prepositions - Meaning and usage of “be of”

As I'm preparing my GMAT test, I see the "be of" structure very frequently.
for example

By 1940, the pilot Jacqueline Cochran held seventeen official national and international speed records, earned at a time when aviation was still so new that many of the planes she flew were of dangerously experimental design.

This really bothers me as it contradicts the conclusion from the post
Meaning and usage of "be of", because in GMAT writings the "be of" looks very flexible. I find it's very difficult to understand sometime, but I know these are really fine and efficient writings.

I guess my question was, in this case, can you get rid of the "of" and what the usage of it here?
If I take off the "of" here, does it modify the meaning of this sentence?

By 1940, the pilot Jacqueline Cochran held seventeen official national and international speed records, earned at a time when aviation was still so new that many of the planes she flew were dangerously experimental design.

Answer

This is a different phemomenon from the one discussed in the "Meaning and usage of "be of" post. That one describes a set of idiomatic predicate prepositional phrases -- be of assistance/service/use/help -- that have special pragmatic uses.

This phenomenon is a headless relative clause that happens to have a prepositional phrase. If you put back all the stuff that has been left out and unwind the transformations you get something like

• ... the planes that she flew were planes that were of dangerously experimental design.

That-deletion results in

• ... the planes she flew ...

and Whiz-deletion results in

• ... the planes she flew were planes of dangerously experimental design.

And, since planes just occurred a few words back, it gets deleted here, producing a headless relative clause meaning "[ones that are] of dangerously experimental design".
These are all optional, and unordered, and independent, like most syntax.

English deletes a lot of stuff from relative clauses, producing sentences that look like other sentences with very different uses and conventions.

grammaticality - "both of" + possessive, which noun does "both of" refer to?

Both of the boy's parents were happy with the new school.

Is it proper English to say "both of the boy's parents", as in the above sentence, to mean "both parents of the boy"? Or do we have to use the latter?

Background

A similar question appeared on a private advanced-level English test. The task was to spot a mistake in a sentence similar to the above. The correct answer was apparently the place of the apostrophe: in terms of the above example, it should read "both of the boys' parents" (meaning "parents of both boys"), with the argument that, in proper English, "both" can only refer to "boys" in such circumstances. I found this argument a bit shaky though. I am not a native English speaker, but I have studied and spoken it for many years, and the above sentence looks perfectly correct to me. I also could not find any helpful references on the internet that address this scenario.

Answer

I would say the sentence is perfectly fine with boy's, and the test is mistaken. There is absolutely nothing wrong with both of the boy's parents. The only reason I can think of why it would be wrong is if context made it clear that this had to be about two boys. That is possible, if this sentence is part of a story; was it?

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

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

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

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Original question:

An edit was suggested to my sentence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There doesn't seem to be clear consensus for:

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

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

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

There's three apples on the table!

Could you please clarify this mess?

Answer

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

Existential there couples with either singular or plural verbs (there
is / there are, according to the following noun phrase) . . . This
formal agreement is strictly maintained in academic writing. But in

narrative and everyday writing, there is and especially there’s is
found even with plural nouns . . . In conversation the combination of
there’s with a plural noun is in fact more common than there are,
according to the 'Longman Grammar' . . . Negative statements also seem
to attract there’s . . . When a compound subject follows, there’s
rather than there are is selected . . .

In such cases both formal and proximity agreement help to select the
singular verb. These various uses of there’s with plural (or
notionally plural) noun phrases show how the structure is working its

way into the standard. It seems to be evolving into a fixed phrase,
rather like the French C’est . . . serving the needs of the ongoing
discourse rather than the grammar of the sentence.

etymology - What’s the history of the adjective “dwarven”?

A simple Google seach will show that many people use “dwarven” as an adjective meaning “of or related to dwarves”. People can say things like “very dwarven”. But not many dictionaries list this adjective, and the ones I found that do don’t explain its etymology.

Some people might think of “The Lord of the Rings” (published 1954) but LOTRproject indicates that dwarven actually does not appear in The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Rings. [Edit: apparently, when I first wrote this question, I missed the fact that dwarven does occur in some of Tolkien's other writings that were published later on!]

These works do contain elven, although as far as I can tell, Tolkien uses elven only in compound words, not as an adjective (so it might be more accurate for me to say it contains "elven-"). So my current theory is that Tolkien’s elven- was reinterpreted by later authors as an adjective, and then dwarven (adj) was formed by analogy with this.

Could anyone tell me when this happened? What are the earliest cases we know of where dwarven is used as an adjective?

Research

I tried to research this with Google Ngrams and Google Books. My results:

• A case-insensitive Ngram for “dwarven, dwarvish, dwarfish” shows “dwarven” as having 0% use until 1976. This doesn’t prove it wasn’t used earlier since Google hasn’t indexed everything and the Ngram database can have errors. Nonetheless, it suggests that “dwarven” was not used much soon after the Lord of the Rings was published.




• On Google Books, the first examples of attributive "dwarven" that I found are from 1979, 1980 and 1981.

  
  
  
  
  
  

  • 1979: The Middle-earth Quiz Book, by Suzanne Buchholz, p. 144 "The rings caused their Dwarven bearers to lust after gold and other precious materials."

  
  

  • 1980: The following blog post, a reproduction of "Fantasy Genetics: Humanoid Races In Review", by Gregory G. H. Rihn, December 1980. It uses “dwarven” as a non-hyphenated attributive word in various phrases. There are no predicative uses of “dwarven”, and it is never modified by an adjective-only word like “more” or “very”, so technically it could be either a noun or an adjective in this article. Also, it uses the compound word “dwarvenkind”, which if compared to “mankind” suggests “dwarven” is a noun rather than an adjective. Still, I’d say it is an example of the usage I'm interested in.

  
  

  • 1981: 2 examples from books, Trek to Kraggen-Cor by Dennis L. McKiernan and Fantasy Role Playing Games: Dungeons, Dragons, and Adventures in Fantasy Gaming by John Eric Holmes

  
  

So far, it looks to me like Dungeons and Dragons-related writing might have been an important influence, but I don’t know if it can be said to be the source of dwarven (adj) or if some authors of fantasy literature had already derived it before D&D.

Wikipedia says Dungeons and Dragons was “first published in 1974” so it fits timeline-wise with the Ngram Viewer for it to be the originator of dwarven (adj.).

The earlier plural noun “dwarven”: not what I’m interested in

I did find 2 results on Google Books for “dwarven” from before Tolkien, but both of them are unrelated to the adjective I am interested in: they seem to be (pseudo-archaic) plurals of the noun “dwarf”.

• 1861: The cloister and the hearth, by Charles Reade

  
  
  

  
  

  The duke hath need of him; sore need; we are clean out o’ dwarven; and tiger-cats, which may not be, whiles earth them yielded.

  
  





• 1911: The poetical works of Heinrich Heine : now first completely rendered into English verse, in accordance with the original forms, translated by John Payne

  
  
  

  
  

  And when men depart, the lordship / Will devolve upon the dwarven, / On the weeny witsome people, / In the mountain's womb... ("Atta Troll", vol. 2 p. 108)

  
  

  
  
  

  This also seems to be a plural noun, as the original is "Nach dem Untergang der Menschen / Kommt die Herrschaft an die Zwerge [plural noun], / An die winzig klugen Leutchen, / Die im Schoß der Berge hausen."

  
  
  

  
  

  There dwarven drum and fiddle / and horns and trumpets blow. (p. 166, “From the Harz Tour: The Ilse”, vol. 1 p. 166)

  
  
  

  
  
  

  (Again, looking at the original indicates that “dwarven” should be interpreted as a noun and “drum” and “fiddle” as verbs: “Die Zwerge [plural noun] trompeten und pauken / Und fiedeln und blasen das Horn.”)

Summary and my ideas of possible other places to look (or not)

To reiterate, I'm interested in the earliest uses of "dwarven" as an adjective. The earliest example I found using Google Books is from 1979 (Buchholz); tchrist's answer provides an even earlier example from 1976 ( Greyhawk).

I doubt there will be examples from before Tolkien, so I would say the relevant time period is 1954-1976.

Fiction with dwarfs that I know of from this era: Three Hearts and Three Lions (which seems to use the plural "dwarfs", so it probably doesn't have "dwarven") and the Narnia books (which also use "dwarfs").

War games rules: I have checked PDFs of the following fantasy rule-sets, and they don't seem to contain "dwarven":

• the original edition of Dungeons and Dragons (which does have “dwarves”), 1974


• the Chainmail fantasy supplement, 1971


• Len Patt’s Tolkien-based fantasy precursor to the Chainmail/D&D rules in the NEWA magazine The Courier, 1970


• the WRG 4th edition “ancient” fantasy rules (which do have “dwarves”), 1973

“Dwarven” also doesn’t seem to appear in the texts associated with the following LOTR-based boardgames: 1970 Conquest of the Ring, 1973 Quest of the Magic Ring, 1974 Battle at Helms Deep (Richard Jordison)

I did find some hints to a few possible future avenues of research, but I haven’t been able to pursue them currently.

Typically one would note here Tony Bath's article "Campaigning with the aid of Fantasy Fiction" in Slingshot #9 (Jan 1967), in which he mentions that a Colin Rowbotham had drawn up a rules for a Tolkien-based wargame "to include all these odd creatures". If Tony Bath was aware of Mr. Rowbotham's efforts at this time, then the rules themselves must have been conceived no later than 1966. I'm not aware that they were published anywhere. Over the next several years, fantasy games were revisited now and again.

(posted Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:22 pm by increment in Early Fantasy Games? -  Tome of Treasures Forum)

In addition to the article mentioned here, another article from Slingshot, the official journal of the Society of Ancients, seems like it might be relevant. I haven’t been able to access either of them, so I would appreciate it if anyone who is able to check them would tell me if they do or don't use the word “dwarven”:

• “Campaigning with the Aid of Fantasy Fiction” by Tony Bath in Slingshot #9, pp. 10-13 (Jan 1967)


• “From Khazad-Dum to Cormallen” by D J Walker-Smith in Slingshot #47, pp. 24-27

Answer

Greyhawk, the first separately published D&D supplement from 1976 by Gygax and Kuntz, mentions “Dwarven Hammer” on page 15.

The word dwarven was in the Zeitgeist at that time and place: it was definitely a "Gary-word", as I recall; Gary liked to "rescue" old words that had fallen into disuse, like dweomer. He wasn't averse to making up his own refurbished words based on older models, either, much like Tolkien with mathom and all the rest.

I haven't looked much earlier yet. It doesn't seem to be the fantasy "supplement" for Chainmail for example.

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It was a century ago at the close of the First World War that JRR Tolkien first put to pen his conception of the Dwarves in a collection of writings which his son Christopher would much later publish as The Book of Lost Tales, Volume II in 1984. This tome would eventually become the second volume in the dodecalogue of Christopher’s magnum opus, The History of Middle Earth.

In the commentary on page 247 CJRT writes:

The account of the Dwarves in this tale is of exceptional interest in other respects. [...] but this is the first description of the Dwarves in my father’s writings – already with the spelling that he maintained against the unceasing opposition of proof-readers – and they are eminently recognisable in their dour and hidden natures, [...]

The two places that Tolkien père uses the word from the book are in The Nauglafring. This is the original tale of what he would later name the Nauglamir, the golden necklace wrought of cursed gold by the Dwarves for Lúthien’s father that would someday bear the Silmaril that Beren wrested from Morgoth’s crown.

The word appears twice, once under the dwarven spelling and once under the dwarfen one.

The first sentence appears on page 227:

A golden crown they made for Tinwelint, who yet had worn nought but a wreath of scarlet leaves, and a help too most glorious they fashioned; and a sword of dwarven steel brought from afar was hilted with bright gold and damascened in gold and silver with strange figurings wherein was pictured clear the wolf-hunt of Karkaras Knife-fang, father of wolves.

The second sentence begins at the bottom of page 237 and continues on through the middle of the following page:

Now little doth the tale tell of wounds and blows of that affray, save that Beren got many hurts therein, and many of his shrewdest blows did little harm to Naugladur by reason of the [?skill] and magic of his dwarfen mail; and it is said that three hours they found and Beren’s arms grew weary, but not those of Naugladur accustomed to wield his might hammer at the forge, and it is more than like that otherwise would the issue have been but for the curse of Mîm; for marking how Beren grew faint Naugladur pressed him ever more nearly, and the arrogance that was of that grievous spell came into his heart, and he thought: “I will slay this Elf, and his folk will flee in fear before me,” and grasping his sword he dealt a might blow and cried: “Take hear thy bane, O stripling of the woods,” and in that moment his foot found a jagged stone and he stumbled forward, but Beren slipped aside from that blow and catching at his beard his hand found the carcanet of gold, and therewith he swung Naugladur suddenly off his feed upon his face: and Naugladur’s sword was shaken from his grasp, but Beren seized it and slew him therewith, for he said: “I will not sully my bright blade with thy dark blood, for there is no need.”

^{(Understand that these writings are deliberately written in that extremely archaic style Tolkien used in his earliest unpublished works, and do not represent anything he ever saw fit to publish in his own lifetime.)}

The other instance of the word in the early writings appears in the second canto of The Lay of the Children of Húrin, which was written in the summer of 1918.
This lay is in the alliterative four-beat verse characteristic of Old English and Old Norse poetry, with its two beats to either side of the caesura.

On page 48 of The Lays of Beleriand posthumously published in 1985 we read:

There he slept or swooned,          as sunk in oblivion
by drugs of darkness          deadly blended;
he heard not their whisipers;          no hope stirred him
nor the deep despair          of his dreams fathomed;
to awake his wit          no words availed.
No blade would bite          on the bonds he wore,
thought Flinding felt          for the forgéd knife
of dwarfen steel,          his dagger prizéd,
that at waist he wore          awake or sleeping,
whose edge would eat          through iron noiseless
as a clod of clay          is cleft by the share.
It was wrought by wrights          in the realms of the East,
in black Belegost,          by the bearded Dwarves
of troth unmindful;          it betrayed him now
from its sheath slipping          as o’er shaggy slades
and roughhewn rocks          their road they wended.

Although Gary Gygax cannot have read the word dwarven/dwarfen in Tolkien’s unpublished writings when he and Rob Kuntz wrote the D&D Greyhawk supplement, the publication of The Silmarillion the year following was met with great excitement by the still very small gaming community there in little Lake Geneva at the time.

So taken was everyone there by Tolkien that there was never any question of spelling dwarves as dwarfs, for there was some awareness even then of the battles Tolkien had waged with his publisher’s copyeditors over elvish over elfish, Dwarves over Dwarfs. We all felt that the ‑v‑ versions were somehow more “authentic” of the genre we were immersing ourselves in.

Starting sentence with subject and not including it in verbs later on

When creating longer sentences, I am apt to say something like

"I love it when he visits and am looking forward to his next one."

where I say "I ...", using a subject and verb, but then say "and am" without including the subject pronoun again. Is this acceptable in English? Are there any situations in which only mentioning the subject pronoun once at the beginning of sentence would be incorrect? The meaning does not seem unclear because of it, but saying "I" again sounds repetitive and unnatural.

grammar - Plurality of numbers between -1 and 1

If I recall correctly, the Académie française states that, for French, quantities comprised within [-1,1] are singular, and anything else is plural. This means, for instance, that we should say (in French) 0.3722 apple, instead of 0.3722 apples.

I know the plurality for 1 and -1 in English, but what is the plurality of real numbers between them?

Answer

You could make the argument that English does not have singular and plural markers per se, but rather singular and "non-singular". (I'm not necessarily advocating this view, just throwing it out there.)

The evidence would be that the singular form is used to refer to one of something, while the plural form is used to refer to all other amounts. This includes everything between -1 and 1 (not including 1, of course).

• -25 volts


• -1 volts


• -0.25 volts


• 0 volts


• 0.1 volts



• 0.5 volts


• 0.999 volts


• 1.0000001 volts


• 1 volt

With that said, there are a few special cases that need to be addressed:

1. There is no apple on the table.


2. There are no apples on the table.


3. There is half of an apple on the table.

While (2) might be more common, (1) is certainly possible in certain situations. This looks like an exception to the rule; note that (1) is normally said in response to an assertion that an apple should be on the table, while (2) is said in any situation.

Now, (3) might look like an exception as well, but grammatically speaking, apple is still referring to one apple, where "half of an apple" = "half of one apple" (logically and syntactically).

grammar - Do I use a semicolon before 'and' in a complex list?

I am listing things in a sentence which includes commas between the internal parts. Do I finish with an 'and' at the end of it? For example:

I arrange interviews through phone and film; co-ordinate the editorial
team’s travel; and I write blog posts, articles,

and reviews of local London events.

It would be great if I knew the definitive answer, or any tips on how to restructure this.

word choice - "Seductive" as an adjective for describing snake

I would really appreciate if some native English speaker help me in clearing my doubt.

Recently, in one of Indian English newspaper the column writer wrote the following: "A scary sci-fi scenario. And one which could have its roots in a long-ago Garden where a seductive serpent offered Eve an Apple with a capital ‘A’."
My point is how much correct is the word choice of "SEDUCTIVE" in stead of "DECEIVING" to describe the snake especially in case of Adam and Eve story. Here is the full article: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/summing-up-thanks-to-machines-we-can-no-longer-add-two-and-two-together/

Thanks.

Grammar: Should the sentence say, "my sister or I" or "my sister or me"?

I read the following sentence, "My mother won't put up with my sister or I swearing." My question is, should the sentence say, "my sister or I" or "my sister or me"?

syntax - How are "needs to be washed," "needs washing," and the regional variant "needs washed" to be distinguished"?

I'm from Central Pennsylvania, and apparently, we have a strange language construct in this area. I was recently talking about how "my car needs washed" to a friend from NJ, and she told me that my sentence was grammatically incorrect.

I realize she's right, and I realize my options are "my car needs to be washed" or "my car needs washing". But I'm not clear on the precise rule being invoked.

Answer

From a strict descriptivist standpoint, your "the car needs washed" construction is not grammatically incorrect - if we're talking about the Central Pennsylvania flavor of English, that is. But your friend is right that this construction is not found in more standard varieties of English, and can be considered incorrect in formal writing.

Anyway... I think the difference between The car needs to be washed and The car needs washing is the degree of cleanliness that will thus be achieved. The -ing version just says the car needs to get some water applied; the end result could be a clean car, or just a slightly cleaner car. The 'to be' version, on the other hand, states that the desired end result is a completely clean car. Which one is the better equivalent for the "needs washed" construction is something you can answer better than I can.

I will note that in most cases, the difference between the -ing and 'to be' versions of a phrase is pretty subtle, and context is king: if your mom says "your room needs cleaning", you'd better assume she wants a sparkling-clean end result, grammar notwithstanding.

grammatical number - ...when construction of the permanent facilities "is" or "are" projected to be complete: which is correct?

The funding need will extend through the year 2020 when construction of the permanent facilities is projected to be complete.

My boss insists I should use are instead of is. I disagree. Any recommendations?

terminology - Whose tense is it, anyway?

I have questions which perhaps should be posted to Linguistics.SE; but since my primary concern is to discover what terminology in discussing English grammar and usage on ELU (and in similar contexts), I hope I may be allowed to post them here.

Back in the early ‘60s, when I was learning to distinguish tense, aspect and mood in Latin and English, it was explained to me that (despite what the schoolmarms were telling me) I should regard these categories as attributes not of verbs but of entire sentences, realized in Latin primarily through verbal inflection but in English mostly through constructions employing a variety of lexical and syntactic components.

This way of thinking about the categories has always made sense to me, and it is echoed here and there in my old Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (Lyons, 1968). For instance:

Tense is therefore a deictic category, which […] is simultaneously a property of the sentence and the utterance. (305)

In recent years, however, I have on several occasions been chided for using the term tense in this manner. I am told that it is properly applied only in cases where temporal reference is expressed through inflection. I have not been made aware of any similar restriction in the use of aspect or mood.

I am painfully aware that my understanding of English grammar and syntax is by now two generations out of date. So I’d like to ask:

• Is the term tense today only properly used in the restricted sense, in formal discourse about English grammar?


• Does this restriction similarly apply to 1) such terms of tense-distinction as past, present and future, and 2) the parallel categories aspect and mood and their corresponding terms of distinction?


• In cases where such restrictions apply, what terms should be used to name the categories and distinctions when they are expressed through some means other than inflection of a verb?

Answer

I’m Drew Ward, the linguist who wrote the linked to pages on the CALLE site. This debate over the use of the word tense has been something that’s been coming up quite a bit lately and perhaps reflects a change in recent years among university professors in what they are and are not teaching students. A few years ago the challenge with the term tense was that it was being used too broadly to refer to anything and everything “temporal” (including aspect and such). The problem today seems to be the polar opposite and is just as full of problems. As mentioned above, the current popular approach is to limit the use of the word tense to only those situations in which verb morphology is inflected to convey time information.

This view unfortunately can’t work. In fact, if you applied this sort of thinking to English, not only would we not have future tenses, but we’d have neither past nor present tenses either. Expression of verbal information in English requires two functional units working together (usually an auxiliary + a specific subordinate form — for instance aspect requires either DO+VERB or BE+VERBing). Tense is expressed via combination of the verb form of the left-most auxiliary in a verb construction (whatever auxiliary is nearest the subject) in tandem with some temporal adverbial which can be either explicit (tomorrow, yesterday, at 3pm, this one time when I was a kid) or implicit via context or logical order.

No verb form in English can be called an X-tense form because none of them have only that function. However, there are three general forms that tend to be default verb forms for expressing tense. The first form (usually called present tense form) is unmarked for tense and used for expressing certainty. Examples include “I am typing now (present tense)”, “Santa Claus comes tonight (future tense)”. Absent of additional time-marking (explicit or implicit), this form defaults to “present”.

The second form is the praeterite. The praeterite is traditionally called “the past tense” form but this is only one of its functions. The praeterite can be used to express the certain past (indicative) or the uncertain present (subjunctive). Like the unmarked certain form, absent of other time-marking or mood-marking, the default for the praeterite is “past tense”.

The third form (often referred to as “future tense form” is the unmarked uncertain form, or unmarked modal. This form can be used to express any tense as allowed by the modal used (can, may, might, have, must, be able, be going, etc.). The big difference with this form is that the argument of the verb is uncertain and generally relies on some added qualification as denoted by the modal used for whatever is attested to to come to fruition. Modal forms generally express either present or future tenses and again do so with some added implicit or explicit time marking. Absent of additional temporal marking though, the default tense for this form tends to be future.

This debate in general comes down to petty arguments over terminology, but since tense is nothing more than a way of describing temporal contrast as the relative position and distance of two temporal references along the timeline of an utterance, and those range from far distant past to far distant future (with the only “single tense” being present which is always an ever-changing point “now”), to say that any language has more or fewer tenses than any other is honestly asinine if not in the least just closed-minded and ignorant. If we as human beings can talk about future, we have future tenses (same for present and past). How that information is conveyed though may be drastically different from one language to the next.

idioms - Will that be fine?

Quite a few times now, a waiter or shop assistant has asked me:

Will that be fine?

I've noticed that I've only ever heard Indian English speakers use this turn of phrase.

To my (British) ear, it sounds unidiomatic: I would always ask

Will that be OK?

expecting the answer

Yes, that's fine.

I'm intrigued to know what's going on here. Am I right in my assumption, from my own experience, that this is common in Indian English but not British English or (I think) American English?

I've been trying to analyse it to work out why there would be a difference, and I'm wondering whether it's something to do with stereotypical British reserve. The British question/answer would go something like this:

• Q: Will that be OK? [Subtext: of course, I wouldn't dream of suggesting that my poor efforts could ever be positively fine: mere acceptability is all a worm such as I can hope for.]


• A: Yes, that's fine. [Subtext: I wouldn't want to be so rude as to confirm his suspicion that it's merely acceptable. I'd better make it clear that his efforts are unrelentingly fantastic.]

This seems a plausible enough reconstruction to explain why Brits like me are so unassuming, but it wouldn't really explain why Will that be fine? isn't also idiomatic in American English.

Is this prevalent only in Indian English? If so, can anyone explain why?

Answer

If you call customer care in India, you would definitely hear them using their "fine and ok" interchangeably.

So I have heard the InE speakers say, (a heavily accented):

• Will that be fine/ok for you?


• Is that ok for you?


• That's ok with me.

and the prepositional usage varies too ...
It's ok with me but ok for you .

grammatical number - "3-month retreat" or "3-months retreat"?

Which one is the correct (or more commonly used) form: "3-month retreat" or "3-months retreat"? How about "3-day" vs. "3-days" and "3-week" vs. "3-weeks" in the same context? (This is retreat as in meditation retreat and for U.S. English.)

Answer

In American English, you'd use the singular. So "3 day weekend" or "8 week course" or, yes, "3 month retreat".

grammar - Is "I like those except apple" correct?

I was helping to explain the difference between "except for" and "except" and my friend made two example sentences. Those two sentences being:

I like those except apple

and

I like those except for apple

They sound unnatural to me, but I am unsure whether they are incorrect or not. Can someone please explain this sentence to me and if it is correct or not?

grammar - I want to know how to correctly use me and I or you and I in a sentence

I would like to understand how to you the word me and I in a sentence using correct grammar.

The difference between you and me : The difference between me and you
The difference between you and I : The difference between me and I

word choice - Which is grammatically correct: "Let he who..." or "Let him who..."

1. Let he who believes in this prophet speak now what he knows.


2. Let him who believes in this prophet speak now what he knows.

tenses - Please help me understand when to use -ing on a verb

There are two questions I'm struggling with.

(1) That I have little interest in art is not the fault of my parents,
taking me to art exhibits and galleries from the time I was ten years old.

Why is the "taking" wrong? I'm guessing it has to be "who have taken" because of "from the time I was ten years old" but I still don't understand why it's wrong to say "taking." The word "parents" comes right before the comma so it shouldn't be an ambiguous modifier. After all, wouldn't it be correct to say the following:

Taking me to art exhibits and galleries from the time I was ten years
old, my parents are not at fault for my having little interest in art.

My next question:

(2A) Though she missed her old friend, Sharon was generally happy at
her new school, having much smaller classes than her previous
school.

(2B) Though she missed her old friend, Sharon was generally happy at
her new school: it had much smaller classes than her previous

school.

I know why (2B) is correct, but I don't understand why (2A) is incorrect. The modifier "having much smaller classes than her previous school" is correctly describing "her new school" so what exactly is the problem?

Thanks in advance!

grammatical number - Can an “s”-form plural follow an “s”-form possessive?

This is best described via an example. I believe this might be technically correct, but sounds clumsy:

You need to look through all the chemicals shelves

There are multiple shelves, of type chemical. There is a chemicals shelf times many/plural. On the other hand you could have:

You need to look through all the chemical shelves

This sounds better, but to me implies that the shelves themselves are chemicals. Obviously context factors in, in that most people would know that the shelves are not chemicals.

Answer

Plural modifiers are entirely acceptable.

Your doubt about the validity of the plural form comes from a rule in the past that noun modifiers had to be singular (apple tree, vegetable soup, rubber chicken) but today this is not an absolute and there are many examples of plural noun modifiers in everyday use, for example, parts departments, schools superintendents and options markets.

In Quirk et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, the following situations are listed where a plural modifier may be used:

1. the singular form might lead to ambiguity
   an Arts degree (a degree in the
   humanities) as opposed to an art
   
   degree (a degree in fine art)




2. there is no singular form of a noun (in pluralia tantum)
   a customs officer




3. there is a need to denote variety
   a soft drinks manufacturer [but] a
   car manufacturer




4. a topical issue comes forth, often in newspaper stories. Quirk cites
   examples of Watergate reporting from
   newspapers:
   the tapes issue
   the tapes compromise
   the Watergate tapes affair
   the White House tapes mystery and other examples, including jobs cut.

In your case, chemicals shelf might be used because of the variety of chemicals. However, I disagree about the potential for confusion. Taking the example of the electronic engineer, when could that ever be interpreted as some sort of robotic device? No such thing even exists. The same applies to mechanical engineer but in that case there's no alternative.

articles - Difference between "society" and "the society"

I am not very clear on the difference between "society" and "the society". As far as I know, "society" (without "the") refers to a society that is more general. But I don't have a clear distinction between them.

Could anybody explain to me? For example, if I want to say "socialization is the process of learning to live in (the) society", should I use "the"?

Edit: I am still a little confused here: it seems that "society" can still refer to a subset of people. After seeing your answer, my understanding is that without the article, "society" doesn't emphasize a specific society: it doesn't matter which society it refers to (although through context, which one is referred can be inferred). With "the", however, the speaker emphasizes a specific society.
Then the sentences should be different:

Soldiers protect society.

Soldiers protect the society.

Am I right? Could someone further explain it to me?

Answer

From Wikipedia

Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of humanity or a contextually specific subset of people.

I would restate one part of the original question as
'"society" (without "the") refers to human society in general'

and, the example should read
"socialization is the process of learning to live in society"

The phrase "the society" is used in areas of study such as anthropology, political science and sociology when referring to specific groups.

Again from the Wikipedia article, discussing a particular group

This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from invasion.

In this case, "the society" is used to limit the scope to the group under discussion, and not all of humanity.

---

Edited to respond to OP's edit of original question

In "Soldiers protect society" the lack of an article preceding "society" makes it a statement about human society in general. As such it can stand alone without other context.

"Soldiers protect the society" seems taken out of context. It begs the question which society?

(Note: The following example statements are not meant to be historically accurate.)

In general, soldiers protect (human) society.
In ancient Rome, soldiers called centurions protected the (Roman) society.
In ancient Japan, soldiers called samurai protected the (Japanese) society.

american english - 'Anytime' and 'ever'

Actually I am a non native English speaker, of course I may come across many confusion but I don't care of those much,but curious some times to know about the things.

I know the meaning of 'Ever' which is 'At Anytime' and 'Always'.

I found there is a slight difference between 'Ever' and 'Anytime' when we use this.

Example:

1. you can come at anytime. ---> here 'Anytime' means a specific time of the day but not determined.




2. Have you ever seen this? ---> here 'Ever' says 'anytime', however any time of any day not any time of the particular day.

Is that the way you think?

Appreciate your response🙂

While it is raining- Clause

I was studying about clauses in a book and then a sentence came which seemed pretty abstruse to me.

The book says that in the sentence: "We can't start while it is raining," the "while it is raining" part forms a clause.

Can anybody please tell me what the subject of this clause is? Is it 'it' or 'while'. Kindly provide explanation too so that I can understand it well.

Answer

When the book says 'while it is raining' is a clause, it actually means 'it is raining' is a clause, without 'while'.

We can't start while it is raining.

Means:

We can't start during the time it is raining.

Just as you can't say 'during the time it is raining' is a clause, neither can you say 'while it is raining' is a clause.

verb agreement - "The one who wants" vs. "the one who want"

I am getting confused with usage of 's' with verb- consider following 2 sentences-

1. I am the one who wants to stay with you.


2. I am the one who want to stay with you.

According to me, first one is the correct usage, because, "the one who" is third person, and hence, the verb will get an 's'.
Would like to know what is the rule to be followed in such cases.

grammaticality - How can I use apostrophes for this possession phrase

For example, the phrase "The birds bodys color" as if to refer to the color of the bird's body, so do I write "The bird's body's color", "The birds body's color", or "The bird's bodys color"? Please do not say to write "The bird's body color"- even though thats the most sensical answer this is a theoretical phrase for me and Im just trying to find out if I can put 2 apostrophe words next to each other.

To clear it up, the sentence I'm actually talking about is this:

"How Father bird’s body’s sound breaking between teeth".

Is this grammatically correct? (I know it sounds weird but this is for poetry and this is the only way for the rhyme scheme to work.

word choice - Which is proper use of "me or I" at end of sentence?

Sample sentence:

There's not a dad in the world who compares to you, and there's not a daughter in the universe who's more grateful than (me or I).

apostrophe - Mars's or Mars'?

I'm a pretty fluent English speaker, but this has been bothering me for a long time... It all started when I saw people, for example, saying Mars' atmosphere, according to my knowledge, the only time you have an apostrophe without an "s" is when said word is plural, so in this case it would be Mars's or not Mars'. Am I correct? (I'm using the word Mars merely as an example, this applies to other singular words that ends with an "s" as well.)

sentence - 'The average person' or 'an average person'?

Which one is correct, or are both of them fine?

• "It would take the average person 10 days to read this novel"

Or

• "It would take an average person 10 days to read this novel"

comparatives - Use of "more" with more than two items

Suppose we were to say that "California is one of the more pleasant states on the West Coast in terms of weather."
Is this grammatically incorrect because there are more than two states on the West Coast? Would I have to say that "California is one of the most pleasant states on the West Coast in terms of weather?"
I feel that the above sentence would somewhat change the intended meaning.
Thanks in advance!

grammar - Which word is correct for this sentence?

I don't know which one is accurate. They all sound right to me.

The cameras need to be mounted in spots that intruders can’t reach.

The cameras need to be mounted in spots where intruders can’t reach.

The cameras need to be mounted in spots which intruders can’t reach.

Answer

They are all grammatically correct, but there are distinctions worth noting.

Where is specific to spatial positioning, which means you could remove the phrase "in spots."

The cameras need to be mounted where intruders can't reach.

Writer's digest outlines the distinction between "which" and "that" here:

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/which-vs-that

The basic idea is that if the clause that the word is connecting alters the meaning of the sentence, use "that," but if it merely adds extra information, use "which." In your case, the meaning of the phrase is largely lost without the connected clause.

The cameras need to be mounted in spots.

For that reason, "that" is probably preferable over "which," although it is a unique case where I could see arguments made either way.

For these reasons, I would rank the options like this:

1. Where



2. That


3. Which

possessives - "Friend of my father" vs "friend of my father's"

What is the difference between this two sentences -
1. An friend of my father
2. A friend of my father's

grammatical number - Using possessive apostrophe with "or"

I've seen this addressed a lot with "and", but not with "or".

In the three following sentences:

It isn't John's or Mary's fault.

It isn't John or Mary's fault.

It isn't John's or Mary's faults.

Which would be correct, and why?

Answer

I don't know why you think it would be different with or. As always, the clitic 's gets tacked on the end of the entire noun phrase that it is intended to apply to.

So it must be "It isn't (John or Mary)'s fault", with the parens here used only to indicate the scope of the clitic, not to imply optionality.

Flip it around for proof: "It isn't the fault of John or Mary."

word usage - What is the proper way of addressing a professor?

I am a graduate student. Some part of my master thesis requires me to contact a professor from another university. In the first email I addressed him as "Dear Professor Smith". He started his reply with, let's say, "Dear Emily".

Does it mean that he also asked me to call him by his first name? He didn't do it explicitly. How should I address him in my next email?

We are going to meet face to face in the foreseeable future.

Edit: My question isn't about addressing a professor in the US. If it were, I'd have pointed it out. It's about general politeness. Enlish is the first language either for me nor for the professor. I don't have the problem in my mother tongue. So if English were my mother tongue, I'd have so much experience, that it would be obvious for me.

I don't care what is customary in the US or the Great Britain. All I want to know is how to be polite if we communicate in Enlish, so my inquiry refers to the English language, not the (English or American) culture.

Edit2: Let me rephrase the question: dis the professor suggest that I we should be on first name basis by addressing me as "Dear Emily" in his email? That shouldn't be country-depenent.

The email was sent to me and other members of my group. It started with "Dear Emily and all" and ended with "Cheers, John". The professor is on first name basis with the rest of the group.

He doesn't teach me.

grammaticality - "Who wants ice-cream?" — Should I say "(not) I" or "(not) me"?

With the enthusiastic question of "Who wants ice-cream?", what is the more correct response?

1. (Not) I.


2. (Not) me.

Neither response is a sentence. The first response of "(not) I" sounds stuffy, like it should be followed with an indignant sniff. The second sounds like American idiom and acceptable for casual speech.

What do you say?

Answer

Generally speaking, in English, accusative (also known as “objective”) pronouns (like me) are the “default” form. That is, unless there is a specific syntactic rule requiring use of a different case, such as nominative (I), genitive (my/mine), or reflexive/intensive (myself), in English you use the accusative case.

In the syntactic context where a pronoun is not serving a role relative to an explicit verb, such as when it is the simple answer to a question, or if one is labeling something, such as a photo, accusative pronouns are standard. “Who wants to come?” “Me.” Nominative pronouns are impossible here—you cannot answer the question “Who wants to come?” with “I”, nor would anyone label a photo “I”.

This holds even if negated: “Who wants ice cream?” “Not me.”

If you want to use the highest register, most formal English, however, you should avoid the question of what case to use with pronouns standing alone, and use a complete sentence: “I do not want ice cream.”

past tense - "I would like to have come" vs "I would have liked to come"

I wonder why it is correct to say:

I would like to have come but I was not informed.

Wouldn't it be better to say: I would have liked to come?
(I found many examples on Google).

Is there a difference between the two?
Thanks.

Is there a correct pronunciation for the word "idempotent"?

In mathematics, we like talking about idempotent matrices. In a masters program that I am currently enrolled in, I have heard one professor pronounce it one way, and another professor pronounce it another way. The Wikipedia discussion page here explains it better than I could:

Is there a correct pronunciation for idempotent? Is it like omnipotent
(om-nip-o-tent), so id-EMP-o-tent, or is it more like the two seperate
words idem + potent

I'd say EYE-dm-POT-nt, but then I speak Brit. Charles Matthews 07:57,
30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ditto, but then I speak Australian ;) Dysprosia
08:01, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually the British is more like
EYE-dm-PO-tnt, I guess. Charles Matthews I'd just like to pedantically
point out that it would be pronounced i-DEM-po-tent because because
syllable onsets are maximized. daesotho 20:33, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The
American pronunciation puts primary stress on the second syllable
('dem') and secondary stress on the fourth syllable ('tence'). Could
somebody more familiar with IPA than I am please add this to the
article as an accepted pronunciation?

My American dictionary says
|ˈīdemˌpōtənt| for the adjective. I speak American (non-natively) and
I wouldn't stress the second syllable for itempotence. My only

question is, right now it says /ˌaɪdɪmˈpoʊtəns/ -- but can't it be
stressed on the first syllable too? Should we add /'aɪdɪmˌpoʊtəns/ as
an alternative? -- 87.160.141.177 (talk) 14:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

And
by the way I think it's silly giving a pronounciation guide as this is
just imposing a particular accent. (For what it's worth I pronounce
idempotent with a short 'i', as in the word 'id'). Alex Selby

I agree with Alex Selby - the pronunciation guide should be extended to show the variation, or removed. Strictly, there's no reason for the first i to be long (neuter idem has a short first syllable in Latin), and I can't find any authoritative source which advocates the pronunciation given. Ms7821 (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Is there a "correct" pronunciation for this word?

Answer

In general, there is no way to determine a single "correct pronunciation" for words with multiple pronunciations. That said, as far as I can tell there is no basis for saying that Americans in general put primary stress on the second syllable of idempotent. If you look it up using OneLook Dictionary Search, you'll see that a number of other pronunciations are listed in American dictionaries. It's certainly plausible that some Americans say it this way, but I can't even find any evidence that this is an "accepted" pronunciation for most Americans, let alone "the" American pronunciation.

I found the following pronunciations listed in the major online dictionaries indexed by OneLook (I've re-formatted and standardized the transcriptions, using 3 different systems):

• IPA: /ˈaɪdəmˌpoʊtənt/, American Dictionary: /ˈīdəmˌpōtənt/, Re-spelling: EYE-dm-POE-tnt

  
  
  
  

  only pron in Merriam-Webster, 1st pron in Collins and possibly Dictionary.com (it doesn't distinguish primary and secondary stress)




• IPA: /ˈɪdəmˌpoʊtənt/, American Dictionary: /ˈĭdəmˌpōtənt/, Re-spelling: ID-dm-POE-tnt

  
  
  

  2nd pron in Collins and Dictionary.com




• IPA: /ˈiːdɛmˌpoʊtənt/, American Dictionary: /ˈēdĕmˌpōtənt/, Re-spelling: EE-dem-POE-tnt

  
  
  

  1st pron in Oxford Dictionaries, US




• IPA: /ˌaɪdɛmˈpoʊtənt/, American Dictionary: /ˌīdĕmˈpōtənt/, Re-spelling: EYE-dem-POE-tnt

  
  
  
  

  2nd pron in Oxford Dictionaries, US and Oxford Dictionaries, British and World English




• IPA: /aɪˈdɛmpətənt/, American Dictionary: /ˌīˈdĕmpətənt/, Re-spelling: eye-DEM-puh-tnt

  
  
  

  1st pron in Oxford Dictionaries, British and World English

Why it (often) isn't stressed like "omnipotent"

The word omnipotent comes from a pre-existing Latin adjective (omnipotēns, genitive omnipotentis). This became French omnipotent, which is the immediate source of the English word. English speakers generally perceive French words as having their stress on the last syllable, but this is a pretty unnatural position for the stress of English adjectives. Many adjectives taken from French have shifted the accent two syllables back, resulting in the stress on the third-from-last ("antepenultimate") syllable seen in the English adjective omnipotent. (This description of the stress shift is an oversimplification, and the details are complicated and not entirely clear; see the discussion of "countertonic stress" in this article by Piotr Gasiorowski: "Words in -ate and the history of English stress").

The word idempotent is a compound word formed in English from the Latin word idem and the adjective potent. In general, English compound words retain some degree of stress in the original positions on both parts.

A possibly analoguous example is the word polyvalent/-ce, another compound formed in modern times from classical components: it's usually pronounced "POLy-VALEnt", with the primary stress in the same place as the word valent/-ce and secondary stress on the first syllable of the prefix, whereas the word equivalent, which can be traced back to Latin aequivalens, has the stress on the third-to-last syllable ("eQUIValent").

Why the initial vowel has various pronunciations

There are different traditions for pronouncing Latin words in English. The oldest still in use is described by this Wikipedia article: "Traditional English pronunciation of Latin." In this tradition, vowel length in Latin has nothing to do with English pronunciation. Instead, vowel letters are pronounced as "long" or "short" depending on the surrounding letters and the position of the stress. In words like item and idem where the i is stressed and followed by a single consonant and then a single vowel letter, the English "long i" (IPA /aɪ/) is used. Traditional pronunciations are entrenched for many common words taken from Latin.

The pronunciation with a "short i" /ɪ/ based on the Latin quality belongs to a newer method of pronouncing Latin words in English, the "Reformed Pronunciation of Latin." This pronunciation was designed to be closer to the sound of Classical Latin. (It is not the same as classical pronunciation, because Classical Latin had sounds that don't exist in modern English. For example, the classical monophthong /eː/ is approximated in reformed pronunciation by the English diphthong /eɪ/).

The pronunciation with a "long e" sound /iː/ seems to come from the Italianate or "Ecclesiastical" tradition of pronouncing Latin (Italianate pronunciations are often used in singing, but rarely in ordinary speech).

differences - Gerund vs infinitive paraphrase

Is there any difference between these two sentences:

1. "The Democrats tend to increase taxes, discouraging rich people from voting for them"



2. "The Democrats tend to increase taxes, which discourages rich poeople from voting for them"

The first version of course sound much more formal, but are there any other (less 'obvious') differences?

grammar - On the punctuation for introducing a list with a non-independent clause and then proceeding to comment on items of that list

The grammar of the following sentences may not be correct, but you should be able to get the gist of how I want to structure the sentences.

My question is how to make the sentences grammatically correct (in regards to the use of colon, semicolon, etc..) if they aren't already.

So for example:

• Of the required study-prerequisites courseA, courseB, and courseC; he has taken only courseA.




• In regards to your choices choiceA, choiceB, or choiceC; I would recommend going with choice B.





• With respect to the games: gameA, gameB, gameC, and gameD; I find gameA to be the funnest.

Really, I'm just not sure as to what the grammar should be for any sentence in which one introduces a list (where the introduction is not an independent clause) and then comments on an item of the list with an independent clause.

Is what I have correct? If not, how would it be done?

Additionally, how would one comment (with not necessarily an independent clause) on each item of the list?

So, if the above were correct, would we just do the following:

• Of the required study-prerequisites courseA, courseB, and courseC; he has passed courseA; failed courseB; and has yet to take courseC.

Thank you

Answer

A semicolon is used to join two independent clauses. When in doubt I use an em dash.

Of the required study-prerequisites courseA, courseB, and courseC — he has taken only courseA.

In regards to your choices choiceA, choiceB, or choiceC — I would recommend going with choice B.

With respect to the games: gameA, gameB, gameC, and gameD — I find gameA to be the funnest.

Regarding your second question, only use semicolons to separate list items that themselves contain a comma.

Of the required study-prerequisites courseA, courseB, and courseC — he has passed courseA, failed courseB, and has yet to take courseC.

grammaticality - Why is "extremely longer" not correct (according to the ACT)?

The sentence that included the question was:

• 
  

  In addition, LEDs last far longer than standard bulbs.

  
  

Question: Which of the following alternatives to the bolded portion would NOT be acceptable?

F. considerably

G. a great deal

H. extremely

J. much

Answer: H

"Extremely" is an adverb (and not materially different in definition from the other answers available) and should be able to modify the adjective "longer", correct? I don't have an answer explanation, so it's unclear why they chose this. Can someone please explain why this is the answer? Thanks!

grammaticality - Can "how" and "what/which" be used in the same sentence?

Instead of

"What colors are you using to paint the waterfall and how are you using those colors?"

is the following also grammatically correct?

"How are you using what colors to paint the waterfall?"

---

Instead of

"What information are marketers trying to convey in the advertisement and how are they trying to convey that information?"

is the following also grammatically correct?

"How are marketers trying to convey what information in the advertisement campaign?"

Capitalization of plural noun given proper adjective and common adjective

I've recently come across a dilemma of whether to capitalize a plural noun, given that it's described by a proper adjective (like a place) and a common adjective (a descriptive adjective).

Example-

...big and Saharan deserts

Or

...big and Saharan Deserts

In both of these cases, we're talking about multiple deserts, and one is big, and the other Saharan. Does desert get capitalized? Would the order of the adjectives matter?

I know it's not a great example (I'm not talking specifically about the Saharan Desert, but any proper adjective would do), but can anyone clarify? I've never learned about this specific topic (with one proper and one descriptive adjective). Also, if a question like this exists, please kindly direct me to it! Thanks!

grammatical number - "First part are [plural]", or "first part is [plural]"?

I'm currently writing my master thesis on Bitcoin and I'm not sure which version of this sentence is correct:

"The first most important part of the Bitcoin infrastructure are all applications that communicate with the Network."

"The first most important part of the Bitcoin infrastructure is all applications that communicate with the Network."

Or perhaps both of them are wrong?

EDIT:

Finished sentences.

phrase usage - This means that or This means

I'm currently reworking my technical report and was wondering which of the following wordings is correct. If both are correct, which one is the better one?

This means that the behavior of the cmd.exe is accessible [...].

This means the behavior of the cmd.exe is accesible [...].

Answer

Both are correct. I'd usually go for the first one because it's clearer, the brain has less work to do to parse the sentence. It could depend on the rest of the sentence though; if you have fifty thousand "that"s you might want to take a few out to improve the flow, or restructure the sentence entirely.

word choice - "Would you mind if I use" vs. "would you mind if I used"

Would you mind if I use/used your mobile?

One of my friends said used is wrong here. But I think it's grammatical. Who is right?

subjects - Is " ... and was wondering ..." correct?

Since I'm a native Spanish speaker I tend to suppress the subject a lot when speaking, since most of the time it's tacit for us.

So, many times I find myself writing things like "but I'm not sure, and was wondering", which sounds good to me, but then I realize that, in this case, was doesn't have a corresponding subject, at least not an immediate one.

Can the subject (I) from the first part of the sentence be considered as the subject of the remaining statement ("was wondering")? I guess not, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Answer

Yes, you can apply the subject of the sentence to multiple predicates, e.g.:

I found a seat, curled up, and began to read my book.

I think so, but I'm not sure, and was wondering that myself.

grammaticality - Shortest correct sentence in English- use of contractions

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

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

Answer

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

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

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

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

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

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

He ˣis a ˈman.
He ˣis ˈgood.

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

As such, the following is possible:

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

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

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

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

Correct usage of possessive personal pronouns

I have a question about the appropriate usage the possessive personal pronoun "mine" over the possessive determiner "my".

I have done some research and understood the differences between them, but my questions isn't quite about that. One of the main purposes of pronouns is to eliminate repetitions, yet I cannot be sure whether to use it or not if there isn't a possessive determiner such as my, your, her, their etc that establishes the noun being referred to.

For example, I thought of the sentence below:

• Your dog attacked mine! ('Mine' used as a substitute for 'my dog', as 'your dog' established the noun in question)

The above is no doubt a better construction than:

• Your dog attacked my dog! Which sounds somewhat awkward in comparison.

However, if there isn't a possessive determiner preceding it in a sentence:

• A wild dog attack mine!

  
  
  

  It sounds jarring and not as natural as:



• A wild dog attack my dog or My dog was attacked by a wild one.

I don't know if there is a grammar rule that would explain my question, but fellow memebers, is it still correct to use the possessive personal pronoun (such as mine) in the case above, or can it only be used if a possessive determiner (such as your) is used before it?

Many thanks!

Answer

The usage of adjectival possessives (your, my, etc.) vs. substantival possessives (yours, mine, etc.) is determined by whether it is the head of the phrase, not by whether another possessive has been used in the sentence.

For a simplistic explanation: substantival possessives behave like third-person personal pronouns (he, him, it, etc.) in that they replace a noun that has been previously used. In “Your dog attacked mine!” and “A wild dog attack mine!”, mine refers to the noun dog. It doesn't matter whether your has been used in the same sentence.

meaning - Difference between "function" and "operation"

Which one of the following is correct?

Instructions given by the Vice Principal on behalf of the Principal for smooth function of the school must be followed by all staff members.

or

Instructions given by the Vice Principal on behalf of the Principal for smooth operation of the school must be followed by all staff members.

Answer

Operation is best. The function of a school would mean basically the purpose of the school, which cannot be "smooth". Operation would mean how things go (how the function is accomplished), so the operation of the school is what can and should go "smoothly".

Also see PLL's comment below: functioning instead of function would easily suffice as a substitute for operation in most cases. So your choices are between "operation" and "functioning" here.

grammatical number - What's wrong with "One of my children's name IS John"?

Please don't throw this one out as a duplicate of “one of …” singular or plural? I'm not asking about the plurality of the noun immediately following those two words - I'm interested in exactly why the example below is problematic (context: I have several children, one named John)...

1: One of my children's name is John.

I can't see any obvious reason why singular name there is completely unacceptable, but it certainly doesn't sit well with me. It seems to turn on whether one of my children can be treated collectively as the "subject" of the Saxon genitive 's, but I don't see a problem with...

2: It's actually one of my children's, but you can sleep in this bed.

I realise that in practice we'd normally pluralise names in the first example. But of course, this implies that one of attaches to my children's names, which isn't really the same construction.

So - is there some kind of "rule, principle" debarring #1 above? Or is it just "one of those things"?

---

(Apologies if my later switch from brothers to children invalidates any comments or answers.)

Answer

Actually, this construction seems to be be attested in some documents indexed by Google Books:

The Witness: One of my children's name is Richard White.

(The federal reporter - Volume 219 - Page 170)

Yes, but prior to that time it was in one of my children's name, prior to that time, I think [...]

(Records and Briefs in Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1907)

Of course, this is just an interesting fact; by itself, it doesn't answer your question. These could be simple production errors (which are common in speech), or it could be that the speakers quoted here had internalized different grammatical rules than you did. (Or these could even be transcription errors!) We still have to explain why you find this sort of sentence unacceptable.

---

Unfortunately, I don't know the relevant rule making it ungrammatical. But I do think I can explain why you judge sentence 2 to be grammatical.

I think in your sentence 2, the word "one" is, or at least seems like it can be, interpreted to refer to a bed rather than a child.

2: It's actually one of my children's, but you can sleep in this bed.

"This bed is actually one of [my children's beds], but you can sleep in it"

This means much the same thing as a hypothetical "*This bed is [one of my children's] bed" would, so it's hard to notice the difference in implied structure when only the elided form is used. However, I think the second structure would actually be ungrammatical, just as you say "*One of my children's name is John" is ungrammatical.

At first, I thought it might have something to do with the indefiniteness, but "a child's name" is acceptable, and "the youngest of my children's name" doesn't seem fully acceptable (although I might be imagining that it sounds slightly better than "one of my children's name").

Personally, I feel a bit uneasy with using 's-genitives after phrases that end in plural nouns no matter what the internal structure of the noun phrase is. "The queen of England's crown" sounds OK to me, but "The queen of the mice's crown" less so. I think a relevant point is whether "The father of my children's name" sounds any more or less acceptable to you.

I think the "clitic" nature of the English possessive -'(s) construction is somewhat exaggerated in the kind of short explanations that we provide on this site: there are definite complications and restrictions concerning its use (which I know have been analyzed in linguistic literature, but I am not familar enough with it to say more than that). Wikipedia has a short overview of some relevant analyses: Status of the possessive as a grammatical case.

"Also, here is an interesting paper I found: The English “Group Genitive” is a Special Clitic", Stephen R. Anderson

grammaticality - Can “another” be used with plural nouns provided periods or measurements don’t count?

Merriam-Webster says about another the following:

being one more in addition to one or more of the same kind
—http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/another

However, I come across such sentences as: “I am giving another three books away”, “give me another 2 flowers”. I think it’s fine to say “give me another twenty minutes” as it is a period of time, but I wonder about “another two books/flowers”. Is it grammatically correct? Another thing which seems to be suspicious is that I can’t find such examples in dictionaries.

grammatical number - "They're using a cell phone" vs. "They're using cell phones"

The usage of singular and plural has always been confusing for me.

I often see sentences like these

1. People are using cell phones.


2. People are using a cell phone.

Does the first sentence mean everyone has a phone and they are all using their own?
Does the second sentence mean they are sharing one cell phone?

If I see a group of people holding a cell phone in their hand(s), <- even this is confusing for me, should I use the first sentence then?

Another example: you see two men, and both of them are carrying a bag. Which sentence should I say/use?

3. They are carrying backpacks


4. They are carrying a backpack

Could you please make it clear for me?

Answer

This aspect of grammar is called the distributive plural. Swan in Practical English Usage (p530) has the following discussion:

Singular and plural: distributive plural

1. people doing the same thing

To talk about several people doing the same thing, English usually

prefers a plural noun for a repeated idea.

• Tell the kids to bring raincoats to school tomorrow.




• (More natural than Tell the kids to bring a raincoat ...)

Plural forms are almost always used in this case if there are
possessives.

• Tell the children to blow their noses. (not ... to blow their nose.)


• Six people lost their lives in the accident.

Quirk et al. in A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (p768) list two similar examples:

• Have you all brought your cameras? [Each has a camera.]




• Hand in your papers next Monday. [Each has to hand in one paper.]

and agree with Swan that "... the distributive plural is the norm ...".

But the CGEL goes on to state that:

... the distributive singular may also be used to focus on individual
instances. We therefore often have a number choice.

• Some children have understanding fathers / an understanding father.




• We all have good appetites / a good appetite.

The CGEL concludes its discussion as follows:

The singular is sometimes used to avoid ambiguity:

• Students were asked to name their favorite sport.

The singular makes it clear that only one sport was to be named. Similarly:

• Children must be accompanied by a parent.

Turning to the OP's example, the speaker has a 'number choice'. While, according to Swan and Quirk, the plural is the more usual form (People are using cell phones), the singular (People are using a cell phone) can also be used 'to focus on individual instances'.

As for the recipient of the message, their world-knowledge will most likely lead them to interpret both sentences identically, namely that each person is using his or her own single phone. People don't usually use more than one phone at a time, and people even less usually jointly and simultaneously use a single phone.

The same reasoning applies to the backpack example. Our experience of the world tells us that people almost always carry a single backpack and almost never share the carrying of a single backpack.

It is incumbent, therefore, on the maker of the message to anticipate when our real-world experience may lead us to the wrong interpretation or when the message is inherently ambiguous and a correct interpretation is important. In both such cases, the message needs to be phrased in such a way as to be clear to the recipient how many of the items are involved for each of the people.

For example:

• Two people and one backpack: They are carrying a backpack between
  them.




• People, all using more than one phone: People are using each of their
  
  phones.

construction - Preposition followed by pronoun and noun phrase

I am reading Scrivener's Plain Introduction to textual analysis, written in 1874, and was surprised by the following construction :

It was presented to the University by Theodore Beza, for whom and his master Calvin the heads of that learned body then cherished a veneration.

I have never before read (that I can remember) a construction quite like this, where a preposition is followed by both a pronoun and by a noun phrase.

At first glance it seems wrong but the meaning is quite clear - the heads of the University had a veneration both for Beza and Calvin.

But I am still trying to get my head around what Frederick Scrivener has done here. Is he striking out on his own or would this be recognisable practice ?

Answer

A Google search for the string for whom and his yielded only a few hits, all before 1920.

His friends, in conjunction with his widow, for whom and his children he had not been able to make any great provision, were anxious to raise a monument of his fame [...] (1798) 2

I have in command to acquaint you, for the information of Earl Bathurst, that Jas BELBIN, for whom and his son accomodation was required by your letter of the 21st ultimo, to be provided on board of the "Kangaroo" for New South Wales [...] (1813)3

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were extremely fond of long, complex sentences. No one dangled prepositions, yet most everyone had a profound sense of cadence. Scrivener isn't striking out into new stylistic territory; rather, he's more of an epigone.