave it in the past tense, so converting it too to the present tense improves the whole thing.
The second problem with retaining the past tense is that even if you dropped the Bar sentence, the effectiveness of any contrast you are making between the past way of doing things and the present way of doing things is undermined by sharing the same tense between the two discussions. It is easier to confuse the two, especially when jumping between different parts of a document.
Finally, if you don't discuss the earlier system at all, the present tense is generally preferred anyway, on the basis that it makes descriptions more vivid and engaging than the past tense. Though it can feel manipulative when used to construct narratives of one-time events, it never has this feeling in the kind of technical writing you are describing.
Washington Post November 29 issue reports Pope Francis has been encouraging Vatican’s charity activity under the headline: Pope ramps up charity office to be near poor, sick. It begins with the following sentence:
“Pope Francis has ramped up the Vatican’s charity work, sending his
chief alms-giver and a contingent of Swiss guards onto the streets of
Rome at night to do what he usually can’t do: comfort the poor and the
homeless.”
Is it common to spare “the” or “people” in front, or after “poor” and “sick” like this in journalism English? To me you can not save much space by sparing 'the,' and ‘to be near poor, sick” sounds like “feel like being poor and sick.
Answer
Here are some relevant portions that might help from an educational article about writing headlines:
http://www.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/Courses/ResourcesForCourses/WritingHeadlines.html
What is a headline?
A headline is an abstract sentence
Usually it is only five to ten words
It is a complete thought
Grammar
Don't use the articles a, an and the. They waste space unnecessarily.
So while articles would be required in written or spoken English, headlines are specifically an exception to the rule.
Which of these is correct?
or should it be,
Here's some related info in wikipedia.
Answer
1.) "Nobody move and nobody gets hurt."
2.) "Nobody move and nobody get hurt."
Both of your examples are sentences that, although each one has the appearance of an "and" coordination of two main clauses, each sentence is actually interpreted as if it was a conditional construction ("if P then Q").
In this type of construction, the first clause in each sentence is an imperative clause, which happens in your examples to retain most of its directive force (for both sentences, it retains the directive force of "Nobody move!"). The second clause can be of various different clause types (e.g. declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamative).
The construction involves an asymmetric "and" coordination, and the topic of asymmetric coordination is often not taught in grammar usage manuals, or in classrooms (high school or lower), or by "pop grammarians", or by online grammar sites -- although we native English speakers commonly use them, and uses of them can easily be found in print and spoken forms.
In the top part of my post, I'll deal with your #1 version. At the bottom of this post I'll address your #2 version.
= = = = PART A:
SHORT ANSWER: Version #1 is grammatical. The sentence is in the form of a coordination of an imperative clause and a declarative clause; and the sentence can be interpreted as a conditional ("If nobody moves, then nobody gets hurt"); and it seems that the full directive force of the imperative ("Nobody move!") is retained.
LONG ANSWER: Your sentence is in the form of a coordination of clauses: an imperative clause and a declarative clause. Your first clause is identical to what is in the 2002 CGEL, page 927, as an example of an imperative with a 3rd person subject:
- [7].i. Nobody move. -- [subject]
Also, CGEL also has this tidbit on that example:
Nobody in [7.i] is unambiguously subject because a vocative can't be negative, . . .
Your sentence, which is an asymmetric "and" coordination of an imperative clause with a declarative clause, can be interpreted as a conditional. Here's a related excerpt from CGEL, in "9.5 Imperatives interpreted as conditionals", page 937-8:
When an imperative is the first element in a clause-coordination, it is commonly interpreted as a conditional:
[39]
i. Ask him about his business deals and he quickly changes the subject.
ii. Do that again and you'll regret it.
iii. Persuade her to agree and I'll be forever in your debt.
iv. Don't make him the center of attention and he gets in a huff.
Thus we understand "If you ask him about his business deals he quickly changes the subject", and so on. The examples illustrate the prototypical case, where the second clause is declarative and overtly linked to the imperative by and. The conditional interpretation derives from the implicative of consequence that is commonly conveyed by and -- compare I'll offer him a 10% discount and he's bound to take it. The first clause is usually positive, but it is just possible for it to be negative, as in [iv]; the form of the negative shows clearly that it is indeed the imperative construction that we are dealing with here.
(There's more neat info in there, but my fingers are tired.)
With the OP's example:
"Nobody move and nobody gets hurt."
the interpretation can be: "If nobody moves, then nobody gets hurt". Though, in the OP's example, it seems that the full directive force of the imperative ("Nobody move!") is retained.
(Note that CGEL is the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.)
= = = = PART B:
Your version #2 seems to be pretty much kinda similar to your version #1, with the difference being that the 2nd coordinate is also an imperative clause.
That is: The sentence is in the form of a coordination of two imperative clauses; and the sentence can be interpreted as a conditional ("If nobody moves, then nobody gets hurt"); and it seems that the full directive force of the first imperative ("Nobody move!") is retained, while the directive force of the second imperative is lost.
Basically, everything else that I've mentioned in the above "Part A" also applies here. For your version #2, here's some related info from CGEL, in "Clause type of second coordinate", page 939:
The second clause can belong to other clause types than declarative; what is important is not the form but what the clause conveys:
[41]
i. Invite one without the other and what a row there'll be. -- [exclamative]
ii. Tell the truth and [who'll believe you / what'll they do]? -- [open interrogative]
iii. Act in haste and repent at leisure. -- [imperative]
. . . In [iii] the second imperative indirectly conveys approximately "you'll regret it (for a long time)".
.
Hope this is what you were looking for.
While it is easy enough to identify coordinating and subordinating conjunctions by memorizing lists of them, the actual distinction seems arbitrary. Coordinating conjunctions are said to join (among other sentence elements) two independent clauses, while subordinating conjunctions are said to join a subordinate clause to an independent clause.
The problem is that it appears to be the very presence of a subordinating conjunction which makes an otherwise-independent clause subordinate. For example, in the sentence...
Stock prices would have plummeted, unless the company issued a public
apology.
...the second clause is only subordinate by virtue of including the word "unless." "The company issued a public apology" expresses a complete thought, but "unless the company issued a public apology" does not. So the presence of the word "unless" explains why the second clause is subordinate, which explains why "unless" is a subordinating conjunction.
However, in the sentence...
Stock prices would have plummeted, but the company issued a public
apology.
...the same analysis is not applied. Rather, the word "but" is considered to stand between the two clauses, belonging to neither. This grants independent status to the second clause, "the company issued a public apology," whereas if the word "but" were to be included, it would be a subordinate clause, and therefore "but" would be a subordinating conjunction.
A sort of explanatory circularity is apparent, and it's not at all clear to me why "unless" and "but" should be treated differently in these examples. What is so special about the FANBOYS conjunctions that they are said to stand outside of independent clauses, while the rest are said to be part of otherwise-independent clauses, making them subordinate?
Is anything wrong about this phrase "We build software solutions designed for scalability"?
I think there is, because the tenses are not consistent.
Answer
There is absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with that sentence. A participle that introduces a verbal phrase is under no obligation to agree with the tense of the main verb. That just would not be sensible.
Examples of the past participle used with non-past verbs:
Examples of the present participle used with non-present verbs:
I want to address two Doctor Smiths via the abbreviation "Drs. Smith"; what is the correct possessive form of that (plural) noun phrase? Is it "Drs. Smith's"?
An example sentence:
Drs. Smith's house is in an ideal location.`
Answer
I'm going to make an educated guess, which isn't necessarily the best option but:
Technically, if you rewrite the phrase, you get:
The house belongs to the Drs. Smith.
Smith is singular, so the possessive form would be:
The Drs. Smith's house.
Similarly, if the sentence was:
The house belongs to Drs. Joe and Jane Smith.
The possessive would be:
Drs. Joe and Jane Smith's house.
Regardless, "Smith" is singular, so it doesn't make sense to pluralize it.
Now, contrast this with the known method for "The Smiths'":
The rewritten phrase would be:
The house belongs to the Smiths.
It's plural here... so it makes sense that the possessive would be:
The Smiths' house.
Regarding actions taken in the past, besides the differences those two tenses have semantically, my teacher shared that it could be a British vs American English case.
When talking about past action, British prefers present perfect because they take into account that the effect from their past action still happens until now. As for American, they prefer to state the action only. It happened in the past, so past tense it is.
I have had dinner. [British]
vs.
I had dinner. [American]
I hope to hear it from the native speakers, both British and American. What do you think about this? Is it true?
If it is, I don't think it can apply to all cases of past actions. There have to be cases when both style agree to use the same tenses. Could you please help me define the situation when this kind of difference applies and when doesn't?
Answer
I think, in formal usage, you will find that American and British are basically identical. We each use both of those constructions in the appropriate situation. Obviously, there is a semantic difference between these two constructions and neither dialect exclusively uses one or the other.
I am not certain, but I think what you are referring to is the fact that American English speakers can sometimes use simple past in places where one normally uses present perfect. So, as a US English speaker, I would correctly say:
(1) I've never gone to a tennis match before, but I am going to one today.
But, sometimes I say:
(2) I never went to a tennis match before, but I am going to one today.
I would not say that this second example is standard US English — in any formal situation I would use the present perfect. But, I suspect it is common in speech and I do it quite often.
This could be the very beginning of a semantic shift in the present perfect construction in English. Perhaps (2) will be preferred in several hundred years. (Such things are not unheard of; German now uses the present perfect form to indicate simple past in speech.)
If a non-native speaker asked me about this, I would never recommend to use the construction in (2), because (1) is right in every situation and never sounds strange or formal.
How do I list multiple things that are compound words?
In my own language I'm used to writing these lists like this:
"I kicked foot-, basket-, and volleyball"
The sentence is supposed to mean that I kicked all types of balls (football, basketball and volleyball). However, it does not seem correct to me. Should I write them as whole words, with or without hyphen, or how?
Answer
Basketball, football and volleyball fall under the category of closed compound words. These are combinations of two words that are not separated by a space or a hyphen. For more information on the types of compound words, check this out.
So your sentence should essentially be
I kicked a football, a basketball and a volleyball.
Suspended hyphenation(the case in a phrase like pre- and post-war implying pre-war and post-war) comes into picture only while dealing with hyphenated words. This article will guide you through it.
Hope that helped!
In what cases is it appropriate to refer to unknown gender as she?
Answer
While technically it should refer back to a plural, the singular 'they' is commonly used and, indeed, has a long history in English usage (back to the 16th Century).
You can use the plural pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘their’ etc., despite the fact that, technically, they are referring back to a singular noun:1
e.g. "Whoever it was, they should come forward."
Only in certain situations such as extremely formal writing would I not use a singular 'they.' This is due to the fact that it still does irk some people.
Just wondering what's the plural form of "noun of noun". Should the 's' be added to the first noun or the second, or both?
Example: we will examine the 'concentration of heavy metal' in this paper.
concentrations of heavy metals.
Does this indicate each heavy metal has more than one concentration?
concentrations of heavy metal.
Only one type of heavy metal, and has many concentrations?
concentration of heavy metals.
Does this indicate there are many types of heavy metals and each has only one concentration?
I found the 3 types of plural forms all exist in academic papers.
Answer
To me,
I am not a chemist.
I 've seen several times "submatrix" in code and manuals. However, whenever I write in my Latex editor, it gets underlined in red, as a spelling mistake. Same things happens now, just as I am writing my first question here. On the other hand, 've gets the same treatment, but that should be just a failure in the spelling checker (because it's not a word).
So, submatrix or sub-matrix? Or none of them, but something else?
EDIT
A related question lies here, but it's content is general, so does the duplicate of that question too. Moreover, as explicitly stated there, it depends on the word.
Answer
As of 2008, submatrix was approximately 3 times more common than sub-matrix:
Although both spellings may be "generally acceptable", submatrix is preferable by virtue of its "popularity". Neither expression is very common, but the relative popularity of submatirix is rooted in its adoption as the default spelling, particularly in the field of mathematics, so a person who used sub-matrix would reveal a basic ignorance of its predominant mathematical milieu.
Spellcheck dictionaries are not exhaustive, so submatrix is marked as incorrect simply because, as a rarely-used word, it is not included in the dictionary. Sub-matrix is "accepted spelling" because of spellcheck hyphenation protocol, which merely checks for correct spelling on either side of the hyphen.
Suppose I'm going to write an article/essay with the following title:
"What To Do If You Believe Space Aliens Shot JFK"
Does the word "if" get capitalized, like above, or not?
Answer
The word if is typically capitalized in titles.
According to Wikipedia:
In English, the first word and the last word of titles should be capitalized. In addition, all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions should be capitalized. Articles and coordinating conjunctions are not capitalized, while sources disagree on the capitalization of prepositions.
"If" is a subordinate (also, subordinating) conjunction and as such should be capitalized.
Circle the nouns in the following paragraph.
For the first time in her life, Mary was seeing two boys at once. It involved extra laundry, an answering machine, and dark solo trips in taxicabs, which, in Cleveland, had to be summed by phone, but she recommended it in postcards to friends. She bought the ones² with photos of the flats, of James Garfield’s grave, or an announcement from the art museum, one¹ with a peacock-handsome angel holding up fingers and whispering, One³ boy, two boys. On the back she wrote, You feel so attended to! To think we all thought just one² might amuse, let alone fulfill. Unveil thyself! Unblacken those teeth and minds! Get more boys in your life!
— Lorrie Moore, “Two Boys”
Why is the one in "one with a peacock-handsome angel" a noun?
In my opinion, the ones in "she bought the ones with photos of the flats" can't be a noun because it is a pronoun. Also, the one in "to think we all thought just one might amuse" means indefinite or nonspecific people; therefore, it is not a noun, but a pronoun. Is my reasoning correct?
Is the one in "One boy, two boys" not a noun because it is a determiner as in one, two, three, many?
As I'm not an English speaker, whenever I encounter "Preposition + Relative Pronoun" forms in the books, newspaper, etc., it is not that easy for me to understand right away.
... it will gain strength and so become a serious tool and take its place among the means with which you will be bound to create your art. -From 'Letters to a young poet'
If you just put prepositions at the end of sentence, then prepositions should be easier to understand for me. Why does English change the order?
I tried to understand why English makes sentences like that complicated but I cannot find any clues.
The situation in which Rilke wrote the first Duino Elegy is again instructive.
Answer
Shoe has already answered. Here is some additional information that may or may not clarify things further.
The first important thing to understand is that the relative pronoun is part of the relative clause, not of the main clause. Recently, even some native English speakers seem to be getting confused about this, as some weird new practices around who/whom show.
Let's look at some examples around the main clause "The man is here." I will put the relative clauses in bold face.
We can see that in all examples the relative clause immediately follows the part of speech (here the noun man) which it defines or explains; the remainder of the main clause follows after the end of the relative clause. This is not absolutely necessary, but it's the normal order. (One could also say "The man is here who wrote the message", but that's unusual.)
Next we see that in all examples the relative pronoun (in this case who[m]) begins the relative clause, possibly together with a preposition. This can be explained as one of the few remnants that English has from the original proto-Germanic word order: Word order was generally very free, and the sentence started with the semantically most important part of speech. In a relative clause that's the relative pronoun -- where applicable with its preposition. (It's a general phenomenon in Germanic languages that the word order in subordinate clauses is more conservative than that in declarative main clauses.) As a special feature of English, the preposition can optionally be separated and 'stranded' at the end of the sentence (or here: of the relative clause) as in the last example.
If we replace who/whom by he/him and write all the relative clauses as if they were main clauses, we get declarative main clauses with an unusual (almost obsolete) word order that puts enormous stress on [to] him. The only exception is the first example, where the word order happens to be the normal one because it's the subject that needs stressing.
Preposition stranding is a normal but optional and somewhat controversial feature of English. (Controversial among native speakers, that is. Non-native speakers get drills in preposition stranding so they can apply it properly.) I can see two problems with it. 1. It defers the information about the precise role of the relative pronoun in the relative clause to the very end of the relative clause. 2. There are transitions between prepositions and case markings. In fact, English to and of, just like French de and à, have developed to a stage where they can be considered as case markers. (Most case markers in European languages were once postpositions and therefore turned into endings. But prefixes marking case aren't unheard-of, either.) Seen this way, preposition stranding (in case of to or of) separates a relative pronoun from its case marker. That's like separating the -m from whom and 'stranding' it at the end of the sentence.
I am in doubt about what is the correct form of the verbs remember and understand in the options to the first question below:
Which is more difficult in learning a second language?
Remembering vocabulary or understanding native speakers? (Gerund)
To remember vocabulary or to understand native speakers? (To-infinitive)
Remember vocabulary or understand native speakers? (Bare infinitive)
Answer
Remembering vocabulary or understanding native speakers? (Gerund) is significantly better than either (2) or (3).
A fourth option is possible: To remember vocabulary or understand native speakers? (Mixed)
Is there any difference between these sentences apart from structure?
The tiger is a ferocious animal.
Tigers are ferocious animals.
Answer
When you say "The tiger", it is a stand-in for "all tigers"; apart from having to make the subject and verb agree, the two sentences are the same.
You can use the same equivalence in other cases that don't look exactly the same:
"Man is mortal." / "All men are mortal." (Note that in this usage, "men" is gender-neutral.)
"Humankind is fallible." / "All humans are fallible."
"Art nurtures the soul." / "The arts nurture the soul."
There is often talk about when to use a comma before conjunctions, but what about when to use them before and after? I would typically write the below sentence as follows:
There is a weight of expectation on her, but, judging by her recent performance in
class, she has a great shot at getting into Harvard.
I have seen many things online that say you really should not be using commas after "but" and only before when it starts an independent clause. However, there are those times when you need to use them both before and after.
It does make the sentence look choppy when you use a comma before and afterwards, but it is technically correct comma usage from what I can see? Would it be perfectly correct to just omit the second comma in order to create a smoother sentence:
There is a weight of expectation on her, but judging by her recent performance in
class, she has a great shot at getting into Harvard.
Which is correct?
When I listen to major news programs, often I notice that they seem to intentionally omit "the" before the name of the government organizations. For example:
We contacted E.P.A. for comment but they refused our requests.
or
Others consider the actions of treasury to be detrimental to the economy.
These just sound wrong to me. I think it should be "the E.P.A" or "the treasury". However I most often hear this on very credible news programs (The PBS News Hour and Frontline come to mind) so I am sure they know what they're doing...
Is it proper to use "the" before the name of a government organization, or is it optional?
Answer
There are several reasons to drop the article. One is that some institutions, governmental or not, are never referred to using the definite article. Another is that the article can get dropped as a consequence of familiarity with and/or personification of the institution. Of course, NewsHour and the like may simply impose a stylistic preference to remove nonessential words.
We often apply the definite article to the names of governmental organizations when the type of organization is part of the name (ministry, office, committee, et al). This is natural, since it sounds like we are specifying one organization of a type— National Park Service, which happens to be the name of the national park service; likewise the National Health Service or the Department for International Development. Where the organization is "branded," however, this is not the case, and we do not use the article: Parks Canada, Medicare, USAID (even though we would write out the United States Agency for International Development).
As with the names of countries and geographic features, there are no absolute rules in naming institutions. It is simply Gosbank but always the Bundesbank; someone attended North Carolina State University but attended the University of North Carolina (and yet attended UNC). With proper nouns, whichever usage becomes popular is that which becomes accepted, and sometimes (e.g. [the] Ohio State University) it is a muddle.
Dropping the article is quite common in some other professional communication. People who work with a particular organization may personify it, especially in internal circles, and as English does not use articles for personal names, the article may get dropped.
This is more obvious where an unofficial nickname or abbreviation is used. A large company, say ABC Inc., might organize its employees into divisions. A press release or business school case study about them would write out the full name: the ABC Marketing Division and the ABC Product Development Division.
Suppose you worked for ABC, and you interact regularly with those divisions as well as with some outside actors: the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Your internal emails will get simpler over time, indicating each group with the minimum of identifying information: there's good news out of Marketing, you should talk to PDD, send the proposal to Vegas but not Boston, we're waiting on approval from BIA. Obvious all those groups are made of up many different people doing many different things, but in terms of their interaction with you, they might as well be monolithic. It doesn't matter if it's Sandy from PDD or Chris from PDD, you just need someone from PDD.
At my job I have created an application which supplements the functions of the main system the employees use during the day. The main system is referred to with a Three Letter Abbreviation (TLA).
Because I wanted to be clever and memorable, I gave my application a friendly-sounding name (in theory at least, to native English speakers) which I created by adding vowels to the existing abbreviation. So the helper application for the TLA system is named "TeiLA" (not the actual letters or name, but the idea is the same).
This has created the desired result in that users say things like "Have you asked TeiLA for that information?" and even "TeiLA is my best friend!" I've been asked to talk about the work I've done and specifically to touch on name selection, except I don't know what to label what I did.
Is there a word or concise phrase which describes that action or process of transforming the letters into another name? Or, along the same lines, a word or concise phrase to describe the intent of making the name sound friendly or approachable to its users?
Answer
You could call the way you have treated this acronym personification.
Merriam-Webster defines personification as:
attribution of personal qualities; especially, representation of a thing or abstraction as a person or by the human form
In your case, you have attributed the acronym with a human sounding name and a personal role in your office.
Is usage of near to wrong? For example, which is correct?
This place is near to London.
This place is near London.
I’m confused about the right way of saying it. Please tell me the correct answer and why it is correct.
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:
My focus here is on the should in the sentence fragment "I should very much like...". Why is it there in place of would? It seems strange that should is used in the subjunctive mood there -- is it grammatical? If the fragment is idiomatic, can anyone explain the history of the idiom?
Answer
Great Question! I was intrigued to find the following in NOAD:
As with shall and will, there is confusion about when to use should and would. The traditional rule is that should is used with first person pronouns ( I and we), as in: I said I should be late, and would is used with second and third persons ( you, he, she, it, they), as in: you didn't say you would be late.
In practice, however, would is normally used instead of should in reported speech and conditional clauses: I said I would be late; if we had known, we would have invited her.
In spoken and informal contexts, the issue rarely arises, since the distinction is obscured by the use of the contracted forms I'd, we'd, etc. In modern English, uses of should are dominated by the senses relating to obligation (for which would cannot be substituted), as in: you should go out more often, and for related emphatic uses, as in: you should have seen her face!
Consider a type of software that is specific to an industry. We might say it's...
industry-specific
If software is specific to a particular use case ("use case" is a software term) would we say it's...
use case-specific
The usage of the hyphen has me befuddled. "case-specific" sticks together, visually, while "use" is off by itself.
Answer
This is a matter of style, and there is no single correct answer.
What you are dealing with is hyphenation that includes an open compound.
According to The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.), 6.80:
The en dash can be used in place of a hyphen in a compound adjective when one of its elements consists of an open compound or when both elements consist of hyphenated compounds. Whereas a hyphen joins exactly two words, the en dash is intended to signal a link across more than two. Because this editorial nicety will almost certainly go unnoticed by the majority of readers, it should be used sparingly, when a more elegant solution is unavailable. As the first two examples illustrate, the distinction is most helpful with proper compounds, whose limits are made clear within the larger context by capitalization. The relationship in the third example depends to some small degree on an en dash that many readers will perceive as a hyphen connecting music and influenced. The relationships in the fourth example are less awkwardly conveyed with a comma.
the post–World War II years
Chuck Berry–style lyrics
country music–influenced lyrics (or lyrics influenced by country music)
a quasi-public–quasi-judicial body (or, better, a quasi-public, quasi-judicial body)
Note that you are not using any capitalized words, so the guidance here is less applicable that it might be otherwise. Even Chicago says that many people might not notice the subtlety of using an en dash over a hyphen.
However, compare these two:
use case-specific
use case–specific
Does the en dash make a noticeable enough impact that it no longer looks so strange?
Of course, even though use case is an open noun, you could choose to use a hyphen in order to indicate where the division of the three words lies:
use-case specific
That, too, clearly indicates the meaning being expressed.
It also matches how some people hyphenate ice-cream sandwich, despite the fact that ice cream is normally an open noun.
If the three words are being used to adjectivally modify something else, then you could use three hyphens in a row:
use-case-specific software
Since people are used to seeing use case, this triple hyphenation shouldn't cause any problem in terms of comprehension.
Other alternatives to hyphenation involve using quotations marks or italics (or other forms of representational styling) instead of hyphens:
"use case" specific
use case specific
However, since there is nothing special about the use of this particular phrase, it might look even stranger when set off this way than when using some form of hyphenation.
Compare those alternatives to hyphens used in a different context:
It's one of those "don't bother dressing up" invitations.
It's one of those don't bother dressing up invitations.
Unlike use case, this phrase seems more normal when set apart from the surrounding text.
If it's only the three words being used, and they don't together modify something else, you could choose to omit hyphenation altogether, if you think there wouldn't be any risk of misunderstanding and it looked better to you:
use case specific
This matches how some other people don't hyphenate ice cream sandwich.
Of course, you could simply rephrase:
The software is use case specific.
→ The software is specific to each use case.
How you choose to style this is up to you. Since there is no universal rule, barring other guidance, go with the method that looks best with the rest of the text in your document.