grammaticality - When is a gerund supposed to be preceded by a possessive adjective/determiner?

I assume that the following sentences are grammatically correct:

• He resents your being more popular than he is.


• Most of the members paid their dues without my asking them.


• They objected to the youngest girl's being given the command position.


• What do you think about his buying such an expensive car?


• We were all sorry about Jane's losing her parents like that.

I'm still getting used to this possessive gerund structure. It sounded so weird to me at first.

Is the structure used in both formal and informal contexts? Are there any alternative structures that result in the same meaning and are more frequently used?

(Examples taken from http://grammartips.homestead.com/possessivewithgerund.html)

Answer

When I first heard about this usage in a grammar lesson in middle school, it sounded weird to me, too. As in the linked page in your answer, my teacher taught us that using possessive pronouns (also known as genitives) is the only grammatical way to mark subjects of gerund clauses. While that way is more traditional and formal, using object pronouns (accusatives) is also quite common.

In chapter 14, section 4.3, of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, entitled “Non-finite and verbless clauses”, the main thrust lays waste to the traditional distinction between gerund clauses and present participle clauses, by arguing they all belong to a single inflectional category; namely, gerund-participles. However, there is a paragraph explaining the use of genitives with gerunds:

There is one respect in which ‘gerund’ and ‘present participle’ clauses differ in their internal form: with ‘gerunds’ the subject may take genitive case, with plain or accusative case a less formal alternant, but with ‘present participles’ the genitive is impossible and pronouns with a nominative–accusative contrast appear in nominative case, with accusative an alternant restricted to informal style. Compare then:
[39] i. She resented his/him/*he being invited to open the debate.
       ii. We appointed Max, he/him/*his being much the best qualified of the candidates.

In other words, gerunds (as in example 39i) can take either the genitive (his) or the accusative (him) as subject, with genitive being more formal and accusative less formal. The nominative (he) is not possible as the subject of a gerund.

In participial clauses with a subject (as in example 39ii), there is a similar situation: both the nominative (he) and accusative (him) are possible, again with accusative being less formal, but the genitive (his) is not possible.

The page of “grammar tips” linked in the question confuses informal style with incorrect grammar, a common problem in grammar advice. The versions of the examples with accusative instead of genitive (e.g. What do you think about him buying such an expensive car?) are perfectly grammatical and simply a less stuffy style.

You will find many examples of gerunds with accusative subject—even in formal academic writing—so you should feel free to use whichever of the two formulations seems natural.

adjectives - Do we need hyphen in this: graded-reading books?

Is it necessary to have a hyphen in the following phrase?

graded-reading books

Please my friends you are only hope for me at a last chance salon because my teacher he is not knowing answer.

Answer

You should add a hyphen whenever you're using a compound adjective for a noun that is being used as a single descriptor for the noun.

For example in the phrase you provided, graded-reading is a single descriptor all together for the noun books, and saying graded books, or reading books separately, won't make sense to imply what you mean. So, yes, you must use a hyphen there.

Read this article here.

differences - "to church" and "to the church"

What is the reason for using "to" and "to the" before the word "church" in different parts of this passage?

On Sundays, we always went to church. After breakfast, the carriage took Ambrose and me to the church in the village. All the servants came to church too. On Sunday evenings, we had an early dinner. Usually, some of our neighbours would eat with us.

(My Cousin Rachel, Daphne Du Maurie)

Answer

By saying to church one means church the institution. By saying to the church one means church the building.

On Sundays, we always went to church.

Here, it doesn't matter which church we went to, geographically. What is important is that we attended the Christian House of God.

After breakfast, the carriage took Ambrose and me to the church in the village

Here, a specific building rather than the institution in general is meant, hence the definite article.

It is the same difference as between to school and to the school.

possessives - with/without + pronoun (me vs. my) + gerund-participial phrase

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 461) has this section:

(f) Subject of clausal complement of with/without

Pronouns in this position normally appear in accusative case:

[16] i We set off again, the Rover going precariously slowly in very low gear up hills, with me staying on its tail in case it petered out altogether.

ii With me out of the way, there would be no one to curb his excesses.

Note that {this is one place where a gerund-participial in complement function cannot take a genitive subject}, but unlike the construction dealt with in (b) above the accusative is not here an informal alternant to a nominative.

I think CGEL is saying that using 'my' instead of 'me' in [16i] is wrong:

(1) *We set off again, the Rover going precariously slowly in very low gear up hills, with my staying on its tail in case it petered out altogether.

More importantly, it seems to me that the bracketed portion of CGEL is making a blanket statement that the subject of clausal complement of with/without cannot take a genitive form (possessive form). That is, I think "this" in CGEL's bracketed portion refers to the entire case of (f) Subject of clausal complement of with/without, not just [16i] or [16ii]

I for one wouldn't use 'my' in [16i], but that's just me. Theoretically, I know that you can use both 'my' and 'me' as the subject of V-ing, as shown in this question 'When is a gerund supposed to be preceded by a possessive adjective/determiner?'.

In that question, there's this sentence having 'without':

(2) Most of the members paid their dues without my asking them.

And it has been said in the answers there that 'my' as well as 'me' is possible.

Q1.
Is it correct to say example (1) is ungrammatical (with 'my' instead of 'me')?

Q2.
If indeed CGEL is making a blanket statement in the bracketed portion, how do you distinguish this blanket statement from example (2)?

Hyphenation of a phrasal attributive with an open compound: "A B to C noun"

I'm wondering how to properly hyphenate (or en-dash) the following phrase:

fiber optic to BNC converter

That is to say, a device that converts "fiber optic" to BNC. If it didn't contain an open compound, I'd simply write "optic-to-BNC converter; but I'm not sure how the open compound "fiber optic" might affect the situation. I prefer not to write "fiber optic–BNC converter", as this could cause confusion in some contexts if the reader doesn't read "–" as "to". I also thought about

fiber optic–to–BNC converter

, but that looks too strange to me.

My best guess is

fiber-optic to BNC converter

. I think this expresses that "fiber" and "optic" are related but "BNC" and "converter" are not. Is this the right way, or is there a better solution?

Note: this is actually an example of poor writing because fiber optic is essentially a transmission medium, while BNC refers to a connector type. So I actually solved my problem by writing "optical-to-electrical converter" (and afterward, "optoelectronic converter"). Nonetheless, the basic question remains. Another example phrase that exemplifies the problem is "surface area to volume ratio", for which I've found evidence of a variety of hyphenation styles.

grammar - Inversion in "only [adverb] have they"

I have seen this construction quite often:

Online ads have been around since the dawn of the Web, but only in
recent years have they become the rapturous life dream of Silicon
Valley.

What is the rule there?. When your sentence doesn't start with pronoun + verb, invert them as verb + pronoun?. I know it sounds awkward but is it possible (grammatically correct) to use something similar to:

Online ads have been around since the dawn of the Web, but only in
recent years they have become...

And in any case, does this only work with have (or has)? Maybe it works fine with 'had' but I can't think of an example right now.

Answer

Switching around the normal word order is called inversion, and this specific type is called subject-auxiliary inversion. Wikipedia has a list of usages of subject-auxiliary inversion, including interrogative constructions (e.g. Did you eat?), but the following is the declarative section:

Declarative sentences with negative elements (i.e. never or not) are formed. See also Negative inversion.

• Example #1: Never again shall I watch that opera!


• Example #2: Not since childhood did she eat cotton candy.

Declarative sentences with restrictive elements (i.e. only or so) are formed.

• Example #1: Only on Fridays does he go to the bar.


• Example #2: So hard did she work that she overslept the next day.


• Example #3: So did I.

I found a blog called Practice English which has a laudably comprehensive post on the topic of inversion:

In statement it is usual for the verb to follow the subject, but sometimes this word order is reversed.

We can refer to this as inversion. There are two main types of inversion:

• when the verb comes before the subject (optional inversion)

In the doorway stood her father. (or …her father stood.)

• when the auxiliary comes before the subject and the rest of the verb
  phrase follows the subject (inversion is usually necessary)

Rarely had he seen such a sunset. (not Rarely he had seen…)

Inversion brings about fronting, the re-ordering of information in a sentence
to give emphasis in a particular place. Often this causes an element to be
postponed until later in the sentence, focusing attention on it.

• Inversion after negative adverbials

When we begin a sentence with a negative adverb or adverbial phrase,
we sometimes have to change the usual word order of subject and
verb (often using an auxiliary verb) because we want to emphasise
the meaning of the adverb. We use inversion when we move a negative adverb
which modifies the verb (never, nowhere, not only, hardly etc.) to the beginning
of a sentence. For example:

I had never seen so many people in one room. (= normal word order)

Never had I seen so many people in one room. (= inversion)

There are adverbs and adverbial expressions with a negative,
restrictive or emphatic meaning, which are followed by inversion
when placed first in a sentence. The most common adverbs ad adverbial
expressions with negative, restrictive or emphatic meaning that are
followed be inversion are:

Seldom, Rarely, Little, Nowhere, Nor even one, In no way
Scarcely/Hardly/Barely … when, No sooner … than, Not only … but (also)
On no occasion/account/condition, In/Under no circumstances
Only after, Only later, Only once, Only in this way, Only by,
Only then, Only when, Only if, Not till/until, Never, Never
before, Not since, Neither/Not/So, Well (formal) etc:

This is only the first 15% or so. Though not the highest quality of writing (it contains a few typos, etc), IMO it represents the contexts of proper inversion admirably well and staggeringly comprehensively.

The only real (albeit minor) disagreement I have seen that I have with it involves the following:

We can put the verb before the subject when we use adverbs expressing
direction of movement, such as along, away, back, down, in, off, out, up with verbs such as come, fly, go. This pattern is found
particularly in narrative, to mark a change in events:

The door opened and in came the doctor. (less formally …and the doctor came in)

As soon as I let go of the string, up went the balloon, high into the sky. (less formally …the balloon went up)

Just when I thought I’d have to walk home, along came Miguel and he gave me a lift. (less formally …Miguel came along and gave me …)

As far as I have seen, it's not necessarily formal to say in came the doctor - in fact, the doctor came in seems more consistent with a formal context. (It also could be that the author meant to say less informally, and if so, I'd have agreed completely).

prepositions - What's the difference between "onto" and "on to"

What's the difference between "onto" and "on to" and where should they be used, etc?

Answer

"On to" implies that you are removing an object from one place to another, either physically, or conceptually. "Onto" refers to the positioning or placement of something, so that it physically touches the object. To help make this distinction, place a comma in the sentence.

I will go on, to the rock.

This tells the reader that the speaker plans to travel, until he arrives within close proximity of the rock. The speaker said nothing about making physical contact with the rock. Once the speaker arrives, they may declare,

I am going onto the rock.

At this time, the speaker indicates they are about to physically tough the rock, and stand upon it.

The "into" comment is also a matter of action versus position. Also, consider the prepositional context. This statement makes no sense, out of context:

I will go in, to the rock.

This means the person is going the the inside of something (cave, tunnel, etc.), to the location of the rock. More information about the location of the rock is needed.

Logically, one can not go "into" a rock, which implies the speaker is going to travel to the inside of the rock, for two reasons: first, there is no "inside" of a rock, as it is a solid; and second, the rock is kn fact solid. The concept of going into a rock is nonsense. Well, unless you're abusing hallucinogens.

However, liquids are different. You can logically state,

I am diving into the ocean.

I am walking into a cloud.
I am staring into the abyss.

In these cases, substituting "in to" just doesn't work, because these things are massive and are unable to be contained in a reasonably finite space. Therefore, saying you are "walking in, to the ocean" doesn't make much sense. If anything, you're far more likely to be "walking out, to the ocean." If you were already in the ocean, and the subject were walking toward you, from land, then this could well make sense, but is rarely the case.

the meaning of 'evil which seem blessings to the memory'?

A part of Mortal Immortal, by Mary Shelley:

Soon after this eventful day, I became the husband of Bertha. I ceased to be the scholar of Cornelius, but I continued his friend. I always felt grateful to him for having, unaware, procured me that delicious draught of a divine elixir, which, instead of curing me of love **(**sad cure! solitary and joyless remedy for evils which seem blessings to the memory****), had inspired me with courage and resolution, thus winning for me an inestimable treasure in my Bertha.

How come evils seem blessings to the memory?

It doesn't seem to be very logical.

Answer

The narrator has an ambivalent feeling about love (the 'evils' he refers to in his parenthetical remark).

A contemporary writer would most likely include the word 'like' in that description (it is only implied in Shelley's text), and might also change the order of its elements to make the intended meaning better apparent:

solitary and joyless remedy for evils which, to the memory, seem like blessings.

dialects - How many syllables does "Science" have?

The pronunciation of the word science seems to vary based on which part of the world you're in. I have heard it pronounced "sai-ens" and "saains" (think "signs").

I have checked the dictionary, but every dictionary is made in a certain country and a really big number of those countries happen to be in the western hemisphere where people use the former. Living in Southeast Asia, I can't help but notice that people here prefer the latter pronunciation.

The question is, how many syllables does the word science have? I am hoping for an answer that clarifies what the pronunciation has been historically and why this difference exists in the first place.

definite articles - the most vs. most

This earlier question asks about the omissibility of 'the' before 'most' in this example:

(The) most tuna are caught in early November.

The only answer there (by David Schwartz) that has received 16 votes basically says that 'the' can be left out but only with a different meaning:

The answer says that, with the definite article present,

'most' is a superlative meaning "the amount that is greatest"

and that, without the definite article,

'most' is an intensifier meaning "more than half".

Regarding the meaning of the version without the definite article, I think I agree that 'most' without 'the' can mean "more than half", but I think that it can also mean "greatest in amount" (a superlative reading) depending on further context.

But I've come across similar examples in CaGEL*, which basically says the two versions mean the same thing and that most without the is also a superlative:

[21id] Pat made [the most mistakes]. (p 1167) [Note: boldface indicating a DP functioning as determiner in the NP]

...

The most of [21id], however, is the inflectional superlative of many, and here the most forms a DP functioning as determiner in the NP; this the is optional and cannot be replaced by a genitive or demonstrative. (p 1168)

...

[23v] It was Kim who attracted [(the) most attention]. (p 1168) [Note: boldface indicating a DP functioning as determiner in the NP]

...

No such factors apply in [23iii–v], and here the can be omitted. Note, however, that its omission does not result in a change of meaning – in particular, there is no change from definite to indefinite. In [v] the is part of the DP, as in [21id] above. (p 1169)

What I'd like to know is whether:
(1) David Schwartz's answer is correct or 'most tuna' without 'the' can also have a superlative reading (as I suspect); and

(2) most in [21id] and [23v] of CaGEL can also be interpreted as "more than half" when the is omitted, despite CaGEL's claim that the meaning is the same (only superlative reading) with or without the.

*The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston & Pullum

present perfect - Is the sequence of tenses applied properly in this example?

I found this sentence in some book:

When Mom asked Gramma why she hasn't been answering the telephone, Gramma said. . . .

My question is about the sequence of tenses: shouldn't the past perfect continuous tense be used here in the reported speech?

Answer

1: Mom asked Gramma why she hasn't been answering
2: Mom asked Gramma why she hadn't been answering
3: Mom asked Gramma why she didn't answer

In both #1 and #2, the implication is that Gramma has repeatedly failed to answer. But #1 further implies she was still ignoring the phone right up until when Mom asked why (or, noting StoneyB's comments below, up until when the statement was uttered/written).

In #2 it's at least possible she simply failed to answer last Wednesday, say, (when Mom called several times). Or again, as StoneyB says, continuously, right up until she was asked about it.

In #3 there isn't even any implication of how often Gramma ignored the phone. It could have been repeatedly, but it's possible Mom is only asking about one call she made at some time in the past.

---

Note that in OP's example, Mom asks Gramma about failing to answer the telephone (presumably, when Mom called). But in my "cut-down" versions she could be asking about Gramma failing to answer a question (that Mom just asked). That admits of several more temporal interrelationships (1a: why she isn't answering, 2a: why she hasn't been answering, 3a: why she doesn't answer).

Thus it's largely a matter of style/emphasis. There are different possible implications, but several meanings could apply to several verb tenses.

grammaticality - 'For while ..., yet ...' : Right quantity and use of conjunctions?

For while the capacity to overcome all opposing sensible impulses can and must be simply presupposed in man on account of his freedom, yet this capacity as strength is something he must acquire. (Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, p. 397)

for {conjunction} {literary} = Because; since

yet {conjunction} =
But at the same time; but nevertheless

Did I correctly identify the grammatical categories and definitions?
If so, are these conjunctions used rightly? I can't pinpoint why; so please help me discover why, but it sounds wrong to write:
Because while ..., but nevertheless ...?

Footnote: I don't know which English translation was used by Dr Mark D White, who authored the webpage on which I encountered this quote. Yet I realise that the transation may be old; so it would feature olden (pun intended) grammar.

When independent clauses are not truly independent

If I write

My car can go pretty far and it gets good mileage

I have combined two independent clauses to create a compound sentence. I might just as easily write

My car can go pretty far. And it gets good mileage.

But if I write

Surprisingly, my car can go pretty far and it gets good mileage,

meaning that it is a surprise my car has both of these attributes, then the independence of each clause seems diminished, because one without the other is not surprising. In other words, I cannot write

Surprisingly, my car can go pretty far. And it gets good mileage.

Is there a way to describe this difference? Is there an overriding term for two or more independent clauses that actually do not mean the same thing when not joined?

pronouns - If it's "yourself", why isn't it "hisself"?

There seems to be a bit of inconsistency with "-self" pronouns. Some are possessive while others are objective/subjective:

Consider:

• Yourself


• Ourselves


• Itself(?)

vs:

• Himself


• Herself


• Themselves


• Itself(?)

The first set use the possessive pronoun; the second don't. Why?

Similarly, is "itself" "it"+"-self" or "its"+"-[s]elf"?

modal verbs - Use of 'must have' for obligation in the future

I have noticed there is a way of using 'must have' to denote finished obligation in the future - somewhat akin to the 'future perfect tense'. An example of what I mean:

" I must have finished this exercise by tomorrow"

To me, "I must finish this exercise by tomorrow" would be just sufficient, but the above example is especially confusing because it seems to make perfect sense, and yet it seems to violate a rule of thumb I picked up, which is that 'must have' can only be used to express a deduction or an assumption concerning the past.

eg: "He must have dropped the pen by mistake " meaning 'I believe most certainly he did'.

All the references I checked do not cover this particular use of 'must + past-perfect'. If there were no time signifier - 'by tomorrow' in this example - I would squarely think that this is a statement about the past. So, at the risk of sounding finicky, would a native speaker ever use 'must + present perfect' in this sense?

References:
http://www.englishpage.net/showthread.php?16692-must-have-used-vs-should-have-used
http://www.englishpage.com/modals/must.html

pronouns - Which one is correct to say: "It's me" or "It's I"?

I was taught at school that the following expression is not grammatically correct:

Who is there? It's me.

The correct one is:

Who is there? It's I.

Can you let me know which one is accurate?

Here is a good explanation about both forms.

Answer

As reported from the NOAD:

me /mi/
pronoun [first person singular]
1. used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself as the object of a verb or preposition:

Do you understand me?
Wait for me!

• used after the verb to be and after than or as:

Hi, it's me.
You have more than me.

• informal to or for myself:

I've got me a job.

It's then correct to say it's me.

grammaticality - What would be proper grammar for this sentence?

Could you please tell me how to properly write the following sentence? I believe I know the grammar rule but I must not be creative enough to think of an alternative sentence structure. Here's the sentence:

I would love to see houses you've been looking at.

I've never really figured out how to change a sentence like this without sounding really pompous. Such as, "I would love to see houses at which you've been looking". This sentence sounds weird and awkward to me.

grammatical number - What is the proper way to say possesive with "person X" and self?

I've never known what the proper way to use a sentence in which you and a specific person (as in you can't just say "our" because you want to specify who) possess something. Is it "Julie's and mine", "Mine and Julies", "Julie and my"...?

For instance,
"Julie and my favorite band is Eluveitie."
"That sandwich is Ben and mine."

They all sound a bit strange, which is the correct way to say this?

Answer

"Julie's and mine" and "mine and Julie's" (note apostrophe) are both correct for the predicate possessive form, "Julie's and my" for the simple possessive form.

tenses - Why didn't you tell me you spoke or speak English?

I watched an interview and an interviewer was surprised that a guy who was interviewed by him can speak English and he said

Why did't you tell me you spoke English ?

Why did he use the past tense? Because he still can speak English.
I think it should be

Why did't you tell me you speak English.

grammar - "Nobody want to go there," or "nobody wants to go there"?

In English, the number 0 is treated as plural. It is then:

• 0 seconds


• 1 second


• 1.2 seconds


• 2 seconds

Shouldn't it be "nobody want to go there," instead of "nobody wants to go there"?

I also saw in TOEFL that "any __" should be used with a singular. But I see it very common that it is a plural also. Why is that? (updated: example, "we don't have any apples any more" vs "If you get any apple, please let me know.")

Answer

• Zero cars have driven by.


• Not one car has driven by.

Both of these sentences are fundamentally describing the same thing semantically and yet they demand different number agreement. Both of these are possible because grammatical number agreement is only partially informed by semantics.

Just because some descriptions of a lack of something have plural number agreement, that doesn't mean that all descriptions of a lack of something must have plural number agreement.

So, it is true that zero takes plural number agreement, and nobody takes singular number agreement. However, there is no reason that these have to work in the same way.

---

I have no idea what your second question (regarding TOEFL) could mean. Any can refer to singulars or plurals — it completely depends on what is in that blank space.

• Is there any water left? (Singular verb agreement for grammatically singular water)



• Are there any cookies left? (Plural verb agreement for grammatically plural cookies)

Subjunctive Usage: If there were your help

I am an assistant English teacher in Japan. My JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) was asking me questions about the subjunctive mood.

We were talking about sentences such as:

Were it not for your help ... If not for your help ... But for your help ... (This one actually threw me for a loop at first)

These sentences all use "your help" as a noun.

Then he proposed the sentence:

If there were your help, I would finish quickly.

My immediate reaction was nope nope nope nope nope. It sounds so wrong to my ears. But, not having an English degree, and only going on being a native speaker, I can't explain WHY this is wrong (or if it is actually wrong).

My suggested versions were:

If you were to help me ... If I were to have your help ...

So now I need YOUR help! Is "if there were your help" wrong and why is it wrong?

word choice - Enamored of/with/by

It seems that "enamored" can be used with any of the prepositions "of", "with", and "by". What is the proper usage for each?

This is the sentence I'm writing:

The team, enamored with this new metaphor, spent much of the remaining time brainstorming ways to apply those principles to the project.

"By" sounds the most natural to me in that context, and "of" sounds stilted. "With" is somewhere in between.

Answer

Looking at Google Ngrams, British English seems to use nearly exclusively "enamoured of", while American English uses both "enamored of" and "enamored with". "Enamo(u)red by" is quite rare on both sides of the pond. I would probably say "enamored of" when talking about a person, an animal, or an abstract idea, and "enamored with" when talking about a tangible object. I can't tell whether this is just me, or American usage in general. After looking at some examples on Google, I can say lots of people don't follow this rule.

He was enamored with his new model airplane.

He was enamored of the idea of running his own business.

But all three of these prepositions are acceptable grammar, and all three should be understood equally well.

grammar - Is using past participle instead of present one more polite?

On christianity.stackexchange.com I asked this question:

"Is it true that John Paul the Second restored the practice of selling indulgences in 2000?"

and one supporter suggested that I replace selling with sold as in this way it will sound less accusatory.

While not being a native English speaker and at the same not doubting a bit about that supporter's command of English, I am still puzzled here about how changing the tense of the verb can make things sound less accusatory. In fact, I don't quite see how the question is accusatory in the first place. Perhaps, there is some subtlety in English grammar here that I am not aware about.

Can anyone, please, explain this to me?

dialects - When is it appropriate to use the original pronunciation of a foreign word versus the English pronunciation?

When reading to an audience, or speaking in conversation, when is it appropriate to use the original pronunciation of a foreign word versus the English pronunciation (assuming you know the appropriate pronunciation for it)? Is it considered rude, or condescending? Or is it considered a mark of being knowledgeable?

One of the things to consider are place names. When referring to Paris, France, should it be pronounced with the silent 'S' as the French would say it, or with the 'S'? Should Hiroshima be pronounced as a Japanese speaker would pronounce it slightly more emphasis on RO, rather than the SHI? Should Mount Pinatubo be pronounced as a Filipino speaker would pronounce it with shorter stronger vowels, or the longer vowels? (e.g. Pi as is 'pick' rather than 'pea'.) Should Wichita be pronounces as the original "shi" rather than the modern "chi"?

Pronounce pesos or sombrero as a Spanish speaker 'eh' or the English 'ay'?

(I can't think of other common words right now that aren't words taken from other languages like hurricane, boondocks, tornado, etc. which I think have (correctly) changed to English pronunciations.)

grammar - Present Perfect with a definite point in the past

Can present perfect be used in sentences with definite past time when we focus on the present result like

I have forgotten my keys on last Wednesday.
=I still do not have my keys

Answer

No, you can't use the present perfect here. Among other things, the present perfect is used to refer to an action that started in the past and continues to the present. However, the verb in this sentence is "forget." The actual forgetting occurred just once -- last Wednesday -- and does not continue into the present. Therefore, the present perfect doesn't work here. Some possible alternatives that use the present perfect are:

Would you believe it? I've forgotten my keys every Wednesday this year.

I've forgotten my keys on the table! (i.e. this just happened)

I've forgotten my keys here before...

To convey your original idea, you'd probably want to say:

I lost my keys last Wednesday and (I) still haven't found them.

"Pregnant" as a taboo word

This recent article from The Sun states that the term pregnant, in this specific case referred to Meghan Markle, is considered vulgar by the Queen.

According to a recently-resurfaced Us Weekly feature, the term is one of Her Majesty's pet peeves.

The piece - which was published back when Prince George was a baby - quotes a Palace source as saying she finds it "vulgar".

So, what will the 92-year-old be calling mum-to-be Meghan?

The article states that she'll be telling people she's "in the family way".

Apart from the Queen's personal preferences, I found that the term pregnant:

Retained its status as a taboo word until c. 1950. (Etymonline)

from which, probably, its perceived "vulgarity”.

The above statement apprears to be confirmed also by the following article from tv.avclub.com:

More than 60 years ago, a pregnant Lucille Ball couldn’t call herself “pregnant”.

• The script for “Lucy Is Enceinte” famously had to dance around saying the word “pregnant,” a term CBS deemed too vulgar for air.”

Questions:

• why was the term considered vulgar?




• and what more commonly accepted expressions were used to refer to someone who was "pregnant” in the '50s.

When should end punctuation go inside quotes?

I have been/am being taught that end punctuation should always go inside quotes. For example, you are supposed to write:

Marvin thought it was "awful."

The problem is I do not see how does this make sense. Intuitively, I always wrote:

Marvin thought it was "awful".

as that makes more logical sense — you want a quote to be an exact replication of what somebody else said, so why should you add punctuation inside?

I always thought it made more sense to not touch the quote and add anything after or before if it must be added.

So, why should I put end punctuation inside quotes?

Answer

Firstly, this is only American convention — in Britain for instance you wouldn't use it (except for a few publishing houses). Secondly, this is not logical but typographical: a convention arising out of early American printers' opinion that typesetting the punctuation inside quotes looked better. This convention is slowly eroding in some areas and being replaced by the "logical" one… but it is still the predominant American convention. English is made up of a great many mere conventions and you can't really demand that it be logical.

grammar - Should the words "much needed" be hyphenated or not?

Here's an example of what I mean:

"It's time for some much needed rest and relaxation."

Or should it be:

"It's time for some much-needed rest and relaxation."

What does definite and indefinite mean in past tense and present perfect respectively

I am reading the grammar book - A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language - these days. I am confused about the meanings of definite and indefinite in Past Tense and Present Perfect.

I know that Past Tense means an action or state started and ended before now. For example:

He died.

From what I think, He died is the event die that happened at some point in the past. So what does the definite time mean here? And I think He died yesterday/last week is a definite time, which I know the exact time He died.

I know I am wrong, please help to point it out.

And Present Perfect has the meaning of INDEFINITE EVENT(S) IN A PERIOD LEADING UP TO THE PRESENT. For example:

He has died recently.

Which means, from an unspecified time(not too long from now) to now, in this period of time, the event die happened.

I think this is an indefinite event since I don't know the exact time when it happened.

Answer

A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (p184) expands its discussion of the use of the simple past in the following extract:

It is not necessary for the past tense to be accompanied by an overt
indicator of time. All that is required is that the speaker should be
able to count on the hearer's assumption that he has a specific time
in mind. In this respect, the past tense meaning of DEFINITE PAST time
is an equivalent, in the verb phrase, of the definite article in the

noun phrase. Just as with the definite article, so with the verb
phrase, an element of definite meaning may be recoverable from (a)
knowledge of the immediate or local situation; (b) the larger
situation of 'general knowledge'; (c) what has been said earlier in
the sentence or text; or (d) what comes later on in the same sentence
or text.

So this answers the question in your comment: Without explicit temporal adverbial, e.g yesterday/last week in He died yesterday/last week, how can I know the definite time of the event? Namely, the definite date or time when the event occurred will normally be recoverable in one or more of the four ways (a-d) outlined above. So, the utterance Byron died in Greece contains the implicit definite past reference: in the time that Byron was living in Greece.

As to your statement:

And Present Perfect has the meaning of INDEFINITE EVENT(S) IN A PERIOD
LEADING UP TO THE PRESENT

I'd be interested in where you have read this, since to me it is the time period that is indefinite, not the events themselves. Nevertheless, you are right that recently is an indefinite time expression which is often accompanied by the present perfect.

That said, the past tense is also used with recently. In fact, Google returns about six times more results for He died recently than He has died recently.

The choice between simple past and present perfect is very complex. For a full account of this grammar issue I recommend the excellent canonical post by StoneyB on the English Language Learners site:

https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/13255/canonical-post-2-what-is-the-perfect-and-how-should-i-use-it

grammaticality - Which is correct: "has died" or "died"?

To me, using Present Perfect form means the event can occur again. So, saying

someone has died

may not be grammatically correct.

Also, I noticed (it might be just coincidence):

passed away

is used more often than

has passed away

Is using Present Perfect correct here?

Answer

The Present Perfect Construction in English has the following uses (cf. McCawley 1971):

• (a) The Universal sense of the Perfect, used to indicate that a state of affairs prevailed throughout some interval stretching from the past into the present
  • I've known Max since 1960.




• (b) The Existential sense of the Perfect, used to indicate the existence of past events,
  • I have read Principia Mathematica five times.




• (c) The Stative/Resultative sense of the Perfect,
  used to indicate that the direct effect of a past event still continues
  • I can't come to your party tonight - I've caught the flu.





• (d) The Hot News sense of the Perfect, used to report hot news
  • Malcolm X has just been assassinated.

This, coupled with the prohibition on the use of Present Perfect with subjects who are dead

• Madonna has visited Chicago.


• *Einstein has visited Chicago.

means that X has died is only appropriate in a context in which
the speaker believes that the addressee would not yet know that X is dead.

Executive Summary: If it's Hot News, use the Present Perfect; but if it's Old News, simple past.

---

McCawley, James D. 1971. Tense and time reference in English.
In C. Fillmore and T. Langendoen (eds.), Studies in Linguistic Semantics
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, pp 96-113.

grammar - Should the words "much needed" be hyphenated or not?

Here's an example of what I mean:

"It's time for some much needed rest and relaxation."

Or should it be:

"It's time for some much-needed rest and relaxation."

pronouns - What’s the rule for using “who” and “whom” correctly?

I can never figure out whether I should use who and whom. Most people use who for both colloquially, but some people say this is not correct.

What’s the rule for using who and whom correctly?

Answer

The easy way to tell which is technically correct is to substitute he and him for who and whom, then rearrange the word order to see which sounds right.

“Who were you speaking to?” becomes “You were speaking to he” — which is clearly incorrect.

grammaticality - "There's too many numbers" vs "There are too many numbers"

When people use plural nouns after the word "there's", for example:

There's too many numbers.

it makes me a bit frustrated. I try to correct it by using "There are," but it still happens sometimes to me (the "there's" situation). Do you think that there are is the correct usage option? People usually use there's, as I said.

Answer

If you want always to write, "There are too many damn fools on the Internet", then no one is stopping you. FWIW you have my blessing. But if you want to mount a crusade against what Marius calls the informal & casual "There's too many damn fools", then I think you have a job for life.

sequence of tenses - Optional vs obligatory back shifting

Consider two sentences -
1) I didn't know that X is a Russian.
2) I didn't know that X was a Russian.

My question is, under the condition that X is still Russian, can sentence 1) be used ?

Thanks.

syntactic analysis - Possessive-gerund/ sentence structure

Here's an alternative/clearer version of my original question:

Consider the following sentence:

Instead of his being stationed on a plank, I want him on a pedestal.

This shows the possessive gerund. However, the "I want him..." being juxtaposed with "his being..." seems awkward (as was pointed out in the ensuing comment section).

It is the stationing that I want to discuss. So, to make it less awkward, instead of using "him" for the subject, since we are using "being stationed" as a noun in the first part, can we use a pronoun for it in the second part?

In other words, can I make the sentence

Instead of his being stationed on a plank, I want [his being stationed] on a pedestal.

where the [text] is replaced by a pronoun (and appropriate grammatical changes).

Is an alternative path better (and what)?

ORIGINAL:

I was writing a question in a different site and had a doubt about my sentence structure. This is what I typed:

instead of its being defined on an interval [maths], its definition is on an interval [maths]

The first part of the sentence shows the possessive-gerund. I was wondering if I could restructure this sentence as

instead of its being defined on an interval [maths], I want it on an interval [maths]/it is on an interval [maths]

where it refers to the "being-defined"-ness? The reason behind my asking this question is that the reason we use the possessive form is because we are discussing the particular characteristic ("being-defined"-ness) of the subject under scrutiny, so in the next part of the sentence, can we use it to refer to the characteristic without ambiguity? Or can it be confused for the subject? Or does using it make sense only when it is referring to the subject (which makes the most sense to me).

To be honest, using "its definition" in the sentence I originally typed also sounds a little weird to me (I was going to put in "I want it to be defined on..." instead), but I do think that it grammatically agrees with "its being defined".

Ultimately, what I am asking is if "being defined" may be used exactly as a noun might. Because the second sentence certainly makes perfect sense if I had used "definition" instead of "being defined" (with the necessary grammatical changes).

Answer

A sentence can sometimes be made to stand in the position of a noun phrase (NP) by nominalizing it. There are two nominalized sentences in your example:

Instead of his being stationed on a plank, I want him on a pedestal.

"his being stationed on a plank" is a POSS-ing nominalization of "He is stationed on a plank", and the nominalization is object of the preposition "instead of". "him on a pedestal" is probably a FOR-TO nominalization of "he is on a pedestal" (a more regular form would be ?"for him to be on a pedestal"), and the nominalization is object of the verb "want".

The English nominalization system is quite disorderly. A general feature of it is that the particular form of nominalization used depends on the function of the nominalization in the larger construction. In the example, if we were to use a POSS-ing nominalization after "want", we'd get the ungrammatical *"I want his being on a pedestal". Why? It's just an idiosyncrasy of "want" that it does not allow a following POSS-ing nominalization. Compare the verb "like" which tolerates both kinds of nominalization:

I like him on a pedestal.  
I like his being on a pedestal.  

Classifying the -ing form of the verb in POSS-ing nominalizations as a gerund is not at all helpful in analyzing them, since this verb form has verbal properties and no nominal properties whatsoever within the sentence that has been nominalized.

meaning - What part of speech is the word "entire" in "over the little garden field entire"?

The sentence is:

"After a while she got up from where she was and went over the little garden field entire."

A quote from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

I want to know if the word "entire" is a flat adverb, a postpositive adjective, a noun alternative for entirety, or some other part of speech in the bolded sentence above.

Thank you for reading. I hope you will respond and share your thoughts with me.

definite articles - Use of 'the’ in front of acronyms

I tend to not use the word ‘the’ in front of acronyms, but I see this used in documents more and more.

REIP provides regional outreach services to Northeastern Ontario.

or

The REIP provides regional outreach services to Northeastern Ontario.

If the word ‘program’ is added after REIP, I would use ‘the.’

Which is correct?

conjunctions - Usage of that with additional information about the subject

My objective is to combine following two sentences:

A. I assume you have access to the books that you were mentioning.

B. I assume you have those books in digital format.

Possibility 1: I assume you have access to the books (in digital format) that you were mentioning.
I thought of removing double brackets but I think “that” should immediately follow “books”.

Possibility 2: I assume you have access to the books that you were mentioning in digital format. This also doesn't look good.

I think in this case there is an additional information about books - that they are in digital format.

Is there a suitable way to combine both of the above sentences?

Answer

To say, I assume, you have the books or you have access to those books is not very different.

So, "I assume that you have in digital format those books you were mentioning about" or "I assume that you have access in digital format to those books you were mentioning about" will do.

expressions - A fun, catchy way to say the opposite of a 'no-brainer'?

A no-brainer is "something that requires a minimum of thought" (Merriam-Webster). I could use some help with a catchy way of saying the opposite.

Sample sentence:

"I have to make a decision and it is definitely not a no-brainer, in fact, it's a real ___________."

I almost want to say, "...it's a real brainer." but that just sounds silly.

You could always say "...it's a difficult decision" but that's pretty bland.

Someone suggested brain-teaser in the comments, but I'm thinking of the context of a life decision like, "Should I accept this job?" or "Should I get married?" -- something of that order -- rather than a riddle.

I searched for 'antonyms of no-brainer' online but the first three hits came up empty.

Answer

Head-scratcher

2 Informal (originally US). A perplexing problem or question;
something which causes bafflement or puzzlement.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/head-scratcher

Although OED says that this term is originally AmE, it is certainly widely understood in BrE.

Differences in meaning between phrases with and without indefinite article

Could you please help me by clarifying the meaning of the two phrases below:

• a profound analysis of the problem



• profound analysis of the problem

Here's the context: I want to convey information that some mathematical tool is applied to analyse extra-mathematical phenomena. Which should I use while saying: The tool is applied in (a) profound analysis of such-and-such phenomena?

Or maybe both versions are correct, but their meaning is different?

Answer

The use of the indefinite article implies to me that the thing only happened once.

'A profound analysis' suggests this was one discrete event.

'Profound analysis', suggests the analysis has been going on for some time, including perhaps a number of different people and experiments etc.

This is a very simple explanation and clearly cannot be used as a hard and fast rule.

'An experiment' suggests something slightly different to 'Experimentation', as does 'I have been for a swim' sounds different to saying 'I have been swimming'. 'A swim' sort of implies you just did six lengths of the pool and then got dressed. 'Swimming' suggests you stayed in the pool for some time, and did various types of swimming, and perhaps socialised.

Object pronouns

I've managed to get myself confused about using object pronouns in some cases. I'm unsure whether it's correct usage, or incorrect, but very common, usage

Q: Who is hungry?
A: Me
or should it be:
A: I

If I put a verb in ("I am"), then it's obvious, but without the verb, "I" am still the subject of my answer "I" am the one who's hungry. So, is "me" or "I" correct? If "me", then why? (I'd say "me")

Or "The worst player on the football team is I" or "... is me"?

Again, I'd say "...is me", but I think it should be "...is I", because the verb "to be" is intransitive so doesn't take an object". But "...is I" looks wrong...

There are similar cases where "is I" looks more correct (eg "it is I who is confused" - although now I'm thinking should be that be "it is I who am confused"? Argh. I'm even more confused!). Even in that case "it is me who's confused" would be common.

grammar - "Our subconscious" or "our subconsciousness"

Example:

There are many hidden things in the unreachable depth of our
subconscious/subconsciousness.

What's the most common choice? Is the first option ungrammatical?

Answer

There's a subtle difference between the two. Both of them are nouns, in addition to the word subconscious in the adjective form.

Subconscious¹ (adj.): feelings, desires etc are hidden in your mind and affect your behaviour, but you do not know that you
have them: [BrEn] a subconscious fear of failure

---

Subconscious² (n.): the part of your mind that has thoughts and feelings you do not know about. [= unconscious]: anger buried deep in the subconscious

As you can notice, subconscious refers to a part of your brain, as some thing, where subconsciousness refers to an state of being. So your sentence would sound more grammatical with the former choice.

I also noticed that even subscription-only LDOCE does not have an entry for subconsciousness, where it mentions unconsciousness.

Checking Google NGrams, I'm being convinced that nowadays unconsciousness is more common than subconscious, however that won't affect your question or the sentence.

Help + Noun + Gerund or Infinitive

1. Help my sister peel oranges.


2. Help my sister to peel oranges.


3. Help my sister peeling oranges.


4. Help my sister with peeling oranges.

Which of the above is/are correct, and why are the others incorrect?

Is it grammatical to use the relative pronoun “that” after a comma?

I’ve always thought it grammatically wrong to use “that” to introduce non-defining relative clauses, after a comma, or after a preposition.
The following two sentences, however, use “that” after a comma and they still sound idiomatic to me.

• “It’s no use repeating the obvious things, that have been said by others, and that can be found in any encyclopedia.”


• “That’s the person, if I’m not mistaken, that we were talking about."

Can it be that, contrary to what I think, “that” can be used after a comma? Or is it just the wrong use of a comma where there should be none? It’s true that in the second example “that” introduces a defining relative clause. But it doesn't appear to be so in the first example.

Edit - I'm not asking for a more natural way of saying things. What I'm asking is:

1. Are these sentences grammatical? Should we use "which" in the second sentence?

2. Is it wrong to place the comma before "that"?

3. Is it wrong to use "that" to introduce a non-restrictive clause as in the first sentence?

The questions Difference between 'which' and 'that' in restrictive (defining) relative clauses and Are there rules about using "that" to join two clauses? and The usage of "that" as a relative pronoun have some good answers on when to use or to omit “that” but they do not address these specific points.

Answer

tldr: What’s written is ok, and I’ll show you what it means.

---

Grammar is something that falls out of the spoken language, not the written one. Punctuation is unrelated to grammar except in that rare circumstance when it signals an audible intonation change meant to alert the listener to some change in the actual underlying grammar. Those cases are hard to come up with, but do exist. All punctuation is just cues for hearing the real language in your head better.

Therefore by that metric, not only is there nothing wrong with the punctuation as written, there cannot be, and no matter how it is written.

So try saying your first example aloud in your head, which I will here write without commas because voices have no commas, just intonation:

• It’s no use repeating the obvious things that have been said by others and that can be found in any encyclopedia.

This is a restrictive that here, which you can tell because it can be substituted by which with no change in meaning or permissibility:

• It’s no use repeating the obvious things which have been said by others and which can be found in any encyclopedia.

We can’t use that in descriptive clauses but we can use both that and which in restrictive ones, so if you can swap them, you know what you have. And the other way around, too. This is grammatical whether with or without its comma:

• They always wake me at three in the morning(,) which really annoys me.

But this is ungrammatical again no matter whether you write the comma or not:

• They always wake me at three in the morning(,) *that really annoys me. [ᴡʀᴏɴɢ]

That one is wrong because it tried to use that for a descriptive clause, and you can only use which for those. The native ear goes HUH? when it hears it, which is what makes it ungrammatical.

As you see, it’s never its punctuation which makes something grammatical or ungrammatical. It’s whether you the right worms oops I mean words have managed to put together right — which this sentence almost did not. Twice. :) It had almost managed not to put the right words together, twice.

As you observe, we do not usually use commas before restrictive clauses in English because there is no intonation change to signal there. Presuming that the writer was a competent one, this means the writer was trying to signal something else by including intonation dips. I believe that what he was signalling was an apocopated version of two appositives, which I’ll use em dashes to set off with a repeated things:

• It’s no use repeating the obvious things — (things) that have been said by others — and (things) that can be found in any encyclopedia.

If you read his punctuation there, the commas, as an indicator of appositives the same way as they’re used for that in this sentence, his pauses will make much more sense. It’s not especially common, so it’s no wonder it caught your eye, but I believe that there is a legitimate reading where it makes perfect sense.

As for this one:

• “That’s the person, if I’m not mistaken, that we were talking about.”

Here you have to read this for syntactic constituents. The phrase if I’m not mistaken is a parenthetical aside. It could have been written:

• “That’s the person — if I’m not mistaken — that we were talking about.”


• “That’s the person (if I’m not mistaken) that we were talking about.”


• “That’s the person (if I’m not mistaken) who/whom we were talking about.”

So the commas are the same as parens or dashes: they’re there to surround the parenthetical statement. Since in the spoken language you cannot hear any punctuation, this cannot change the grammar. They’re just there to help the reader.

These too are all ok:

• “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the person that we were talking about.”


• “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the person we were talking about.”


• “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the person who(m) we were talking about.”


• “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the person about whom we were talking.”


• “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the person about which we were talking.”

All those are fine. About the only thing you can’t do is say:

• “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the person about *that we were talking.” [ᴡʀᴏɴɢ]

Because which cannot function there to start the clause to serve as the object of a preposition.

Don’t allow some simple, perhaps simplistic, mnemonic tip for good writing style such as “don’t use a comma before that” confuse you about the larger surrounding issues or about a sentence’s actual grammar. Such tips exist to break a common pattern in beginning writers unfamiliar with the conventions normally observed in these things. But rest assured that the actual grammar remains intact no matter the punctuation, for any grammatical error will jump out to your ear without seeing the punctuation — just like in my very last bulleted example sentence above, the one with the extra asterisk.

syntax - Which phrase is grammatically correct?

Only one of the following is correct, but I am not sure which. My answer key says that Sentence 1 is correct, but I don't understand why. Here they are:

Sentence 1: Therefore, a Platonic idealist believes that these abstract forms are as effective as, if not more effective than,
sensory experience at revealing the nature of reality.

Sentence 2: Therefore, a Platonic idealist believes that these abstract forms are as effective, if not more effective, than
sensory experience at revealing the nature of reality.

I still think sentence 2 sounds more syntactically accurate.

Answer

You're injecting a clause into the middle of an already complete sentence. This means, if you remove the clause, does the sentence still make sense?

• ... forms are as effective as sensory experience ...
  
  


• ... forms are as effective than sensory experience ...
  
  

How should I phrase a question that must be answered with an ordinal number (e.g., the third prime)?

I want to make a question having an answer as follows:

5 is the third prime number.

The bold part is the answer. How to phrase the question?

Use of article 'the' before author's name

Is is correct to write: 'Author Martin Amis describes...', or should we use the article 'the' in front of 'author'?

grammatical number - Pluralising 'Red Kite'

Is the following grammatically correct?

An area frequented by red kite and skylarks

It would appear to be incorrect as red kite should be pluralised to red kites, however this sounds wrong to my ear.

Is this a grey-area? Or is it definitely incorrect?

Another example usage:

There were sitings of red kite.

syntactic analysis - Phrasing a question to me in this way - why is it rude ? Or is it rude?

I am a junior in sales office. I have not been here long. A senior colleague of mine will often ask me to read correspondence that he has drafted. On the whole it is an easy task requiring not much skill.

However he has sometimes structured his query asking if I may read his correspondence using this statement -

' you won't want to read that for me, will you ? '

I do read it but it irks me immensely that he poses his query this way but I cannot quite understand why this particular sentence structure irks me so much. I should tell him to go to hell but junior and all that...

I would appreciate some thoughts please.

Thank you.

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

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

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

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

Answer

It's the verb tense.

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

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

grammar - use of "to" after "helping one"

What is correct:

helping one to accomplish the dreams?

OR

helping one accomplish the dreams?

The question I have is about the use of to in the first sentence?

conjunctions - Comma usage with one subject, multiple verbs, and multiple objects

Just got a writing job, part of which involves editing. There's a pretty specific type of sentence that's coming up a lot, and I'm not sure if a comma is required or not.

The sentences look like this:

Baxter played his role well in the first game and scored tons of points throughout the series.

My question is, is a comma required between game and and?

(The remainder of this post simply explains my attempts to figure it out myself, and why I can't.)

My first thought is that a comma is required, because the and separates two independent clauses. But I'm not actually sure if that's the case, since while Baxter is the clear subject of both verbs in the sentence, he's not actually named after the and, so I'm not sure if the rest of the sentence really does constitute a second independent clause. Furthermore, a simpler form of this sentence would be Baxter played and scored. I'm almost certain that this sentence doesn't require a comma, which makes things more confusing.

My only guess at a justification for the possible difference is that in the longer sentence, each of the verbs is attached to a different object (his role and tons of points). I'm kind of stuck.

Are there two independent clauses here? Is the comma required, and why? If there weren't two different objects in the sentence (or if one or both of them were missing or merely implied) would that change things?

Answer

First of all, punctuation is a matter of style, and you will find the rules for that style in the style guide that your employer has adopted. Which guide governs your edits, and what does it say? Different guides have different rules, but the good ones will emphasize that fiats must be tempered by the recognition of exceptions and the role of the good judgment of authors and editors.

That said, on to your specific questions. Your sentence has one clause with a compound predicate, which (as you noted) is played well and scored tons. Yes, Baxter is the subject of both verbs, but that doesn't make

scored tons of points

a clause on its own. The fact that each verb governs a different object doesn't matter. You could have

Baxter played his role well in the first game and so continued throughout the series.

The second verb (continued) doesn't have a direct object at all, and you still have the comma dilemma.

I use the Chicago Manual of Style, which recommends that commas separate conjoined independent clauses and that they do not separate compound predicates. In fact, CMOS states that these rules are more than recommendations, calling them "obligatory", but CMOS notes at least one exception to the former -- short clauses. Their example that omits the "obligatory" comma is

Charles played the guitar and Betty sang.

That exception won't help you with your problem, though. You should probably consider inserting theforbidden comma when not doing so will create a so-called garden path, an invitation to the reader to choose the wrong parse. In this case would the absence of a comma lead the reader to initially consider that the conjunction was to join something other than the second predicate? For example, a compound direct object, along the lines of

Baxter played his role well in the first game and the second.

or an adverbial phrase as in

Baxter played his role well in the first game and in general.

And here's where your judgment as an editor comes in. My personal opinion is no: the reader immediately encounters a verb (scored) and not an article (and the second) or a preposition (and in general). But there's a simple way to avoid the agony, and that's to make a simple edit to create a compound clause to justify the comma:

Baxter played his role well in the first game, and he scored tons of points throughout the series.

verb agreement - Lehman Brothers (is/are) now taken over by some other company

Lehman Brothers (is/are) now taken over by some other company.

My answer is is.

My approach to finding the correct answer is that according to subject–verb agreement rules, if both of them refer to same subject, we use a singular verb. Thus:

Lehman Brothers is now taken over by some other company.

Is my approach right according to subject–verb agreement rules?

Usage of Indefinite Article

I am wondering whether both of the following sentences are acceptable:

(A) Only water bottles with "caps" are allowed in this area.
(B) Only water bottles with "a" cap are allowed in this area.

If I want to emphasize the importance of having A CAP on the bottles brought into the area, would it be acceptable to put "A" instead of "CAPS"?

Please advise.

Thank you

punctuation - Comma after address

Here's an example:

• Chocolate lovers rejoice!


• Chocolate lovers, rejoice!

To my understanding, the first one says that chocolate lovers are rejoicing and in the second one, we are asking the chocolate lovers to rejoice.

Am I correct? Or is it fine to use both 1 and 2 interchangeably?

Also, if am wrong about the second one, then how do you convey to chocolate lovers that they should rejoice?

Answer

Both versions are imperative clauses, and both have directive force. The difference is: your first version uses a 3rd person subject, while the second version uses a vocative.

In both versions, there is the directive "Rejoice!"

Both versions basically have the same meaning. In a roomful of chocolate lovers, you can give the directive "Rejoice!" or the directive "Chocolate lovers rejoice!" or the directive "Chocolate lovers, rejoice!", or the directive "Everybody rejoice!", or the directive "Everybody, rejoice!" or the directive "Rejoice, everybody!"

For more info, there's the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Chapter 10, pages 925-8 (9.2.1 - 9.2.2) which includes the section "Subject vs vocative in imperatives".

subjects - Can a sentence have multiple predicates?

I was doing an exercise from my grammar book where one has to identify the subject and the predicate when I stumbled across the following sentence.

A barking sound the shepherd hears.

Now I know that 'the shepherd' is the subject but I am not able to identify predicate. My book says that the predicate is 'A barking sound... hears'.
But I am not entirely convinced of the above answer because I think that the predicate is supposed to a phrase.

My guess is that both 'A barking sound' and 'hears' are the predicates of the given sentence.

Does anyone know whether or not a sentence can have multiple predicates.

Answer

Your sentence has inverted word order where the noun phrase serving as the direct object comes first, then the subject, and finally the verb.

In normal order, your sentence reads:

The shepherd hears a barking sound.

hears a barking sound is still the full predicate; it is merely split by the inversion.

A sentence may easily have a compound predicate:

I bought a bag of carrots but left it at the store.

bought a bag of carrots and left it at the store form a compound predicate joined by a coordinating conjunction.

But that's not really what you're asking.

grammatical number - Item queue vs items queue? Files list vs File list?

My question is connected with programming.
I'm not sure how to name my class.

Should it be ItemQueue or ItemsQueue? We are talking about queue, which stores many items. We can add new ones or remove existing. Similary, what about file list/files list? I have always wondered which form should I choose.

Answer

To keep in line with what most people are accustomed to it needs to stay singular. Queue and list already convey that there will be multiple, so having the plural word almost makes it read possessive.

The two most common example using file are:

• File Browser


• File Manager

Not files.

grammar - What is the accepted stance on using "they" in a singular form?

Is it good English to say "They have just left", when talking about a single person (perhaps someone you don't know the gender of)?

(I am a native English speaker, I'm looking for the view held by lexicographers).

Answer

Singular they has been used in English for a long, long time. Seriously, Shakespeare even used it.

Unfortunately, a significant number of English speakers think it's wrong. Why? No clue. I'd label it a hypercorrection.

I think the most important thing to think about is whether your audience will understand you. On this count, singular they really shines, as everybody — even those who pooh-pooh it — understand exactly what you're saying.

Another consideration is what alternatives you have. One sounds stuffy; he or she is too long; just he is inaccurate (and possibly offensive).

Singular they is really the best way to go.

grammatical number - Is it One and half year or One and half years when used for work experience

While writing a resume , I have come across this question while specifying work experience.

Total Experience of One and Half Years

or

Total Experience of One and Half Year

This may seem duplicate question , but I have read Which is it: "1½ years old" or "1½ year old"? but it was inconclusive when it came to time span referred for any activity.

Answer

The most idiomatic way to express this with "experience" would be:

One and a half years' experience.

or, possibly

A year and a half of experience.

Some people may well say "a year and a halfs' experience" but in writing it might cause as much debate as what we are having now and that isn't what you want people looking at your resume to do.

speech - Non-standard British use of possessive "me"

Native North American speaker here. It's fairly common in certain British dialects to substitute "me" for "my" (Shiver me timbers) in informal speech.

My impression is that some speakers mix the two.

What are the descriptive rules for selecting between the two variants?

Specifically, I'm asking about usage of

A non-standard variant of my (particularly in British dialects) is me. (This may have its origins in the fact that in Middle English my before a consonant was pronounced [mi:], like modern English me, (while me was [me:], similar to modern may) and this was shortened to [mi] or [mɪ], as the pronouns he and we are nowadays; [hi wɒz] he was; versus [ɪt wɒz hi:] it was he. As this vowel was short, it was not subject to the Great Vowel Shift, and so emerged in modern English unchanged.)"

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_personal_pronouns#Archaic_and_non-standard_forms)

As an example, here is an excerpt from the character Daisy in Downton Abbey:

DAISY

Someone walked over me grave.

(http://scriptline.livejournal.com/43860.html)

Someone please supply a video clip of this speech pattern. I'm sure it can be found, but I can't.

Conditional Subjunctive and Conditional Indicative

I am confused. When should the conditional subjunctive and the conditional indicative be used?

Conditional subjunctive:

If you were 23 yrs old, you could join the contest.

Conditional indicative:

If you are 3=23 yrs old, you can join the contest.

A follow up:
In the conditional subjunctive, should the second verb be in the past tense?

Answer

Your first sentence is an example of what is sometimes taught to foreign learners as the Second Conditional, which envisages an unreal, unlikely or imagined situation. In these sentences, the verb in the if-clause is in the past tense. The verb phrase in the main clause is usually made up of would followed by the plain form of the main verb, but other modals such as could are also found.

Your second sentence is an example of the First Conditional, which predicts a likely result in the future if the condition is fulfilled. Its typical structure is present tense in the if-clause and will (or won’t) in the main clause, but can is also possible.

The term 'conditional subjunctive' is not normally used.

grammatical number - "Beans is our only option" or "Beans are our only option"— which is correct?

This sentence is in the context of dinner.

Beans is/are our only option

I'm confused as to whether "is" or "are" is necessary in this construct.

grammatical case - He must decide who/whom to be. Which is correct?

Which of the following two sentences is correct?

He must decide who to be.

He must decide whom to be.

I can think of arguments for both sides, but I'm not sure.

To elaborate, is who(m) the object of decide, the subject of be, or the object of be? Does the infinitive form of be have any bearing on the answer? And is there anything else to consider about the position or role of who(m) in this particular sentence that would inform the answer?

The answers to the linked question What’s the rule for using “who” and “whom” correctly? say to "substitute he and him for who and whom." However, that doesn't give a clear answer in this context, because neither of those pronouns sounds right: "He must decide to be he"? "He must decide to be him"? Normally we'd use a reflexive pronoun here ("He must decide to be himself") and it's not clear what case that corresponds to.

Answer

The Wikipedia link about the accusative case explains that

Modern English, which almost entirely lacks declension in its nouns,
does not have an explicitly marked accusative case even in the
pronouns. Such forms as whom, them, and her derive rather from the old

Germanic dative forms, of which the -m and -r endings are
characteristic.

Now, whether to use who or whom in your sentence entirely depends on which case should be used, accusative (whom) or nominative (who).

In English, it is grammatically correct to use nominative after the verb to be as in

It's he who stole my car. It's they who told me the truth. It's she

who lied to me.

However, we know that "It's me" (using the accusative case after to be) is broadly used in English. But it is just a few exceptions.

In your sentence, it is appropriate to use the nominative case as it is the complement of to be. If you divide the sentence into two parts:

He must decide / He should be who => He must ask who he should be => He must decide who to be.

in the same way as:

He must decide / He should meet whom => He must decide whom he should meet => He must decide whom to meet.

He must ask / She is who => He must ask who she is. (This question cannot be shortened with wh-word + to-infinitive as the subjects are not same.)

We don't ask,

*Whom is he? or *Who is him?

*Whom am I? or *Who am me?

because whom and him/me are the accusative case and can't be a complement of the verb be in this case.

Note: "He must decide who he wants to be" is more idiomatic than "he must decide who to be".