Order of noun + modifying noun

Which one is correct or preferred?

1. The command /reload is... < some description >


2. The /reload command is... < some description >

grammaticality - Listing two people and yourself

"My brothers, my cousins, and I"

"My brothers, my cousins and I"
Which one is correct?

punctuation - Which singular names ending in “s” form possessives with only a bare apostrophe?

Many questions already ask about this topic (What is the correct possessive for nouns ending in "‑s"? , When did it become correct to add an “s” to a singular possessive already ending in “‑s”?, etc.) and their answers vary, but they always give exceptions to the apostrophe-s rule, for example:

6.24 The general rule for the possessive of nouns covers most proper nouns, including most names ending in sibilants."

Examples they give include Kansas’s, Ross’s land, and Jones’s reputation. Exceptions include Jesus’  and Moses’.

Which names does this apply to? Is the Aeneas’  form correct, or is it Aeneas’s instead?

Answer

The most useful rule — and the most general and the easiest to remember — is simply that you add ’s whenever you actually say an extra /əz/ at the end when forming the possessive, compared with how you say the non-possessive version. Let your own ear be your guide. That’s all there is to it. No fancy rules full of exceptions. Just your own ear (as a native speaker, mind you).

So words ending in unstressed /iːz/ are exempt, like for example this series’ end, that species’ demise, Mercedes’, Ramses’, Sophocles’, Socrates’, Achilles’, Diomedes’, Archimedes’, Eratosthenes’, Ulysses’. (But not trapeze’s, because that one is stressed! See how that works?)

But these days, not much else is. I say “in these days” because in previous ages, some people did not add another /əz/ if it already had one, and so wrote Jesus’ to indicate they did not say an extra /əz/ there compared with Jesus: both are just /ˈd͡ʒiːzəs/ However, most people today now say Jesus’s, because it has three syllables: /ˈd͡ʒiːzəsəz/.

Same with Moses’s with three syllables instead of the older Moses’ with just two. Note that things like Ross’ and Chaz’ are always wrong, because no one says those with only a single syllable. That is a common error.

So it’s your boss’s house, because it’s got an extra syllable when you say it. Similarly, all the Jameses I have ever personally known have had the extra /əz/ tacked on when you are talking about something of theirs, which means it is for those speakers James’s house, albeit all the Jameses’ houses, because nouns are only allowed one /əz/ inflection, not two.

In all cases, the best thing to do is let your own ear be your guide, because writing should represent speech. That means that if you say an extra /əz/ then you write ’s, but if you don’t say it, then you don’t write it. That’s why you from time to time see forms like for goodness’ sake or for conscience’ sake. Those are possessive, but have no extra syllable.

As for the specific case of Aeneas, in older writing you will find that because his name already ends in /əz/, people would suppress the extra one when they would form the possessive, like Aeneas’ escape from Troy. Note very carefully that that posits a three-syllable possessive when spoken. If when you yourself say it, however, it turns out that you would yourself use the four-syllable version as most people today now do, then it would have to be Aeneas’s escape from Troy.

But now you have three issississes in a row, which will certainly require careful elocution to pull off — especially if you don’t mean to sound like Gollum with his fisheses.

Present tense in the narrative past tense

I've read a number of questions here on SE English as well as from Google searches, however I'm still unclear on something.

Consider the following:

Alice walked carefully along the uneven lawn, making sure to keep her ankle straight.

Bob felt as if he was forgetting something as the bus stopped at the curb.

I'm confident these are both correctly conjugated, but as a native English speaker I also know I have a lifetime of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

The question is why is it that these two are both correct despite one mixing tenses, and what "test" can be used to determine such things?

Some things I read before asking this:

I've read more, but I'd rather not fish through my history just to show that I'm not just asking due to being lazy.

Answer

In your example

Alice walked carefully along the uneven lawn, making sure to keep her ankle straight.

there is only one verb marked for tense, i.e. establishing when something occurred relative to the time of utterance, and that is the finite verb agreeing with the subject: walked.

The participle making is present in form, but does not itself have tense. A present participle can be used with a finite verb in any tense, indicating that the action/state described by the participle takes place at the same time.

Next year I’ll visit all the major museums in Rome, making sure I have at least three days for the Vatican. [Future]

Hold the board in place, making sure it's perfectly flat. [Present]

A perfect participle indicates a prior action/state relative to the finite verb:

Having first made sure his shirts were properly ironed and folded, John got down to the business of packing.

grammar - What is the difference between these conditionals?

It's often said that non-native speakers have a poor understanding of the English tenses. I'm not one to disagree, but on the whole I've always thought tenses weren't that hard, until I got to the conditionals and the subjunctive. Since trying to learn a bit more about them, I've gotten really lost. At this point, I'm trying to understand the differences between these four "constructions":

1. If ever there were to be held a vote on X
   


2. If ever there was to be held a vote on X
   


3. If ever one were to hold a vote on X
   


4. If ever we'd (decide to) hold a vote on X

For clarity: I'll be refering to these examples as "constructions", when I mention an "action", I'm talking about the verb or word group that follows the auxiliary verb(s). In the examples, the action, then, is to hold a vote.
I'm thinking these constructions are expressing four different things:

1. Whatever follows this, will deal with the outcome of this hypothetical action. Even so, the action is likely never to take place. Something like: "If ever there were to be held a vote on the intelligence of sheep, The international community would really think we've lost the plot".


2. This , to me, expresses that at some point in time, it would have been possible for the action to take place, but it didn't. Though the rest of the sentence deals with the run-up to that action in a sort of know-it-all, historian trying to put things into context sort of way. "If ever there was to be an all-out nuclear war, the Cuba crises was when that would've happend, and people were truly terrified."


3. Simply expressing something that is, in theory possible, but will never become reality. The action is either tedious, requires too much effort or authority you don't have: "If one were to get every able bodied person to jump down on the ground at the same time, the resulting earthquake would be massive"


4. Same as 3, only in this case, it would be possible to undertake the action, but either its outcome is considered a given, or it's possible that the result of that action is something one would avoid, so it's never going to happen. It's a phrase that a politician might say: "If ever we'd hold a vote on our raising taxes, people would be livid, we'd get the first unanimous result in democratic history and never get re-elected again"

I'd like to know if I'm completely wrong here, and what these conditionals mean to the native speakers. Some sort of reliable on-line resource on the matter would be most helpful, too.

Answer

I agree with the comment from @PeterShor that constructions 1-3 all effectively mean the same. Construction 4 is just awkward, but I wouldn't interpret it differently from the others.

On the other hand, they all seem somewhat long-winded, and could simply be written as:

If ever a vote were held on X

As regards your four 'meanings':

1. I think the use of "If ever" rather than simply "If ..." is what conveys the possibly hypothetical nature of the action, and therefore that hypothetical nature carries through all your constructions.




2. To convey your second meaning, I would use the past perfect tense:

   
   
   

   
   

   If ever there were to have been ...

   
   




3. To convey your third meaning, I would omit "ever" and write:

   
   
   

   
   
   

   If, theoretically, ...

   
   




4. To convey your fourth meaning, I'd use something like:

   
   
   

   
   

   If ever we were actually to hold ...
   If ever a vote were actually to be held ...

   
   

In summary, no, I don't think that the constructions actually convey different meanings, and, if I wanted to convey such nuances, I would use additional words and/or different tenses.

word choice - Choosing between "100%" and "cent percent"

I am a non-native English speaker. I am applying for the USA university for management studies. While writing the essay I came across the sentence, "I was 100% confident."

My query:

Is it appropriate to write 100% or should I write cent percent? Does it sound professional?

Answer

I would substitute an adjective that means the same thing: totally, completely, absolutely, etc.

As it stands, though, your question makes no sense: "cent percent" is meaningless. Are you asking whether you should spell out "one hundred percent" instead of using numerals? If so, it probably doesn't make a lot of difference. Still, in the context I would use one of the adjectives I suggested here.

Singular they with ‘known as’

I want to use singular they with the phrase known as. I am not sure if the appellation following known as should be in the singular or plural. Which of the following is correct?

1. After completing the Hajj to Mecca, wherever one goes, they are
   known as a Hajji.




2. After completing the Hajj to Mecca, wherever one goes, they are known as Hajjis.

Or, with a gender-neutral appellation (based on the comment below)

3. After emigrating to the US, when one visits India, they are jokingly called an American Desi by their friends back home.




4. After emigrating to the US, when one visits India, they are jokingly called American Desis by their friends back home.

Which one is grammatically correct?

grammaticality - Which is correct: "There are not any employees" or "There is not any employee"?

Sometimes I see two variants of following sentence:

• "there are not any employees" in the department


• "there is not any employee" in the department

What is the correct sentence?

Answer

As long as you are referring to more than one subject, I would go with:

There are not any employees in the department.

For referring to a single instance, I would go with "there is no"

There is no employee in the department.

If the topic has no plural form (or is rarely used with a plural form), then I would consider "there isn't any":

"There isn't any water" = There is no water

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

I am a teacher and we are in doubt if the plural form of staff is staffs. We have been debating on this topic.

verbs - Is there a real word that means "pre-enact"?

Most of us are familiar with the word "re-enact."

re-enact |ˌrēəˈnakt|

verb [ with obj. ]

act out (a past event): bombers were gathered together to re-enact the historic first air attack.

A historical movie might include a re-enactment of the American Civil War, while a fictional movie about the future might include a "pre-enactment" of World War III.

A pre-enactment would be an enactment (the process of acting something out) of something that has not yet happened but one hopes, suspects, or knows will happen. Just as re-enactments are flawed and don't perfectly represent what they intend to, pre-enactments may have missing details or variations from what actually will happen.

This word would be different from "practice" or "rehearsal" because it's not the precursor to a performance. Rather it is the precursor to an actual event that would occur normally but which may be represented by a pre-enactment.

One example involves rituals performed by religious groups—they may pre-enact a reception into heaven or a ceremony that is to take place after death. They do this while still living, even though they believe such an event will occur regardless of their pre-enactment.

Another example is of a couple (probably in a cheesy romantic comedy) that has recently fallen madly in love. They're so caught up that they pre-enact their marriage ceremony, albeit without a few key people and the necessary wardrobe.

However, "pre-enact" doesn't appear to be a widely used word. Is there a similar word that means to act out a future event? If not, is it acceptable to use "pre-enact" despite it not being found in most dictionaries, not even Wiktionary?

Answer

I'll just stick with "pre-enact." As sumelic noted, using common prefixes, suffixes, and roots will help people understand at least the intended meaning of a word. Its use isn't widespread, but I've made up many words before that made much less sense than this one.

Indefinite article confusion preceding "one-to-one"

While I was reading a book, I faced the following sentence:

There is a one-to-one correspondence between the two sets of quantities.

So, my question is: why the indefinite article "a" is not "an" in this phrase? The following word starts with a vowel, so shouldn't it be "an"?

grammatical number - How should I pluralize letters?

Sometimes, it becomes necessary to refer to, for instance, the instances of the letter "A" in a document. When doing so, how should I format the plural letter? I have seen A's, "A"s, "A"'s, and "A"es. Is one of these the optimal formatting, or is it something else entirely?

I would like to ignore the option of rephrasing the sentence, if at all possible.

What is the subject of the following sentence?

Food allergies are adverse reactions to an otherwise harmless food or food component that involves an abnormal response of the body's immune system to specific protein(s) in foods.

This is a beginning sentence of a paper on food allergies. I was wondering what the subject of the verb involves and have asked opinions from three English language experts who also have scientific knowledge, but their opinions vary. Their answers were as follows:

Person 1: The subject is food allergies and the verb should be involve.

Person 2: The subject is abnormal response and the verb should be involve.

Person 3: The subject is food or food component, so this sentence is correct. He also pointed out that the paper is written in British English (I showed him the following sentences and he got some clues from there) so here involves means evokes or causes.

Which of these opinions is the correct one?

literature - "be any good" meaning + articles omission in case of 3 nouns conected with "and"

I have some questions regarding this fragment of Philip Roth's American Pastoral:

"The Swede started as end in football, center in basketball, and first baseman in baseball. Only the basketball team was ever any good - twice winning the city championship while he was its leading scorer - but as long as the Swede excelled, the fate of our team didn't matter much to student body"

1) The Swede started as end in football, center in basketball, and first baseman in baseball.

1) why there are no articles before end, center and first? I know, there's a rule that says articles can be omitted when nouns referring to two contrasting people or things are joined by 'and'. Is it also a case here?

2) Only the basketball team was ever any good - twice winning the city championship while he was its leading scorer (...)

2) Does this sentence mean that the basketball team was good or not?

I've noticed that be any use/any good is mostly used in a negative context, e.g. A boat like this wouldn’t be any good in a storm. or It isn’t any use complaining – they never listen.

punctuation - Terminal comma?

I've always had this question but I didn't know the name for what I wanted to ask until just recently (figured it out while reading a tutorial for the Inform Interactive Fiction system).

When using commas in a list of things (see examples below) should there be a comma between the next-to-last item and the word "and"? I think it makes more sense this way (see examples below).

Example set 1:

        I like squirrels, cheese, and typographic design.
I like squirrels, cheese and typographic design.

To me, the second method doesn't separate the two items, or indicate a pause (and the average reader would pause between "and" and "typographic design" regardless of whether the comma was there or not, right?).

The separation makes things clearer, in my opinion:

Example set 2:

        I like squirrels, cheese, and mashed potatoes and gravy.
I like squirrels, cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy.

It gets worse when the item containing "and" isn't the last item:

Example set 3:

        I like squirrels, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cheese.
        I like squirrels, mashed potatoes and gravy and cheese.
        I like squirrels, mashed potatoes, and gravy and cheese.

In the second sentence in set 2, the terminal comma (is that even the right term for it?) is removed, and in the third sentence in set 2, it is re-inserted, but in the wrong place, drastically altering the meaning of the sentence. Read aloud, the sentences probably sound about the same, but I think I like the extra clarity added by the terminal comma, but see many texts in which it is omitted.

Is the terminal comma proper punctuation?

Answer

First, I don't know whether there is a specific name for the comma in question, but when I read terminal comma in your question, I thought you were suggesting that there might be a comma (instead of a full stop) at the end of a sentence.

In answer to your fundamental question, there is no right or wrong way here. Some people prefer to put a comma before the last item and some prefer not to. I don't know whether there is a UK - US split on preferences here.

The important thing is that when there is ambiguity as in your Examples 2 & 3, you should include a comma to make it clear what you mean.

If you have a simple list with no ambiguity, then the comma is optional.

If it's a list of clauses or long phrases (instead of short single-word or 2/3-word items), then it often makes it easier for a reader if you put a comma before the final item.

So, in summary, if it makes it easier for the reader, or if it is necessary to clarify the distinctions between multiple items (especially where the items include the word 'and'), then put a comma in. If it's not necessary for intelligibility, then it's optional and up to individual style.

grammaticality - How are compound adjectives nominalised?

There are compound adjectives in which each word is inflected (as adjective). When they are nominalised, should each adjective be separately nominalised or only the ultimate word?

The concrete question I have in mind is the following:

In mathematics, (mathematical objects called) topological spaces are said to be 'simply connected' under certain circumstances. What should the name of the corresponding property be?
'Simple-connectedness' or 'simply connectedness'?

Should there be a hyphen in the second case? (The rules for hyphens in the adjective form are clear.)

Which is the grammatically correct usage?

Answer

In "simply connected", the word "simply" is not an inflected adjective, but an adverb modifying an adjective. In "simple connectedness", the word "simple" is an adjective modifying a noun. No hyphen is needed.

"Simply connectedness" is, therefore, ungrammatical.

The word "simple" serves as a modifier for myriad different mathematical concepts.

tenses - usage of future perfect

If I am not mistaken one of the keywords for this tense is "by".
e.g By august I will have done my work. But lately, I have found this example: In August Gordon will have been at this company for 25 years. Is it correct to say "In August" ? Shouldn't it be By August?

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

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

grammaticality - If I am saying "Someone and Myself's (possession)", what would the correct usage in this phrase be?

I was just wondering how to properly use the phrase, I am trying to talk about something that belongs to both my friend and myself so how would I say that? My friend and myself's? or a different way?

How to use possessive form for proper nouns that already have an apostrophe

How would one write a possessive form for a proper noun that already has an apostrophe-s in it? For example, I want to use the possessive form of "McDonald's" maybe in the sentence "The Market Street McDonald's' employees are friendly."

I realize the possessive form may not be entirely necessary there, but in a case where it is, what is correct?

grammar - "have been" versus "had been" in questions

"I can tell that he's not English, but I wouldn't had been able to tell that he's french if you didn't tell me first"

it was told me that this kind of usage is wrong, and that I should have used "I wouldn't have been able to tell that"

When should I use "had been" and when "have been"?

Answer

"have been" is the past perfect tense. It refers to an event in the past, from the perspective of the present. For instance, "[At some point before NOW] I have been told he's French".

"had been" is the pluperfect tense. You'd use it when talking about an event in the past that was before some other point in the past, say "Before I met him, I had been told he's French".

However, in your case it's actually a different beast, the conditional perfect tense. "would have been" is used whenever there's a condition that existed in the past, whether or not you'd ordinarily use "have been" or "had been".

Basically, the fact you're using a condition overrides the fact that you'd ordinarily use the pluperfect.

participles - Looking forward to follow vs. following

I was reading this today:

We look forward to following your progress.

Am I correct in thinking that it is missing a be or that -ing should be removed?

So

We look forward to be following your progress.

or

We look forward to follow your progress.

Interestingly I get the same jarring feeling when reading the examples here
What's the difference between "I look forward to" and "I'm looking forward to"?

Answer

We look forward to following your progress is correct; the two proposed corrections are not. "Following your progress" is a gerund phrase; it acts as a noun in this sentence.

grammar - Why Does the Format "_____ Is" When Asking a Question Sound Correct in Some Situations, but Not in Others

For context, I am an Assistant Language Teacher for ESL. Part of my job is offering a native speaker's perspective, the main teachers are not native speakers, and I was asked about this. To the other teachers, this structure is always acceptable, but I am not sure about this.

I realized that in some situations, "____ is" sounds like a perfectly fine answer, but in other cases it doesn't. I want to be able to explain to the other teachers and my students why that is, or what the rule is.

For example:

-Who is going to the game tonight?
-She is.

This sounds fine to me.

-What is the most popular sport in America?
-Football is.

This seems okay enough to me.

-What is the name of this book?
-Catcher in the Rye is.

This, to me, sounds off. I'm assuming that other native speakers feel the same way, but I can't seem to figure out the rule. Also, is this actually grammatically correct, but it just feels off?

I should add too that the previous native speakers in my position had told the main teachers that "____ is" is acceptable, and the main teachers are under the impression that they said it is okay in all contexts. So, if I'm going to say that it only works some of the time, I need to explain why.

infinitives - What part of speech is "to" when attached to an infintive?

For example, in "to see", what part of speech is "to"?

grammaticality - Plural words/singular modifiers

Something I've always been confused about even as a native English speaker...

Say, someone is discussing a concert and they say: "there was a huge amount of people there". Is this correct, or should it be "there were a huge amount of people there"? People is plural while huge amount is one singular thing. Can someone explain this to me?

Answer

A simple way of looking at it is: Words that come after a Preposition (e.g. "Of") are considered part of a Prepositional Phrase, and thus they're normally skipped as the "determining" Noun.

In your example, "amount" is the real Subject and not "people."

By the way, we normally say: "number" for people and other Countable Nouns. As in: "There was a huge number of people."

But, "There was a huge amount of water in the tank."

pronunciation - Pronouncing the definite article

The definite article is mostly pronounced 'thuh' before a noun beginning with a consonant (thuh chair), and 'thee' in front of a noun beginning with a vowel (thee apple).

Question 1: what is the name of this pronunciation change?

Question 2: many news and sports broadcasters (noticed especially on Irish television) use 'thuh' and 'thee' randomly, with no regard to the following word. Where did this usage originate?

grammatical number - Pronouns for collective nouns (British and American)

British and American English differ in the way they conjugate verbs for collective nouns: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=877. For example, an American would probably say "China is winning" whereas a Brit would probably say "China are good."

Similarly, I think the American would say "The Chinese gymnastics team is good" and the Brit would say "The Chinese gymnastics team are good."

My question: what happens when pronouns enter into it?

Brits can say "The Chinese gymnastics team know that they are good." I think that's straightforward enough.

But what about the American equivalent? My American coworker argues for "The Chinese gymnastics team knows that they are good."

To me, this seems to create a clash between the plural "they" and two earlier cues that the subject of the sentence is singular: (1) "team" and (2) "knows." Even if "team" can work as both a plural or a singular, can it really do both in the same sentence?

My personal inclination is to write it as "The Chinese gymnastics team knows that it is good." I suggested this one to my coworker, who didn't like it. I agree that it's weird. Having three consecutive singular cue-words gives too strong a sense of the team's collective conscience, which wasn't implied at all in the British version.

Maybe this question is particular to the verb "know" and isn't (as I originally thought) generally applicable to sentences with both collective nouns and pronouns. But in any case, I'd love to get some opinions on how an American should fill in "The Chinese gymnastics team knows that [???] good."

(I've lived in Britain for 9 years, and America for 12)

I don't know there is needed subject

Recently, I read on the reddit sentence: "Grinned from ear to ear when I heard it". I would like to ask why there is no subject at the beginning of "I". Is this something acceptable, is it normal for colloquial language? I understand the sentence, but the subject is missing, in my opinion.

grammatical person - How to avoid mixing past and present tense in narration?

I looked through the related questions, but I didn't find any concrete advice.

I understand that it's OK to do so. I'm not sure how common it is, but I'm a beginner writer and want to keep things as simple as possible. I can pick up that fancy stuff later.

To illustrate the problem, I'll use the following example, where first-person POV narration has present tense sandwiched between past tens in a single paragraph.

I wound through the corridors toward the center of Down 15. None of the elevators were nearby, so I bounded up the stairs three at a time. Stairwells in the core are just like stairwells on Earth—short little twenty-one-centimeter-high steps. It makes the tourists more comfortable. In areas that don’t get tourists, stairs are each a half meter high. That’s lunar gravity for you. Anyway, I hopped up the tourist stairs until I reached ground level. Walking up fifteen floors of stairwell probably sounds horrible, but it’s not that big a deal here. I wasn’t even winded.

From "Artemis" by Andy Weir

When I go through my texts, I see that I'm doing the same. I'm writing in first-person POV, past tense, but when it comes to descriptions (little info dumps) and the narrator's thoughts (comments) I often switch to present tense (without thinking).

The problem lies in the word "often". I don't do it consistently.
Also when I find a spot like that I start to think can I really do that? If in the above example the Moon was blown up by the end of the story, would it still make sense to talk about the stairwells in the present tense? It's just too complicated to deal with all these logical traps. I want to keep it simple.

I can't just search for present tense (such as "are") in the word processor. As we use the present tense in the dialogues.

Is a good copy editor the only option?

Or is there maybe some mind trick that one can use? Like maybe one needs to pretend and always keep in mind that a story is told by a person who is at his/her death bed, the events happened years ago, and the storyteller doesn't know anything about current state of affairs (what happened to all these people and places). Can a certain mindset break a habit?

Any other ideas?

Please advice.

Answer

How to avoid it?

By Being Meticulous. There is no shortcut. You, as the author, are responsible for every word choice in your story. Every single one.

It reads fine to me to have the present tense as presented in Weir's snippet, but it could be clearer.

In first person (past tense), a thought can either be italicized and immediate (in which case it becomes present tense) or not (and remains past tense.)

You are the God of this world you have written, and you are responsible to know every detail of your creation. So go through it. Sentence by sentence. Figure out which thoughts of your creation are passing surface thoughts, and which are intimate deep thoughts.

If that passage was mine, (which it isn't; I have a different world), I'd do it like this:

I wound through the corridors toward the center of Down 15. None of
the elevators were nearby, so I bounded up the stairs three at a time.
The stairwells in the core were just like stairwells on Earth—short
little twenty-one-centimeter-high steps. It made the tourists more
comfortable. In the areas that didn’t get tourists, stairs were each a half
meter high.

That’s lunar gravity for you, I thought.

Anyway, I hopped up the tourist stairs until I reached ground level.

Walking up fifteen floors of stairwell probably sounds horrible, but
it’s not that big a deal here. I wasn’t even winded.

Do you feel the movement into the character brain? You have this tool available to you. Don't overdo it--develop a feel for when you want a direct thought from a character. But you need to be obsessive about going through your story with a fine tooth comb and making conscious choices. There are multiple ways to write any passage.

meaning - Why will I see you in Hell?

If you say, "I'll see you at the party", you mean, "You and I are going to the party and I will see and speak to you there."

If you say, "I'll see you hang!", you mean "You will be sentenced to hang for your misdeeds, and I plan to attend the execution" or even "I will take steps to ensure [i.e., 'see to it'] that you are properly punished."

But if you say "I'll see you in Hell", do you mean "You are destined for eternal punishment, which I will witness from a pleasant seat in Heaven" or "I'm so determined to stop you that I will take steps so extreme that they will cause both our deaths and even earn me damnation alongside you."

It probably won't happen any time soon, but if the occasion to snarl "I'll see you in Hell" does arise, I want to be able to do so in full confidence that I'm saying what I mean.

EDIT The collective wisdom seems to be ambiguous on whether the implication is "You are going Hell for your misdeeds, and I will help the process along by killing you" and "Your death (which I may or may not hasten) and subsequent damnation will occur before you are able to carry out your current plans."

Answer

The Shorter Dictionary of Catch Phrases (1994) defines it:

I'll see you in hell first a vehement refusal or a response to a challenge. The phrase dates from the late 19th century or earlier. Variants include I'll see you damned (or hanged) first.

This can be interpreted that it's more likely that the other person will be in hell before their claim ever becomes true. You don't necessarily need to go to hell as well.

Alternatively, it could mean you think their claim is so outlandish that it's more likely both will go to hell than it coming true.

The OED dates it to 1715, from Proceedings of the Old Bailey:

Saying G—d D—n him, twenty times over, and the High Constable too; he should see them all in Hell.

Another early quotation from 1879:

I'll see you in hell before I vote for Charlie Lake, or any other Democrat.

Finally, it can also be an expression of hatred, as demonstrated by the last quote in the OED, from a 2007 Independent on Sunday:

‘See You in Hell’ he sneered to two fellow death-row inmates he couldn't stand.

grammatical number - Can "is" be used with plural nouns?

I'm creating a short slogan describing a website's functions. The website consists of a photos storage function plus discussion boards. This is an attempt to put it shortly:

Example.com is photos plus discussions

Is it correct? Particularly, I'm not sure using "is" with plural nouns is correct.

Answer

The answer to this lies in a bit of 'language algebra.'

First of all, Example.com is singular.

Therefore, you must use the verb is when describing its state of being.

In this example, photos plus discussions is also singular - not in the sense that it is only one thing, but in the sense that it represents a singular idea. Think of it this way:

5 = (2 + 3)

One way to put this mathematical statement into words would be to say

Five is two plus three.

In this illustration, five is singular, and therefore two plus three is also singular in the sense that it is a singular representation of the combination (or sum) of two parts which make up the subject, five. It can be written or said both ways:

Five is (two plus three).

(Two plus three) is five.

Therefore,

Example.com is (photos plus discussions).

However, a better way to write this would be

Example.com is a combination of photos and discussions.

This makes it absolutely clear and eliminates any possibility of confusion or syntactic awkwardness. You may also replace is with consists of for further clarity, although this isn't absolutely necessary. I would leave it as is for the sake of simplicity, but it's up to you.

Hope this helps!

punctuation - Should "pseudo" words be hyphenated?

While this question talks about the meaning of the word "pseudo", I'm wondering what the rules are for hyphenating words that start with this prefix.

For example, would it be correct to call someone a pseudointellectual, or a pseudo-intellectual? I asked Google, and he showed me plenty of examples of both, so I figured I would ask the experts.

Answer

Pseudointellectual is correct. Take a look at the following snippet from this nice resource:

With a handful of exceptions, compounds created by the addition of a
prefix are not hyphenated:

anteroom, antisocial, binomial, biochemistry, coordinate,
counterclockwise, extraordinary, infrastructure, interrelated,
intramural, macroeconomics, metaphysical, microeconomics, midtown,
minibike, multicultural, neoromantic, nonviolent, overanxious,
postwar, preconference, pseudointellectual, reunify,

semiconductor, socioeconomic, subpar, supertanker, transatlantic,
unnatural, underdeveloped

Exceptions include

• compounds in which the second element is capitalized or a number:
  anti-Semitic, pre-1998, post-Freudian




• compounds which need hyphens to avoid confusion
  un-ionized (as distinguished from unionized), co-op




• compounds in which a vowel would be repeated (especially to avoid
  confusion)
  co-op, semi-independent, anti-intellectual (but reestablish,
  
  reedit)




• compounds consisting of more than one word
  non-English-speaking, pre-Civil War




• compounds that would be difficult to read without a hyphen
  pro-life, pro-choice, co-edited

grammaticality - "your" followed by gerund

I teach presentation to companies, and a common sentence at the end of a presentation (for my ESL students) is "Thank you for your listening," or "Thank you for your coming," or "Thank you for your attending."

I always correct this and tell the students to omit "your." If I don't and am working with a colleague (from Canada, South Africa, Australia, etc.) they will always catch this and correct it...none of us has ever disagreed with each other about this. We have disagreed as to why you can't say this.

So my question is, "why can't you say ...your + gerund?"

punctuation - On correct using of dash

Which one of the following is more appropriate?

...offers scope for the theoretical integration of teaching, learning, and development with the culturally new user-generated and mediated contexts.

Or

... by an emphasis on information sharing, collaboration, community building, open data standards, and user-generated and -mediated content and applications.

Clearly, in such a situation, should dash be used for the second word?

Answer

You've got two different example, one with contexts and one with content, but it doesn't matter. The two compound adjectives mean different things. "User-generated and mediated" contexts means that the users make the contexts but the mediation is not necessarily performed by users. "User-generated and -mediated" context means the the contexts are user-generated and user-mediated.

For the latter, consult your manual of style, either the one you've adopted or the one thrust upon you. I use the Chicago Manual of Style, which is silent on the use of suspended hyphens preceding a word. Amy Einsohn's The Copyeditor's Handbook says this usage is "licit but likely to confuse." I think she's right; be kind to your reader: "user-genterated and user-mediated contexts."

grammar - Is putting a comma before two non-coordinating conjunctions still correct?

Can I put a comma before 'or' in the following sentence:

Airline work can earn double the salary of factory work, or at least equal

Background:

The rule says you need a comma before a coordinating conjunction: and, but or etc

The rule does not say anything about putting a comma between two non-coordinating conjunctions

'At least equal' is not an independent clause so it's not a coordinating conjunction

Therefore, if I put a comma before 'or' is that incorrect?

word choice - Is there a correct gender-neutral singular pronoun ("his" vs. "her" vs. "their")?

Is there a pronoun I can use as a gender-neutral pronoun when referring back to a singular noun phrase?

Each student should save his questions until the end.
Each student should save her questions until the end.

Added 10/27/2019
We could use an answer from the transgender community. There are none amongst the first 23 answers. I know there's a term (in America), but i can't remember what it is.

Answer

Singular they enjoys a long history of usage in English and can be used here: "Each student should save their questions until the end."

However, “singular they” also enjoys a long history of criticism. If you are anxious about being criticized (for what is in fact a perfectly grammatical construction) I would advise rewording to avoid having to use a gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun.

Some rewording strategies that can be employed:

• Use a plural noun: Students should save their questions until the end.


• Use the formal one: One should save one's questions until the end.


• Use his or her: Each student should save his or her questions until the end

---

OED References for “singular” they

Here for the benefit of those who lack access to its paywalled source are the full and complete operative senses from the Oxford English Dictionary. Per the OED the pronoun they has these specific subsenses for the various scenarios under discussion here:

2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun. 🗨

   
   
   

   ^{Use of they to refer to a singular antecedent has sometimes been considered erroneous.}

_{🗨 Dennis Baron • A brief history of singular ‘they’}

_{…But that’s nothing new. The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. Except for the old-style language of that poem, its use of singular they to refer to an unnamed person seems very modern. Here’s the Middle English version: ‘Hastely hiȝed eche … þei neyȝþed so neiȝh… þere william & his worþi lef were liand i-fere.’ In modern English, that’s: ‘Each man hurried… till they drew near… where William and his darling were lying together.’…}

^{[4 September 2018]}

• 2a. With an antecedent that is grammatically singular, but refers collectively to the members of a group, or has universal reference (e.g. each person, everyone, nobody).

  
  
  

  ^{Sometimes, but not always, used to avoid having to specify the gender(s) of the individual(s) being referred to; cf. sense A. 2b.}

  
  
  

  [[citations ranging from 1350–2014 omitted]]

• 2b. With an antecedent referring to an individual generically or indefinitely (e.g. someone, a person, the student), used esp. so as to make a general reference to such an individual without specifying gender. Cf. ʜᴇ pron. 2b.

  
  
  

  ^{In the 21st century, other th– pronouns (and the possessive adjective their) are sometimes used to refer to a named individual, so as to avoid revealing or making an assumption about that person’s gender; cf. sense A. 2c, and quots. 2008 at ᴛʜᴇɪʀ adj. 2b, 2009 at ᴛʜᴇᴍ pron. 4b, 2009 at ᴛʜᴇᴍꜱᴇʟꜰ pron. 2b.}

  
  
  

  [[citations ranging from 1450–2010 omitted]]

• 2c. Used with reference to a person whose sense of personal identity does not correspond to conventional sex and gender distinctions, and who has typically asked to be referred to as they (rather than as he or she).

  
  
  

  [[citations ranging from 2009–2019 omitted]]

^{_{Copyright © 2019 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.}}

Retrieved 2019-10-25 23:46:13 UTC, and shown here under the Fair Use Exception.

word choice - "would" vs "used to"

I know that would can't be used to refer to a past state, while used to can.
How about in this sentence?

When he lived in Paris, he _____ walk on the banks of Seine River

I find that both would and used to can be appropriate to fill the gap. What is the correct answer, because the question only allows 1 answer.
Thank you

grammatical number - Is "you have so many double standards" idiomatic and if not, why and what would be?

The noun double standard is countable. Looking at some ngram you can see the plural form used for titles (to mean something like the topic of...) or when there's a number preceding it (i.e. referring to a list: the 49 double standards...). But the results don't really show the plural in a sentence with a conjugated verb and a personal pronoun... For instance telling someone "you have so many double standards" doesn't feel completely right, or is it just me? I think I would use "different" here instead of double, and further explain what I mean by that (different standards for such and such thing/person, in this or that context etc. though I might end up using the singular form down the line: double standard this, double standard that).

Do you think a sentence like "you have so many double standards" is idiomatic (it has 2k hits on the search engines, don't know if that's a lot for something like this); is there a more natural way to phrase this (and if so how would you rephrase it)? If not, is this because there's something specific about this noun (is it just because it's not that much being used?) or is this more generally about the usage difference of the singular vs. plural form of the nouns/the way the verb to have is used (improperly/ambiguously?) with an object?

Answer

Yes, it's idiomatic. Double standard is a count noun, as you say, and may be modified by any number of count and count-like words:

Two double standards:

In effect, there were two double standards at the same time - one between the sexes and the other between the races.

Many double standards:

To support this claim, I must challenge the generality of the term 'the double standard' and one specific misapplication of it to this period. The term is too general because there were many double standards.

So many double standards:

I dismiss the statements that all men are equal because so many double standards exist in this world, and as a youth, you notice how standards are set up to cause failure!

Also, have as a verb can take double standards as an object without difficulty:

Have double standards

Young adults have double standards about sexual infidelity.

Elsa thinks about how Granny used to say, “You have standards and I have double standards, and so I win.”

meaning of two , four and eight in this conversation

I was watching How I Met Your Mother when I heard a conversation between some actors and it just bounced over me. But from the background I could hear people laughing and I was sitting static without getting a single point:

It started like this:

Robin: Look at that guy, I had a crush on him long back

Ted: [sarcastically] That guy is like a four.

Robin: Oh , if he is like a four then what are you.

Ted: Then I am eight and... a half.

Later that guy [sarcastically] talking to someone on phone about Ted. He is "a two."

Can anyone please explain what does this conversation imply?

Answer

The numbers are ratings on an imaginary scale of sexual attractiveness, with 10 being drop-dead gorgeous and 1 being thoroughly repulsive.

grammar - "I remember the advice he gave to me" Why add preposition to?

While I was reading a book, I stumbled upon a sentence "I remember the advice he gave to me".

From my understanding, give can be used in two ways.

First. Give + IO + DO. For example, "He gave me an answer."

Second. Give + DO + to IO. For example, "He gave a book to Jane."

So, I thought the correct sentence should be
"I remember the advice he gave me"
But the sentence includes preposition "to".
Which one is right? And why is it?

Capitalization after colons in a list

I have read about the rules for capitalization of colons and the varying rules depending on region and culture. So I decided to use the supposedly British grammar and only capitalize nouns or acronyms after a colon. But what about lists with colons as separators between list item and its description?

• Taking a shower: You should do this daily.


• Eating food: Eat three hearty meals a day



• Going to bed: After a hard day...

Above is the list style I'm referring to. I intend to use it in a scientific Paper where I describe a couple of things. Using a lower-case letter after the semicolon looks wrong. Capitalizing the first letter on the other hand breaks the consistency with the remainder of the text where everything is lower-case, except for proper nouns. Any suggestions?

Answer

Most scientific organizations have a style guide. The American Medical Association has one, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers has one, the Council of Science Editors has one, most scientific journals have one or recommend the use of a particular one. There is no right or wrong here--it is a matter of choice, but that choice is often dictated by the field it covers or the publication that it will appear in.

Is "when" a preposition?

I had to come up with an "edit-the-mistakes" worksheet for a Special Education student on-the-fly. One of my offerings was this sentence:

When I was three years old I can tie my shoes.

I had intended the correction to be this sentence:

When I was three-years-old, I could tie my shoes.

I know that my sentence correction is stylistically weak; however, I believe it is grammatically correct. A coworker "corrected" me in front of my student saying that it did not need a comma, but my thought was that "when" is being used as a preposition. My question is this: is the phrase "When I was three-years-old" a prepositional phrase? I looked at a number of prepositional word lists online and "when" does not appear on any of them.

meaning - Difference between "larder" and "pantry"

What is the difference between larder and pantry? Is it size? Or content?

I found very similar definitions for both terms, something like

a room/place in which food is stored.

Which of the words is better for a separate room next to the kitchen, and which is better for a food-dedicated cupboard? Or even for a separate house for food storage, like they used to have in castles?

Answer

I think that today there is no big difference. A long time ago meat was stored in vats of lard in cooler rooms (hence: larder), while regular foods were kept in pantries. Today, pantry is used far more often than larder, especially in a residential context.Ngram

grammatical number - Plural form of Abbreviation Ending in O

My company deals in Purchase Orders.

For years they have referred to multiple purchase orders as POs. It seems, the proper spelling would be POes, because a P-O is referred to as a noun by everyone in the company, even though it is an abbreviated form of Purchase Order.

Which is correct? POs or POes ?

Answer

Because PO is an abbreviation, it just gets an -s: POs. It's not the same as potato or tomato, which would get -es.

See Oxford: "Just add -s (or -es, if the noun in question forms its plural with -es). For example: MPs ... An apostrophe should never be used to form the plural of ordinary nouns, names, abbreviations, or numerical dates."

So: POs because order takes a simple s. And not PO's with an apostrophe.

However, I believe the Chicago Manual of Style does advocate using an apostrophe (but I don't have a reference for that, if it's online at all).

grammar - confused about this sentence

it is simple enough to say that since books have classes, we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us

I bold the sentence that makes me confused, I can't figure it out that what does it mean, but I guess it means:

1. we separate books




2. we get what certain classified book should give us

am i making myself understood? need help, I don't really get this sentence :)

Answer

Without more context I cannot say what is meant by “classes”, but the bold part is not too hard: each book has something to give us; the nature of that something depends on its class; we should not try to find in a book that which is not in it.

grammaticality - Is "things such as this" singular or plural?

Which of the following is correct?

Things such as this make me happy.

Things such as this makes me happy.

Is the subject "things" or "this"?

orthography - "Stand up comedy", "standup comedy", or "stand-up comedy"?

I've seen all three versions for describing a person on stage performing comedy: "stand up", "standup", and "stand-up".

My guess is that the term started as two words, but as the performance form itself became more established in the culture, the set of the two words together became perceived as a single unit. Reflecting that, in writing, some people even started merging the words or joining them with a hyphen.

Based on that assumption, I'm extrapolating that it's a term in the midst of evolving, and so maybe there might not be an absolute answer on this.

Still, I'd like to be consistent myself and settle on one. Is there any particular reason I should choose one over the others?

Answer

The Guardian Style Guide says:

standup

adjective, as in a standup comedian performing standup comedy; and noun: a standup performing standup

Generally, it's a matter of grammar whether to space words or hyphenate. And generally, it's a matter of style or usage whether to hyphenate or join the words together.

For example:

I log in to my computer and enter my login details.

Here log in is an action, and login describes my personal details. Login could be hyphenated, and often hyphenated words lose their hyphen over time and with use. We used to say to-day and to-morrow.

The Guardian Style Guide again:

hyphens

Our style is to use one word wherever possible. Hyphens tend to clutter up text (particularly when the computer breaks already hyphenated words at the end of lines). This is a widespread trend in the language: "The transition from space to hyphen to close juxtaposition reflects the progressive institutionalisation of the compound," as Rodney Huddleston puts it, in his inimitable pithy style, in his Introduction to the Grammar of English.

See the rest of their hyphen entry for more.

punctuation - Can a comma be used before 'and' here?

Is it appropriate to use a comma in these examples?

We, however, discussed ways of improving the school's standard so as to increase the admission rate of students this year, and scheduled the next meeting to be on Tuesday for proper arrangements.

He never looked for trouble (although he had a bag full of trouble for
trouble-seekers), and had a high sense of humor, which made the few
people who did not like him become his admirers.

I know that a comma can only be used before a coordinating conjunction if it connects two independent clauses. But this is not the case here. I thought of this question and wanted to know whether using a comma in these examples is correct.

Please note that example 2 is taken from a novel.

vocabulary - Where do you come in your family?

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

Are there any other alternatives?

verbs - Which one is correct grammatically, saying "I'm feeling hunger" or "I'm feeling hungry"

I'm a little bit confused. In "I'm feeling hunger." hunger is noun but in "I'm feeling hungry" hungry is an adjective. which is grammatically correct? what the verb 'feel' follows an adjective or a noun.

meaning - "Mistaken as" vs. "mistaken for"

I heard someone use the words mistaken as rather than mistaken for.

Is this correct? If it is correct then what is the difference between the two? Is it ever wrong to use mistaken as, and if so, why?

I ask because I was recently advised about something:

It shouldn't in any way be mistaken as an academic judgement.

In dictionary definitions and usage guides, the preposition used is given as for, not as. However, there are other examples with as, such as ones in comments below, as well as in books on the internet.

verbs - Use of "did" in an affirmative sentence before subject

I wrote the following sentence in an article:

Only in June it created repositories.

The editor corrected me:

Only in June did it create repositories.

What's the explanation for "did" in this case? It doesn't sound like emphasis, because the following word is not a verb.

Answer

1. Only in June was it creating repositories.




2. Only in June it was creating repositories. (ungrammatical)

In example (1) we see the auxiliary and subject change places. In example (2), the auxiliary and subject are the same as they would be in a normal sentence. It is ungrammatical.

3. Only in June did it create repositories.




4. Only in June it created repositories. (ungrammatical)

In sentence (3), again, we see subject auxiliary inversion. Sentence (4) has no auxiliary - this is because it has no inversion. However, it is ungrammatical.

Although we can insert auxiliaries for emphasis, the use of do is obligatory in the sentences above. It is not about emphasis. It is because we need to invert the subject and auxiliary verb. They have to change places. We can't do this if there is no auxiliary, so in sentence (3) we use the 'dummy' auxiliary DO so that we can create an inversion. Note that the main verb create can't be used for inversion:

• Only in June created it repositories. (ungrammatical)

Moving only to the front of a sentence will trigger subject auxiliary inversion in main clauses under certain conditions. Here are some examples:

• Only if we've received the papers can we release the prisoner.


• *Only if we've received the papers we can release the prisoner. (wrong)


• Only after the concert did I notice Pavarotti in the back row.



• *Only after the concert I saw Pavarotti in the back row. (wrong)


• Only in extreme circumstances did they steal.


• *Only in extreme circumstances they stole. (wrong)


• Only in the houses of parliament will you find this many cads.


• *Only in the houses of parliament you will find this many cads. (wrong)

The grammatical sentences have certain features in common:

• i) These sentences all have subordinate preposition phrases which occur before the main clause (phrases with if, before, after, during and so forth)


• ii) These prepositions are always prepositions of time, place or condition.


• iii) The head preposition in each case is being modified by only.


• iv) Only must have the sense of not except in such examples.

When these conditions apply, subject auxiliary inversion will apply. Notice that although only modifies the subordinate phrase, the inversion occurs in the main clause. The subject auxiliary inversion does not occur in the subordinate clauses.

The Original Poster's Question

The main clause in the Original Poster question is a version of the canonical (normal) clause:

• it created repositories.

However, this main clause is fronted by a temporal preposition phrase in June. This preposition phrase in June is being modified by the adverb only. This requires us to invert the subject and the auxiliary verb in the main clause. As we previously noted, the main clause is:

• it created repositories.

There is no auxiliary in this clause - so we need to use the dummy auxiliary, do for the inversion:

• did it create repositories.

This gives us the sentence:

• Only in June did it create repositories.

Hope this is helpful!

Possession in Business Name With Apostrophe

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

Some business' employees are happy.

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

prepositions - "The fact of it being ..." vs "the fact of its being ..."

Which one of the following is correct/preferred?

This process is devised in such a way that it works automatically
while always revealing to the user the fact of it/its being
intact.

Both "the fact of it being ..." and "the fact of its being ..." can be frequently found on the web. But perhaps one should be correct/preferred.

capitalization - Are chapter headings and other semantically smaller parts as the title capitalized?

I found the question Which words in a title should be capitalized? Regarding the number of answers votes and also according to my personal taste I like to capitalize titles. But what exactly are titles? Only the single main book title? What about other smaller semantic parts? Chapter headings, sub-chapter, ...

Answer

According to CMoS and APA (two popular style guides), some lower-level headings aren't capitalised in headline-style.

Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition (headings by level):

1. Centered, Boldface or Italic Type, Headline-style Capitalization


2. Centered, Regular Type, Headline-style Capitalization


3. Flush Left, Boldface or Italic Type, Headline-style Capitalization


4. Flush left, roman type, sentence-style capitalization


5. Run in at beginning of paragraph (no blank line after), boldface or italic type, sentence-style capitalization, terminal period.

APA (headings by level):

1. Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Headings


2. Left-aligned, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading


3. Indented, boldface, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after the period.


4. Indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after the period.


5. Indented, italicized, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after the period.

meaning - Is there a difference between "political science" and "political sciences"?

I am doing a research about research disciplines. I found it confusing and surprising that there are two ways to refer to "political science(s)"

Google:

1. "political science" returns 26 million results.


2. "political sciences" returns 4 million results.

It seems like a considerable amount of texts refers to what I understand as "sciences". Does it mean that there are many sciences?

american english - "If I go.." vs. "If I will go.." referring to the future

Which one is correct?

option 1: If I go there, I can meet her

or

option 2: If I will go there, I can meet her

I clearly remember, was told by English (not American) teacher that "If", "When" cannot be used with "will" in the above context. Though, I have seen few people in US saying like option 2

I do know that "If I would go there, I could meet her" is correct (or at least, think so).

Answer

This topic seems to come up with some frequency here.
Your teacher was overgeneralizing, I'm afraid.

It's not wrong to use will this way; it's just that it may not mean what you want it to mean. In the case you mention, it means that you are commenting on the possibility that you may be willing to go there, which sounds at least odd, and seems very unlikely to be what you intend to mean.

Briefly, will is not "the future tense"; will is a modal auxiliary verb. That means it's got complicated meanings.

All modal auxiliaries like will or must have two kinds of meaning -- one logical (called "epistemic") meaning having to do with truth and probability, like

• He must be the person they mentioned.

and one social (called "deontic") meaning having to do with obligation and permission, like

• He must be home by midnight.

The reason why will is often called 'the future tense' in English classes is because it normally only uses its epistemic sense of "sposta", and that's close enough. But will also has a deontic sense of "wanna" that shows up in phrases like be willing to, will power, with a will, with the best will in the world, leave a will, etc.

What happens when you use will in a hypothetical clause is that such clauses only allow the deontic sense of will, so you wind up talking not about what's sposta happen, but about who wants to do what.

So it's perfectly OK to say

• If you will hand in your homework, I will grade it.


• Whether he will attend the concert is unknown.


• I'm not certain when he will sign it.

if you mean

• If you are willing to hand in your homework, I am willing to grade it.


• Whether he is willing to attend the concert is unknown.



• I'm not certain when he's going to get around to signing it.

But only for the deontic wanna sense, not for the usual epistemic sposta sense, of will.

Edit: I forgot to point out that this is a peculiarity of the interaction of two modals - the hypothetical clause construction and the modal auxiliary will. This is like having two strong magnetic fields together; their interactions can become, um, peculiar.

In this case some logicians might say that the deontic interpretation of will in hypotheticals is forced pragmatically because the sposta happen epistemic sense is already covered by the hypothetical construction, so using it again must mean the deontic sense. Maybe so; I'm not sure, personally.

grammar - How to Explain Dependent Clause to a German?

I'm trying to help a friend with written English. I told her that I wouldn't be able to provide too much assistance in the way of grammar because I quite frankly just don't know the rules. I'm supposed to provide "real-world" practice outside of her schoolroom studies.

However, she did ask me why this sentence is grammatically correct.

"As Leo realises that he is nothing more than an instrument of a fundamentally deadly and unstoppable totalitarian regime, a crisis of conscience ensues."

You have to understand, as a German speaker, if you start a sentence with "Als,", you have to complete it with a dependent clause, which I think I did here, but I'm not comfortable enough with my understanding of it to explain it to her without feeling as I'm telling her a lot of false information.

grammar - "Jamie and me" or "Jamie and I"

Please let me know which sentence is proper?

Summer has always been an imaginative time for Jamie and me.

Summer has always been an imaginative time for Jamie and I.

Answer

"I" is a subject pronoun and "me" is an object pronoun.
So, the correct usage would be the second option:
"Summer was a magical time for Jamie and me".

punctuation - "He then" vs "Then He" vs "Then, He" -- conjunctive adverbs, semicolons, and commas

As far as I understand, you use a semi-colon to separate main clauses joined by conjunctive adverbs (however, therefore, moreover, nevertheless, then, thus). And, when you use a conjunctive adverb, put a semicolon (;) before it and a comma (,) after it.

Example, using however:

Ernest Hemingway was a master of style; however, opinions about his work vary widely.

BUT using then, referring to sequencing, what is the proper usage?

Example:

He went to the store. Then he went home.

The above explanation would say that I need a semicolon between the sentences and a comma after then. And I have found many examples of this.

He went to the store; then, he went home.

But, is it a fast rule when you use then (I've read that "then" may not always be a conjunctive adverb) or can you just use a period? Do you always need the comma after, and can you reverse it?

He went to the store; then, he went home.

He went to the store; then he went home.

He went to the store; he then went home. (no comma after "then")

He went to the store. he then went home. (no semicolon between sentences)

I generally use He then as I feel it sounds better, but I'm confused as to whether that is grammatically correct and how to properly punctuate it. I can't find a definitive examples sentences.

Punctuations for quotes in a list

"make a monkey of someone", " don't monkey with that lock!", and "where have you been, you little monkey!" are examples of sentences where monkey have different meaning.

Should the comma be placed inside the quotes, or outside?

To make it clearer, I am referring to placing the comma when the quoted sentence already has a punctuation like the exclamation mark, or the question mark.

Answer

American style is to place the comma inside the quotes. This is universally the case in publishing and accords with all style guides (Chicago, AP, NYT, etc.). The only exception is is in academic works, particularly philosophy texts, where a word is being specially defined and offset with single quotes. That exception, however, is not widespread and some houses, such as Oxford University Press, use the single quote as closing punctuation.

word choice - "That" versus "which"

In the following sentence, are the words that and which interchangeable? In general, where to put that and where to put which?

The sentence:

At the end of this course, students will be able to

• Analyze circuits that function as filters.




• Analyze circuits which function as filters.

Answer

"That" and "which" are never interchangeable! The word "that" is used when the phrase that it starts can not be omitted from a sentence that contains it.

The word "which," which can be very useful, starts a phrase that can be omitted from a sentence without changing its meaning, and is almost always preceded by a comma.

Neither of your examples are complete sentences, but they can be illustrative:

He must analyze the circuits that function as filters.

Means that it is specifically those circuits that function as filters that it is he must analyze.

He must analyze circuits, which function as filters.

Means he will be analyzing circuits, and those circuits also happen to function as filters.

etymology - Is it true that the 100 most common English words are all Germanic in origin?

There is an oft-quoted statement that the 100 most common (frequently used) words in the English language are entirely Germanic/Anglo-Saxon in origin. (Also sometimes said is that ~80% of the 1000 most common are Germanic in origin.) While this did not surprise me so much, I did recently stumble across this Wikipedia page, which lists the supposed 100 most common words, with an attributed source.

A quick glance suggested (to my surprise) several words of non-Germanic (specifically, Latin) origin:

• use


• person


• just


• because (the cause part)

There may be others I've missed too? Indeed, perhaps due to the entry of Latin words into the Germanic languages in the proto-Germanic period (and the fact they are both ultimately Indo-European languages) some of the etymologies may be uncertain. Do correct me if that's not the case, as I am no historical linguist.

Clearly, depending on the statistical sample used to compile the list, results can vary. However, is there any accepted/standard list of the 100 most common English words? And moreover, is it a myth that they're all Germanic in origin (as I now doubt)?

Answer

is there any accepted/standard list of the 100 most common English words?

I suppose it all depends on your definition of authoritative, but I think a good start is The Oxford English Corpus, a collection containing over 2 billion words of 21st century English from around the world. Here's a list of facts about the corpus, including the 100 commonest words in the English language.

Neat facts about distribution: 10 lemmas (word forms, is and are are lemmas of to be) make up 25% of the corpus, 100 make up 50%, 1000 make up 75%, 7000 make up 90%, 50,000 comprise 95% and you need over a million to get 99% coverage.

So, one quarter of all words used are the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have, and I.

Is it a myth that they're all Germanic in origin (as I now doubt)?

Yeah, most of them are germanic in origin, but not all.

As you noted:

use is of Latin origin (by way of French) and replaced the O.E. verb brucan (which survives as the verb brook "to tolerate, put up with something unpleasant")

because is of direct Latin origin from the phrase bi cause "with cause."

and

people also Latin by way of French.

Those are the only words that jumped out at me. Of course, most of the common words have Indo-European origin, so they'll ultimately share a common root anyway. See two and duo.

resources - English parts of speech — better new treatments

Can anyone please recommend a better treatment of English parts of speech / word classes than that offered by most traditional grammars?

Many of the latter stick with the sacrosanct 8 of antiquity, or perhaps allow for one or two more, while POS Tagsets may contain many hundreds of tags (catering for subsets such as plural nouns, verb forms etc). Demanding that we stick with eight for sentimental reasons seems like saying 'Let's just have four (chemical) elements, like they used to do, because that's easier.' Some parts of speech — 'function words' — are distinguished according to function — or called adverbs if they show a vague resemblance in some respect and we don't like having more than 8 (or 12 or 24) classes. However, having 750 classes as a working model does seem to be erring the other way.

Does anyone please know of a sensible (Goldilocks!) treatment?

word choice - Which is correct — "a year" or "an year"?

The word year when pronounced starts with a phonetic sound of e which is a vowel sound making it eligible for being preceded by an. Yet, we tend to write a year. Why?

Answer

I reject your premise that the word year starts with a phonetic sound of e. Here's how it is pronounced according to the various dictionaries:

• Wiktionary: (RP) IPA: /jiə/, /jɜː/, SAMPA: /ji@/, /j3:/; (US) enPR: yîr, IPA: /jiɹ/, SAMPA: /jir/


• Merriam-Webster: \ˈyir\


• American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: /yîr/


• Collins English Dictionary: /jɪə/

Words that start with the /j/ sound are preceded by an a, not by an an. Compare: a user, a utility, a yak.

abbreviations - When using "HR" for Human Resources, should "a" or "an" be used in front of it in a sentence?

IS HR an acronym? Should "a" or "an" be used in front of it in a sentence, such as:
Do you have an HR question?

grammatical number - One and a half minute/minutes

When talking about "one and a half" of any object, do we use the subsequent noun in plural or just singular? I'm aware that "A minute and a half" is also correct but I'm looking for the specific "One and a half"-construction here.

So for example, which of the below phrases is correct?

You're one and a half minutes late!

or

You're one and a half minute late!

Is there any difference when using the phrase as an adjective like so: "One-and-a-half-minute recipe"?

Answer

When you say "one and a half" you are referencing more than one minute, so you must use the plural form "minutes".

grammaticality - Collective nouns and subject-verb agreement: general rule or arbitrary?

A newspaper ran this headline recently:

(1) Police crack down on IAC protesters. [emph added]

Why did it not read:

(2) ? Police cracks down on IAC protesters.

I have found instances of "police cracks" in newspapers: "Police cracks whip" and "Chesterfield police cracks down on drunk drivers". However, Google's Ngram Viewer suggests that "police cracks" is significantly less frequent:

I think that the difference between "Police crack down" and "Police cracks down" is influenced by subject-verb agreement and that the difference in this example reflects the grammatical number of the verb's subject. Here, "cracks" is inflected for singular number, which implies that its subject is singular, and "crack" is inflected for plural number, which implies that its subject is plural. E.g.:

The army cracks down on IAC protesters. [singular]

The armies crack down on IAC protesters. [plural]

The confusing thing about (1) and (2) is that the subject, "police", looks like it is singular; the plural form would be "polices", but I have never heard this form (for the noun).

It sounds like police fits the definition of a collective noun, which Wikipedia says is "the name of a number (or collection) of people or things taken together and spoken of as one whole. For example, in the phrase 'a pride of lions', pride is a collective noun." Police fits this because it refers to (i) some relevant police force or (ii) some relevant group of police officers, which are both collections of people taken as wholes. It does not refer to a single police officer.

So one might conjecture that verbs whose subjects are collective nouns are inflected for plural number. However, it sounds like group also fits the definition of a collective noun because it refers to a collection of individuals taken as a whole. And I think that both of the following sound acceptable.

(3) The group crack down on IAC protesters.

(4) The group cracks down on IAC protesters.

The above conjecture also doesn't explain why it is sometimes okay to use "police cracks".

My preliminary questions: Do (1), (2), (3) and (4) all sound acceptable to everyone else? Are police and group both collective nouns?

My main questions: If (3) and (4) are both acceptable and police and group are both collective nouns, then why does (1) but not (2) sound acceptable, or at least why is "police crack" better than "police cracks"? How do you determine the correct conjugation for a verb whose subject is a collective noun? Is there a general rule, or does it vary from case to case?

My secondary questions: Does the behavior of (1) and (2) have to do with synesis? Is using police to refer to the police force more like a synecdoche or other kind of rhetorical trope? Does it matter if you add "the":

(5) The police crack down on IAC protesters.

(6) ? The police cracks down on IAC protesters.

I ask these secondary questions because I find it interesting that policeis, to me, a near synonym of police force, but police force (Ngram verb comparison) behaves oppositely to police (ngram verb comparison) when it comes to subject-verb agreement:

(7) ? The police force crack down on IAC protesters.

(8) The police force cracks down on IAC protesters.

[Note: the question mark at the beginning of an example indicates questionable grammaticality.]