I'm not sure about the proper subject verb agreement in the following sentences.
A boy and a girl make/makes a couple.
5 and 5 make/makes 10.
75 and 25 make/makes a hundred.
Can you help?
ETA: I understand that compound subjects usually take plural verbs, unless they form a collective idea- in which case it takes a singular verbs.
Can the subjects in these cases be considered a collective unit?
I don't know which one is accurate. They all sound right to me.
The cameras need to be mounted in spots that intruders can’t reach.
The cameras need to be mounted in spots where intruders can’t reach.
The cameras need to be mounted in spots which intruders can’t reach.
Answer
They are all grammatically correct, but there are distinctions worth noting.
Where is specific to spatial positioning, which means you could remove the phrase "in spots."
The cameras need to be mounted where intruders can't reach.
Writer's digest outlines the distinction between "which" and "that" here:
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/which-vs-that
The basic idea is that if the clause that the word is connecting alters the meaning of the sentence, use "that," but if it merely adds extra information, use "which." In your case, the meaning of the phrase is largely lost without the connected clause.
The cameras need to be mounted in spots.
For that reason, "that" is probably preferable over "which," although it is a unique case where I could see arguments made either way.
For these reasons, I would rank the options like this:
I am writing about Random Variables, which I am abbreviating to RV. Should I write 'an RV' (an Arr-Vee) or 'a RV' (a Random Variable)?
Answer
This depends entirely on how you expect people to read the letters RV. If you expect them to say "random variable" every time, then use a RV. If you expect that they'll pronounce the letter names, use an RV. Personally, I would lean towards the latter.
That's because the choice of a or an is determined entirely by pronunciation.
This is not an ethical, moral, or legal question - I'm looking for the language terminology relating to the quoted text of this hypothetical situation (simplified from a real-world one):
Bob gives Alex a monthly allowance. Whenever Alex needs more money or wants something, he will suggest the need and source, without actually asking a question, for example: "Bob, I'm short on money and know you got paid today, so was hoping to get some money early."
A similar question mentions "declarative questions", however in this situation, Alex never sounds like he is asking a question; rather, Alex's statements sound more like instructions or orders in that compliance is expected, and non-compliance is treated as a violation of an agreement that doesn't exist. (I know this is dysfunctional - again, I'm only looking for terminology.)
Is this just "passive voice" or is there a more specific term relating to a person's chronic inability to (or choice not to) make requests / ask direct questions?
Update: It seems "implies", "prompts", or "hints" seem to be the closest terms for this. I'll leave it open for a bit longer.
Answer
This looks like a straightforward case of Alex prompting, or at least attempting to prompt Bob.
From the OED (Login required)
prompt, v. 2a. trans. To incite to action; to move or induce (a
person, etc.) to or to do something.
Bob may find this annoying or passive-aggressive, but that is perhaps about the manner of prompting rather than the core action.
Being both non-natives, I had some discussion today about the following situation: suppose you're at a party and you want to take/bring your drunk buddy home.
I believe that:
She believes that:
I know the general meaning and differences between bring and take. However, I somehow couldn't get my head around this. Any native speaker that can shed some light here? There's an extra beer at stake!
Answer
I'm not an English major, but I am a native speaker.
"I'll bring you home" is definitely not invalid; it's a perfectly fine thing to say, and I think your meaning is correct.
However, "I'll take you home" does not imply that you live at the same place, or that you're going to be staying over. I think it just implies a sort-of dominance on the role of the speaker. I would imagine this being said by a person speaking to someone who is more drunk than they are, or by a speaker who knows the way home better than the other person. Although, to be fair, it probably depends a lot more on who says it, how they say it, and exactly how they phrase it and not so much on bring versus take. For example, "I can take you to your place" has essentially the same meaning as "I'll bring you home."
I think the most natural thing to say in the case that you are both going back to the same place, or both heading home is "Let's go home."
Although similar questions have been asked before, I am still not clear as to official or, at the very least, preferred position from punctuation rules point of view on comma after coordinating conjunction that precedes a parenthetical expression or a conjunctive adverb at the start of the sentence.
Consider examples below (not the exact sentence but purely punctuation logic):
And[,] also, we will be coming to the party.
And[,] consequently, they failed to produce a report.
But[,] on the other hand, they can offer you advice.
But[,] unfortunately, the government has failed to address our country's economic issues.
Would you put or drop the bracketed comma if the pause is intended after the parenthetical but not after the conjunction? The comma would certainly be there after the parenthetical if the conjunction is dropped and according to both William Strunk, Jr, in Elements of Styles and Gregg Reference Manual, 10th Edition, the comma, in analogues situation, should be dropped after the conjunction in the middle of the sentence if conjunction is starting a 2nd independent clause and is preceded by a parenthetical. See quotes below from each.
Strunk:
If a parenthetic expression is preceded by a conjunction, place the first comma before the conjunction, not after it.
He saw us coming, and unaware that we had learned of his treachery, greeted us with a smile.
Gregg:
Section 142b
When the [transitional] expression or comment occurs at the beginning of the second independent clause in a compound sentence and is preceded by a comma and a coordinating conjunction, use one comma following the expression.
The location of the plant was not easy to reach, and to be honest about it, I wasn't very taken
with the people who interviewed me.
The job seemed to have no future, and to tell the truth, the salary was pretty low.
In the first place, I think the budget for the project is unrealistic, and in the second place, the
deadlines are almost impossible to meet.
However, in section 126b note, Gregg says the following:
Do not insert a comma directly after the coordinating conjunction unless a
parenthetical element begins at that point
I told Calahan that we would not reorder unless he cut his prices by 20 percent And, to my total amazement, he did.
Surely the two guidelines he is giving contradict one another? Why does one need a parenthetical comma in the beginning of the sentence after a conjunction but not in the middle if the only difference is period instead of comma before a coordinating conjunction.
So, according to Gregg, this is correct punctuation:
I told Calahan that we would not reorder unless he cut his prices by 20 percent. And, to my total amazement, he did.
BUT:
I told Calahan that we would not reorder unless he cut his prices by 20 percent, and to my total amazement, he did.
Notice no comma in the second sentence.
You could say that the first parenthetical comma could be dropped on the grounds of prettiness / clarity to avoid excessive punctuation but in this case:
a) It's more logical to drop the comma preceding the coordinating conjunction (and retain the first parenthetical comma)
b) If we were to punctuate the 2 sentences like Gregg advises, then the two sentences read differently as in the first one we are forcing a break / speech pause after a conjunction. And surely, the sentences should not be read differently just because the period before the coordinating conjunction is replaced by a comma?
Is there a grammatical rule on this or in cases like that it's simply a style matter?
I am asking because I personally prefer to drop the first parenthetical comma after a coordinating conjunction on the basis that coordinating conjunction does not have any syntactic role in the clause -- it simply connects the two clauses acting as connector making anything that comes after it an introductory element which would only have one comma in the beginning of the sentence if the conjunction is to be dropped?
Also the natural speech pattern seems to suggest that and the rules above address this situation in the middle of the sentence but not in the beginning?
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
A side question: if dropping the first parenthetical comma does turn out to be a mere style preference, would that be acceptable in the formal written works like academic reports and papers (logic being, if the rule is acceptable, it's acceptable in every writing piece).
Answer
As Robusto points out in comments beneath the question, there is no universally acknowledged rule governing whether to include or omit a comma after a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence. Robusto reports preferring to include such commas in academic documents, but many other writers and editors would not include them.
In my experience copyediting manuscripts for book publishers (including university presses) and later for magazine publishers, I don't recall ever having encountered a house style that required adding a comma after "And," "But," or the like. To the contrary, most house styles either said nothing at all on the subject or recommended omitting such commas, presumably for the reason that Words Into Type, third edition (1984) gives at the start of its long section on comma usage:
A comma should be used only if it makes the meaning clearer or enables the reader to grasp the relation of parts more quickly. Intruded commas are worse than omitted ones, but keep in mind at all times that the primary purpose of the comma is to prevent misreading.
The argument for including a comma after an opening conjunction is not, I think, grounded in a desire to make the meaning clearer (since the meaning tends to be quite clear without the comma, as Peter Shor indicates in a comment above), but rather in a desire to demarcate with exactitude the boundaries of the parenthetical expression that follows. Why Gregg Reference Manual would insist on such precision at the beginning of a sentence but not in the middle of one is a mystery to me.
There is nothing inherently wrong with using commas to break out parenthetical phrases regardless of where they appear in a sentence: It increases the number of commas in a work while (arguably) not making the sense of the text any clearer; but it's a style decision, and style decisions—if followed consistently—don't need to be justified.
On the other hand, if you don't want to add a comma after a conjunction at the start of a sentence, I don't think that you should consider yourself to be under any obligation to the preferences of Gregg Reference Manual unless your publisher has instructed you to obey it.
Is it grammatically correct to say it's 1 degrees outside or is it 1 degree outside? (Talking about the weather in Buffalo, New York.)
We have a highly regarded answer by nohat to a question about gender-neutral pronouns, in which he points to the "singular they" and its long history of use in English. (Note that he also advises against using it.) Example:
If someone wants to watch TV tonight, they'll have to do the dishes.
This avoids having to say "he or she" in mixed-gender situations. Okay, fine. I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch if people want to talk this way.
But it occurrs to me that "singular they"—infelicitous at the best of times—really falls apart when extended into the realm of reflexive pronouns:
If someone wants to watch TV tonight, they'll have to do the dishes all by themselves. [?]
That feels very wrong. The only alternative, if one paints oneself into that corner, is to flip it back to singular:
If someone wants to watch TV tonight, they'll have to do the dishes all by themself. [???]
That feels worse.
If I'm to state this as a question, I guess I would put it thus: How can use of a "singular they" truly be reconciled? Is it really as much of a linguistic dead end as it feels to me?
Answer
Themself was used in the past, and there is no law or authority that prohibits anyone from using it today. I have used it in personal correspondence, conscious of its rebellious and contradictory nature; however, I have to confess many of my correspondents are in the field of language teaching, and they tend to be more open-minded.
Although the singular themself is gaining currency, it would be an arduous challenge for anyone to produce a recent government bill, act, tax form, or any official English document that contains the actual reflexive pronoun. And if they could produce a formal document, it would be akin to seeing an exotic and engendered butterfly in the wild.
It's simply not done; not today, not in a formal context simply because it looks “wrong”. Themself looks dialectal, a word that an uneducated native speaker person might use. While the singular they, their and them are extremely common in speech—and increasingly so in writing as it avoids having to write the cumbersome he or she; his or her; him or her—yet many English native speakers consider themself not a “proper word”, and whenever instances of ourself and themself appear in writing, these words stick out like a sore thumb.
Pam Peters in ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’ advocates:
The singular reference in ‘themself’ obviously serves a purpose, especially after an indefinite noun or pronoun. If we allow the use of ‘they’/’them’/’their’ for referring to the singular, ‘themself’ seems more consistent than ‘themselves‘. We make use of ”yourself‘ alongside ‘yourselves’ in just the same way. ‘Themself’ has the additional advantage of being gender-free, and thus preferable to both ‘himself’ and ‘himself/herself‘. It’s time to reinstate it to the set of reflexive pronouns!
From an article in Language Log, March 08, 2007, two American English authorities condemn the use of themself
- As MWDEU (Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage) 1989 puts it (p. 898):
This use of themself is similar to the use of they, their, and them in reference to singular terms... Such use of they, their, and them is old and well established, but this use is not.
- Wilson's Columbia Guide (1993) is stern on the matter (p. 435):
Theirselves and themself for themselves are limited to Vulgar English or imitations of it; both are shibboleths.
adding that
Themself can also occur as an unfortunate result of trying to avoid using a gender-explicit reflexive pronoun by using a blend of the plural them with the singular self. The choices are themselves or himself or herself or both the last two...
An Ngram showing themself tells us that it existed and exists. An Ngram that compares themself and themselves reflects its usage more accurately.
An Ngram that compares themself (blue line); himself or herself (red line); him or herself (green) and herself and himself (yellow) tells us that the majority of writers (and editors) feel more comfortable using a longer equivalent than the succinct themself.
On Google Books, the politically-correct expression, "herself or himself", produces around 1,480 results. Here are some examples:
The differentiation between self and not-self certainly seems related to the growth of the object concept, during which the child learns to see herself or himself as an object in space and time, separate from the mother.
Research Manual in Child Development 2003
1963, Standard Civil Code of the State of California
the case may be, for the permanent support and maintenance of [3] herself or himself, and may include therein at her or his discretion an action for support, maintenance and education of the children of said marriage during their minority.
and as recently as 2009, Code of Federal Regulations
(a) An ALJ [Administrative Law Judge] may disqualify herself or himself at any time. (b) Until the filing of the ALJ's decision. either party may move that the ALJ disqualify herself or himself for personal bias or other valid cause. The party shall file with the ALJ, promptly ..
Whereas himself or herself gets 8,190 hits
George Herbert Mead and Human Conduct, 2004
He sees it, in the first instance, as being merely the object that the individual is to himself or herself. Obviously, human beings can, and do, think of themselves as being a given kind of object. The human being may see himself or herself as male or female, young or old, rich or poor, married or unmarried …
Interestingly, the authors use the impersonal pronouns it and itself when referring to babies and small infants on page 58.
The human infant or very young child is not an object to itself. While in the eyes of others it acts as a baby, it doesn't recognize itself as a baby. It doesn't see itself as someone who is helpless, gets sick, cries a lot, spends a lot of time sleeping, ...
In a formal or technical register, himself or herself, will usually be preferred. And it seems highly unlikely that it will change in the near future.
Criminal Law, 2010, page 357
Section 2 Any person who
(a) Purposely engages in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily injury to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family or to fear the death of himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family; and
(b) Has knowledge or should have knowledge that the specific person will be placed in reasonable fear of bodily injury to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family or induce fear in the specific individual of the death of himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family; is guilty of stalking.
In 2013, Catherine Soanes, guest blogger on OxfordWords blog, and one of the editors of the OED 2nd edition 2005, argued:
Given that it’s now largely acceptable to use they, them, or their instead of the more long-winded ‘he or she’, ‘him or her’, or ‘his or her’ (especially in conjunction with indefinite pronouns such as anyone or somebody) it might be argued that, logically, it should also be OK to use themself, it being viewed as the corresponding singular form of themselves. However, this isn’t yet the case, so beware of themself for now! The correct versions of the opening examples in this section should be:
- It’s not an expensive way for somebody to make themselves feel good.
- Anyone would find themselves thinking similar thoughts.
Of course, if you dislike the use of gender-neutral third-person plural pronouns for singular subjects, or you’re working to a style guide that prohibits them, you should reword the sentences so as to incorporate gender-specific third-person singular pronouns instead:
- It’s not an expensive way for somebody to make himself or herself feel good.
- Anyone would find himself or herself thinking similar thoughts.
[…] To sum up, the wheel has not yet come full circle and ‘themself’ remains a standard English outcast. . . for now.
The OP's example:
If someone wants to watch TV tonight, they'll have to do the dishes
all by themselves
Sound perfectly acceptable to my ears. In speech and in an informal context, it is perfectly fine. For anyone who dislikes this solution I would suggest the following:
If I am speaking to more than one person
i) For those who want to watch TV tonight, they'll have to do the dishes all by themselves
or to any individual, male or female
ii) If someone wants to watch TV tonight, he or she will have to do the dishes
all by themselves
or you could try this "clunkier" version
iii) If someone wants to watch TV tonight, he or she will have to do the dishes all by him or herself
If I had to use this particular construction, for efficiency's sake, I'd choose him or herself, which is well-documented and represented by the green line in the third Ngram chart.
Which is correct?
Everyone were convinced that he would go to the game.
Everyone was convinced that he would go to the game.
I think it's "was", because "everyone" is singular, but I just wanted to check.
Answer
Everyone agrees that everyone is singular and therefore singular verb forms agree with everyone.
- Only now you can even get them on top of wrinkles.
- Only infrequently does it happen.
As one of our members has said, inversion happens when a sentence starts with "only" and never otherwise. So why does no inversion happen in the first sentence?
What is the correct way to use infinitive after the verb "help": with or without "to"?
For example:
Please, help me to understand this.
or:
Please, help me understand this.
Answer
The particle "to" is not wrong in this sentence, but it is unnecessary. I would recommend against using it.
The phrase "to understand" can be interpreted as a special case of the infinitive; a kind of future infinitive or impersonal future tense. In that context, the first sentence means, essentially, "please help me develop an understanding of this (in the future)". While that may be technically correct, it adds nothing to the meaning of the sentence.
To add some weight to my argument, the COCA lists 142 entries for "help me understand" versus only 18 for "help me to understand". The results are similar for other constructions involving "help me ..." versus "help me to ...".
I think that the confusion stems from the way you must use the infinitive in other cases, for example: "I want to understand this", or "I am trying to understand this". In these cases, the particle is an absolute neccesity.
My true home were the streets of the suburb of XYZ.
Not sure how to say that the streets (plural) were the home of a specific person.
Using the word homeless would be against the intended meaning. This specific person had a family and a house but mostly wandered and slept in streets or alleyways, because he felt that's where he belonged.
Answer
My true home was the streets of Chicago.
Compare that to: The streets of Chicago were my true home.
Both are right.
When writing a series in a blog, with which of the following sentences could you start the first sentence? Are they all correct, is only one correct, are there semantic or only aesthetic differences?
'...' = the title of the series
Which one of these sentences is correct?
The best countries to live in are ...
Best countries to live in are ...
EDIT: The reason this question is being asked is that this Wiktionary article says the definite article should be used with a superlative, it and that superlative refer to one object: that apple pie was the best.
Now, what about those apple pies were the best?
Answer
The 1st and 3rd examples are correct, because when talking about superlatives, you are effectively talking about something specific, so the definite article must be used, whether the thing in question is singular or plural.
A noun can be omitted after "the best" in the 3rd example, but it is implied, i.e.:
Those apple pies were the best [apple pies].
Those apple pies were the best [I've ever tasted].
Often, I have come across sentences that begin with "So". Should such an usage of "So" be followed by a comma?
Are the following examples correct.
He is very good at computers. So, I think he can fix your computer.
When we multiply an even number with another even number, the result is an even number. So, the square of an even number is an even number.
What happens if we choose to use "Therefore", "Hence", or "Thus" instead of "So"? Do the rules still remain the same?
When we multiply an even number with another even number, the result is an even number. Therefore, the square of an even number is an even number.
When we multiply an even number with another even number, the result is an even number. Hence, the square of an even number is an even number.
When we multiply an even number with another even number, the result is an even number. Thus, the square of an even number is an even number.
Which one is the correct form: "Wish I was here" or "wish I were here"? I've heard both of them many times but I don't know which one is correct.
I can say "I will go", or "I'll go", and the both mean the same thing.
However, if you ask me "Can you go?", can I respond with "I'll" instead of "I will"?
How should this long sentence with multiple "and"s
Property taxes and other local taxes and state taxation and spending may not be ... .
be understood? Notice, there is no punctuation near the occurrences of "and" (actual text is Article IX § 25 of the Michigan Constitution).
Should each item between the "and" be treated completely separate from all the other items?
Or, do you group the "and"s in the only way that can be uniformly done:
{Property taxes and other local taxes} and {state taxation and spending} may not be ...
or, perhaps slightly different
{Property taxes and other local taxes} and state {taxation and spending} may not be ...
What punctuation might be added to make a particular reading more clear? (Of course, legally, that can't be done; but it could help make the case for a certain understanding over another.)
Answer
As with all such ambiguities, the proper interpretation is multiple: it is the union of all possible reasonable interpretations. As an interpreter, you get to choose what interpretations occur to you and which you think are reasonable.
IOW, it means whatever it could possibly mean, whatever people might understand or misunderstand by it. Nothing more or less.
If you want something that has less ambiguity then you need to write more clearly. Commas help sometimes. Splitting sentences helps sometimes. And so on.
If you want to ask a more specific question, one that, for example, asks for some possible (mis)interpretations of a given phrase or sentence, then please do. But throwing a sentence out there that clearly (as you yourself note) has multiple interpretations and asking what it means is asking for the answer I stated in the first paragraph.
I was under the impression that every sentence has a subject–verb–object (SVO) where S and V are compulsory and O is optional.
So basically I was wondering in the sentence "I'm Tom." is the subject "I" and the verb "am" ? But what about the "Tom" ? It simply can't be an object right?
Answer
Not every sentence is SVO. SVO refers to the general pattern of those primary constituents for English and a variety of other languages when discussing language typology. It's not a language requirement.
Intransitive verbs in English, for example, don't need an object. In fact, they can't take an object:
be (the copula) is a strange verb in most languages. Some would analyse simple sentences such as I am Tom as stative passive, with Tom being the complement of I.
According to my Cambridge Grammar of English, 'such (a)' is used in noun phrases with attributive adjectives.
She's such a quiet girl. (such a + adjective + singular countable noun)
They're such nice kids. (such + adjective + plural countable noun)
She always uses such fresh food. (such + adjective + uncountable noun)
And indeed, those are the rules as explained in the manual I use: such (a) + adj. + noun. But then, out of nowhere there's this exercise that requires the answer:
It was such fun for all of us to be together.
There is no adjective, and unfortunately no explanations either. So why is that structure acceptable? Or is it just a 'freak exception'?
Answer
This usage of such as an intensifier is both an adjective and adverb:
adj. 2b. Of so extreme a degree or quality: never dreamed of such wealth.
adv. 1. To so extreme a degree, so: such beautiful flowers; such a funny character.
As such, it can modify either a noun (“such fun”) or an adjective (“such nice kids”).
Possible Duplicates:
How should I phrase a question that must be answered with an ordinal number (e.g., the third prime)?
How to ask a question to get an ordinal number answer
In my native tongue, Malayalam, there is a question word - "ethraamathe" - which we use to get an ordinal number as answer. In other Indian languages, and also in many foreign languages like Dutch and German, such a question word does exist. But in English there is no one word for such a question.
I have once read in a Phantom strip cartoon book from US a sentence that uses what number. Using this expression it is easy to ask "What number president of America was Abraham Lincoln?" to which one would answer "16th". A professor from Oxford University has said in one of his letters to me that what number can be used in informal speech. In his opinion, "Where in the numerical order did Abraham Lincoln come as President of America?" can be used in writing.
I would like to know whether American and British people use ‘what number’ in their speech.
Some Indians also use how manieth as an ordinal number question.
If I attach "-based" to a compound noun, should I put a hyphen between every word? As in:
I worked for a University of Oxford-based company
Or:
I worked for a University-of-Oxford-based company
Granted, there are probably better ways of phrasing this. I'm just curious what the prescriptive usage on hyphens would be in this situation.
Or
Answer
Both are correct. They mean different things.
They stopped dating each other a long time ago (to be going out = to be dating each other).
They are, quite possibly, still 'dating' but they have not actually been out together (on a date) for a long time. (to go out = (er...) to go out!)
I have heard a lot of people say at work that we should do something "sooner than later." This grates against my native ear, but it seems fairly commonplace. I have always understood the expression to only make sense as "sooner rather than later."
I found this Word Reference Forum thread on the subject. One poster gave a very reasonable explanation why "sooner than later" is incorrect:
I think it should be "sooner rather than later".
There are two choices: one can do it sooner(A) or one can do it later(B). Each one refers to the doing of "it".
>For this choice:
I want this done A rather than B. (correct)
I want this done A than B. (incorrect)
The fact that the adjectives are comparatives and the construction uses "than" is what makes it tempting to remove the rather. Sooner than a specific time might work (adding in e.g. by 7pm), but sooner than (another comparative adjective) in my mind doesn't work.
However, consider:
I want this done quickly rather than slowly. (correct)
I want this done quickly than slowly. (incorrect)
I agree with him, but was also able to twist my brain around to give the phrase some kind of meaning and actually found myself suggesting ways it could be semi-correct. Here's what I wrote:
I came across this thread considering the same question myself. Below are two caveats to the excellent response by Julian Stewart, and the caveat to my caveats is that you will not find me saying "sooner than later."
It definitely makes sense to say:
"I'd like to walk faster rather than slower."
And it could make sense to say:
"I'd rather walk faster than (walk) slower."
"I'd rather walk fast than (walk) slow."
And therefore:
"I'd rather finish sooner than (finish) later."
Secondly, I can conceive in some convoluted way that "sooner than later" can be used to communicate exactly what it denotes: a point (or range of points) in time preceding the point (or range of points) described by 'later.' I know it's screwy, but it kind of makes sense.
I'd love to hear what you folks here have to say on the matter and see if anyone can make a compelling and definitive argument. I fear I might have put my brain in some alternate English reality in order to make the defense I did. Talk some sense into me please?
Answer
I just had what seems like an insight.
Many have brought up that some loose time reference is a necessary condition for the comparative words "sooner" and "later". I think that sooner rather than later becomes actually meaningful in the way if you consider that the implied time reference could actually be something such as:
...than expected
or
...than we might normally do
Thus: "We should get to this [sooner than we might normally do] rather than [later than we might normally do]."
The only possible way sooner than later makes any sense at all to me is in the very convoluted way I initially describe, which in this new paradigm would be a truncation of:
"We should get to this sooner than [later than we might normally do].
or simply, as some have suggested,
"We should get to this sooner than [later (some arbitrary point in the future)].
I don't quite buy the arguments that defend this, per John Lawler et al, because this seems like a completely pointless sentiment. Further, this interpretation does not use "sooner" and "later" in a comparative sense, though the full and apparently older phrase (with the use of "rather") does.
Of course, I concede all the previous statements about economy of words or an idiom being adopted in just the way that people like it best, which could be the more "catchy" phrasing. But if the question is about meaning, the answer is clear to me.
And I hope everyone else comes around sooner rather than later :)
Which of the following is correct?
Does the is/are depend on the total number of things in the list, or only on the thing immediately following the is/are?
There is 1 apple and 1 orange available.
There are 1 apple and 1 orange available.
Also, would it make a difference if one would put the is/are near the end, like so?
1 apple and 1 orange is available.
1 apple and 1 orange are available.
Answer
This one is right:
There is 1 apple and 1 orange available
This is wrong:
There are 1 apple and 1 orange available.
I would personally say
There is an apple and an orange available.
This is now wrong
1 apple and 1 orange is available
This is right (almost):
1 apple and 1 orange are available.
But again, I would say
An apple and an orange are available.
These are both correct:
There is an apple and 2 oranges available.
There are 2 apples and an orange available
So it depends on the number of objects the is/are is referring to first.
2 apples and an orange are available.
An apples and 2 oranges are available.
When it is at the end, it refers to the total number of objects.
Say you should be at work. Would the correct answer be "yes" or "no"? The common answer would be "yes", but isn't that really saying, "yes, I should not be at work"?
In academic writing, I frequently run across texts where the determiner is dropped when a person is described as having a medical condition or having suffered an injury. Moreover, a singular noun is sometimes used instead of a plural one. Here are some examples.
Is this standard usage in English? To me, a non-native speaker, it seems off and should be rewritten:
Answer
I suspect the lack of determiner reflects the fact that the injury or trauma in question is both countable and not countable. A man shot in the arm might have a broken arm, a bruised arm, a lacerated arm, and a punctured arm. You could say these are all injuries to the arm. But you could also describe the entire affair as injury or an injury to the arm. Omitting the determiner means not having to choose whether the injur[y is|ies are] countable, or put another way, avoids the need to quantify.
I'm discussing and comparing two books and I want to know if I'm using quotation marks correctly:
Both books are known for being existential and the reader is bombarded with questions throughout the books. ‘Whose fault is this? Who did this? Why did it happen this way? Did it even happen this way?’
I'm having a lot of doubts over the punctuation in this small piece of text:
Should there be a colon after throughout the books?
Should there be individual quotation marks for every question, or is this right?
If every question must have individual quotation marks, how would you correctly separate the questions? Using dots after the right quotation mark? Using commas?
EDIT: I must write the final version using a pen and paper.
Answer
I see no absolute need for a colon, and if the questions are separate questions, then putting each in its own quotation marks will make this clear. I suggest, therefore:
Both books are known for being existential, and the reader is bombarded
with questions throughout the books. ‘Whose fault is this?’ Who did
this?’ ‘Why did it happen this way?’ ‘Did it even happen this way?’
Here are some example sentences from different dictionaries.
With her qualifications and experience, she would seem to be ideally suited to/for the job. (Cambridge online dictionary)
This was a job to which he seemed well suited. / He is not really suited for a teaching career. (Oxford Learners' Dictionary online)
Satellites are uniquely suited to provide this information. (Collins online dictionary)
Why not to providing?
He is not suited to teaching. (Le Robert et Collins, dictionnaire français-anglais, paper version)
Why not to teach?
When followed by a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun, the adjective suited must be followed by the preposition to or for, that much is clear.
But when it is followed by a verb?
Is it to be suited to do something (full infinitive, preposition to or for dropped, Collins's example sentence) or to be suited to/for doing something (gerund, preposition maintained, Le Robert et Collins's example sentence)?
Does the type of subject – person (he) or thing (satellites) – have an influence on the structure one should use, or not?
It is not obvious that the adjective/verb-followed-by-noun and the adjective/verb-followed-by-verb structures should match, as is NOT the case in
to be scared of something / to remind someone of something
versus
to be scared to do something / to remind someone to do something
but not
to remind someone of doing something *!
However, note that
to be scared of doing something
is possible, but with a change of meaning from intentional to accidental – I suppose – as in to be afraid to do something (to choose not to do something which is in your willpower, to avoid doing it – intentional, voluntary) versus to be afraid of doing something (to try to avoid something unpleasant happening to you – if it did happen, that would be accidental, involuntary).
These things are much more complicated than either the dictionaries or the grammar books make them out to be!
Unfortunately, many monolingual dictionaries not aimed at foreign learners do not give example sentences of adjectives/verbs followed by verbs because they do not even realize that choosing the form the verb should be in IS a difficulty!
When I arrived for a scheduled meeting, I was asked if I was Mr. Smith. I replied, "That would be I." It sorta sounds OK, if not awkward, just more formal. Would "that is me" or "that is I" both be acceptable?
I recently came upon the following sentence:
Their job is to create advertisement.
As a native speaker of American English, this sentence sounded really odd to me, so I ran it through Google's Ngram, discovering that the phrase "create advertisement" was not found (for either American or British English) as you can see from the image below:
I've also done some searches of Google web pages and have come to the same conclusion. So, I have further concluded that "advertisement" must be pluralized when not preceded by a definite article or adjective. (If I am incorrect in this assumption, please let me know.)
I wanted to explain to those who had created the sentence above (non-native speakers, presumably), from a grammatical or usage standpoint, why it wasn't correct, but my initial searches have not yielded anything worthwhile on this topic. I always feel as if I am somehow falling short on explaining the nuances of the English language whenever I have to fall back on the line, "Well, it just doesn't sound natural to me."
I've visited web pages that list words that are only plural and others that discuss when and when not to use an article with a singular or plural noun and still others that delve into the topic of count vs. non-count nouns, but, thus far, I have not seen anything that discusses nouns that need to be plural when not preceded by a definite article or adjective. I'm assuming "advertisement" isn't the only such word and that, if there are others like it, some sort of rule about their usage has evolved.
Thank you for any insight you can provide, either through your own knowledge of the English language, good logic, and/or references to other material.
Answer
I actually think the answer is something you mentioned, count nouns vs. mass nouns.
Consider:
And:
"Sand" is a mass noun, meaning it doesn't generally take indefinite articles, and you don't generally pluralize it. I couldn't give the fundamental reason for this; any such explanation would probably just beg the question (e.g., in English we don't put the adjective before the noun for any logical reason; whatever reason we could give would be given in reverse order by an equally logical speaker of Spanish).
"Beach" on the other hand, is a count noun. In your example usage, it must take either an indefinite article, or be pluralized.
(Note that both words can be used with a definite article in your example, but the meaning is slightly different - it would refer to a previously defined quantity of sand, or a previously defined beach:
Also, you can often use a "unit word" (which is itself a count noun) to convert a mass noun into a related count noun. For "sand" this word is "grain":
For "cattle" it's "head"; for water it could be "drop"; etc.
Finally, I should mention that you can pluralize mass nouns, or use them with an indefinite article, but that generally signals an implicit shift of meaning. A plural for a mass noun X may mean something like, "different kinds of X". In the (somewhat cliched) phrase, "sands of time", for example, the idea is that time produces shifts in the world, much as the wind does to the sand(s) of different deserts you might visit.
So, the final answer to the question of why the example sentence isn't ok comes down to irreducible rules about articles and mass nouns in English.
I'm looking for words similar to female, that can act as nouns and adjectives, but a) can so so only without changing form, and b) are unable to act as other parts of speech.
Is there a class or category for this sort of words?
P.S. I've used the Moby Part-Of-Speech database to filter a corpus of total 233,357 words to a list of just 5,423 words that are both nouns and adjectives (presumably, in the same form)...so (@Ricky) it's not quite "a hell of a list," but still one to reckon with. ;) For future reference, here's my list: https://pastebin.com/fG5gUeHP
Answer
Nominalized adjectives can be used as nouns. Two types of nominalization are found in English. One type requires the addition of a derivational suffix to create a noun. In the second case, English uses the same word as a noun without any additional morphology. This second process is referred to as zero-derivation1. An example of zero-derivation is the noun green in golf (referring to a putting-green) which is derived ultimately from the adjective green.
For examples, see this.
Is it incorrect to say either of the following?
In regards to your previous email
In regards to your previous emails
I was asked this by a non-native speaker, and after thinking about it I decided that in regards to sounds more natural than in regard to. Google confirmed that I have the same intuition as most speakers by returning 73 and 110 million results for the singular and plural expressions respectively.
I came here and found the related question What alternative would you suggest to "in/with regard(s?) to"? Although my question was asked as a part of that, no one gave much of a defense of their opinion. The closest was this comment:
No, I think that's just wrong. You have to watch out, people love to make up "just so stories" about grammar. This arises in part from the very common misapprehension that all points of grammar make some kind of rational sense, when in fact a lot of the details are purely conventional. For instance, you can still say "In regard to the strawberries..." The plural there is just another (probably incoming) variant. If you don't want pedantic people to be irritated with you, then by all means don't use it. – Alan Hogue
Is this a case where the most common intuition is wrong? Can someone better explain the rationale behind the use of the plurals?
A comment mentioned Google Ngrams and I'ved posted the graphs below. In my opinion, Google search results or any other kind of Google result are only misleading if you're taking it to imply something more than what they're giving - raw data from some source.
Firstly, here are both in regard to and in regards to in the same search. The plural doesn't show up because it's so low.
Now here is just "in regards to" in its own graph so we can see it.
I suppose I should refrain from offering interpretation. I'd like for people to do that in their answers. Nonetheless, this does absolutely beg for certain conclusions to be drawn.
As a final note, Google Trends shows in regards to winning out of the two with about the same ratio as the search results.
First question: I have been reading English: An Essential Grammar by Gerald Nelson and it gives an example of the words 'hard' and 'fast' being used as both adjectives and adverbs:
Adverb:
John works hard.
Peter drives fast.
Adjective:
John is used to hard work.
Peter drives a fast car.
I was wondering, can all adjectives be used as adverbs in this manner?
E.g.
Adjective:
Small girl.
Are these adverbs???
She is small.
She was small.
She looked small.
Second question: Can present participle verbs be considered as adjectives?
E.g. Are these adjectives or are they still considered as verbs?
The singing lady.
The growing crowd.
The advancing army.
Third question: Can all past participle verbs be considered adjectives?
E.g.
The written book.
The cooked fish.
The bitten apple.
And lastly: Can all past participle verbs be considered as adverbs?
E.g.
The book was written in black ink.
The fish seemed to be cooked.
I could have:
Why is zero followed by a plural form?
I don't expect English to always make sense, but everything has a reason, even if the reason is stupid.
The definitions of "singular" and "plural" per Merriam-Webster:
Singular (adj): of, relating to, or being a word form denoting one person, thing, or instance
Plural (adj): of, relating to, or constituting a class of grammatical forms usually used to denote more than one or in some languages more than two
So by this logic, our choices are "one" or "more than one". Maybe it's a bug :-)
Answer
Substitute the word "any" in the place of zero and it makes sense. Instead of saying "I have zero books." you are saying "I do not have any books."
In this construction, the plural is not referring to the zero-quantity of books you have, but instead refers to a (vague and undefined) collection of books, none of which you have.
I am familiar with tense simplification in subordinate clauses:
He went out after he put on his coat.
instead of had put, because the conjunction after makes it clear that the action of putting on the coat happened earlier, so it is redundant to also indicate it by using the perfect instead of the simple aspect of the tense (past perfect rather than a past simple).
Does the same line of reasoning apply to
He was arrested because he murdered his neighbour.
instead of had murdered, as the conjunction because establishes a reason-result relationship between the main clause and the subordinate clause, and it should go without saying that reason precedes result, or doesn't it? Isn't it obvious that, at the time of the arrest, the murder had already happened?
1.The earth moves round the sun.
2.We live on earth.
3. The space shuttle returned to earth.
I know that the definite article the is used before the word earth when it is considered a planet.
3.I know that the definite article is not used in idioms such as come down to earth.
But in sentence 3 the space shuttle returned to earth , is earth considered a planet or human habitation? It seems that it is considered human habitation.
I have taken all the sentences from Longman's Active study dictionary. Page number 276.
Is it wrong to say The space shuttle returned to the earth?
Answer
Wikipedia actually addresses this issue:
Originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle
English, its definite sense as "the globe" was expressed as the earth.
By Early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the earth
became (and often remained) the Earth, particularly when referenced
along with other heavenly bodies. More recently, the name is sometimes
simply given as Earth, by analogy with the names of the other planets.
I'd say 'sometimes' should be replaced by 'often'. But the use of the article is optional, and almost certainly style-driven (anarthrous Earth being less familiar, homely ... more clinical).
I am trying to determine which sentence is correct.
A) Storyboards got their name from the bulletin boards containing cartoon drawings.
B) Storyboards got its name from bulletin boards containing cartoon drawings.
I had a debate with my friend about this topic because he had a photo captioned:
Seth and I playing lion king
and I said it should be
Seth and me playing lion king
Which is correct?
Is it grammatically correct to leave off "that is" or "which is" in a nonrestrictive relative clause? Is there a term for this? Is this actually a different phenomenon? It (sometimes?) seems to apply to the whole sentence, not any individual noun. For example:
Today I [verb], (which is) [comparative adjective] than [gerund].
I have [object], (which is) [comparative adjective] than [object].
I have [object], (which is) [comparative adjective] than [subject].
Should this question begin with Whoever or Whomever:
W--- we trust the most is really our master.
Clearly the clause "W-- we trust the most" is in the subjective (nominative) position in the sentence as a whole, followed by "is" and a predicate nominative. However, if "We" is the subject of that clause, it would seem that the objective (accusative) case (therefore "Whomever") would be correct. Our current sloppy and hideously erroneous usage tends to obliterate objective forms ("whom") in most cases, but what is the correct usage?
I am linking to this post for reference.
The acceptability of "they" as a singular pronoun is growing. Has it grown to the point where it is acceptable in formal publications, such as journal articles, business proposals, or political speeches?
It seems to be that it is not quite there; most people are still too concerned about being negatively judged for it. However, the options of "one", "he or she", and "s/he" are similarly avoided for their cumbersome and pedantic tones. I often see either "he" or "she" used exclusively as an alternative, however, as there is no official stance on one pronoun or the other referring to either or, this opens the door for issues of implicit gender discrimination.
I try my best to skirt the issue altogether when I write, often dramatically revising paragraph -- and even paper-- structure. This, of course, is ridiculous. What is the best option for communicating the very commonly needed genderless singular personal pronoun in formal situations?
Another thing that was raised in conversation with my ESL friend is noun clauses.
I was aware of Adverbial and Adjectival Clauses and thought that the things he was demonstrating to me were in fact noun phrases, not clauses.
After a long discussion and some google searches, I had to concede that he was right to call them Noun Clauses, according to the entire internet. However, I can't seem to find anywhere a satisfying explanation for the fact that noun clauses often leave a sentence without an independent clause. For example:
He only gave me what he already owed me.
Here, as I am led to believe, "what he already owed me" is a Noun Clause. In my understanding, this means that "He only gave me" would be the other clause that makes this a sentence. The problem in my eyes is that neither of these clauses could stand alone.
Somebody please explain how this sentence with two subordinate clauses can exist, or else tell me why I am wrong.
Answer
The sentence you gave does not consist of two subordinate clauses. It contains one independent clause, and one subordinate clause. The internal structure of the sentence goes like this:
[He only gave me [what he owed me.]]
The outer pair of brackets encloses the entire sentence, which is the independent clause. The inner pair of brackets indicates the inner clause. Clauses which are contained within other clauses are known as dependent clauses, and this particular one is a nominal relative clause. It is a relative clause because it begins with the relative pronoun what, and it is a nominal clause (or noun clause) because it functions as a noun within the sentence.
Your intuition is mostly correct, but you've misunderstood where to put the clause boundaries. You seem to have been misled by the false assumption that a clause must be a complete sentence, and the idea that a clause cannot contain another clause. In this case the dependent clause what he owed me is incomplete because relative clauses have to be embedded in a larger context to have meaning, which is why they're called "dependent". And the fragment He only gave me is not even a full clause, because it lacks the direct object that's required by the verb gave. It only becomes a clause when you include the noun clause that acts as its object.
EDIT:
There seems to be some confusion about whether a dependent clause goes inside or outside of the independent clause. Let's look at this deductively, beginning with a simple sentence.
(Abbreviations: [] = clause boundaries, {} = phrase boundaries, IO = indirect object, DO = direct object)
[He gave IO{me} DO{ten dollars}].
In this case, I hope that there is no doubt that the indirect object and the direct object go inside the clause that contains them. The independent clause is not just the subject and the verb, but the subject, the verb, and all of the objects of the verb.
The important thing to remember about noun clauses (and other kinds of subordinate clauses) is that the structure of the independent clause does not change when you insert a noun clause. So in the original example we have something like this:
[He gave IO{me} DO[what he owed me]].
The noun clause what he owed me is the direct object of the verb gave, and it replaces the noun phrase ten dollars. But this has no effect at all on the structure of the independent clause. You can do the same thing with the indirect object:
[He gave IO[whoever he had borrowed from] DO[what he owed them]].
You could go even further with this, adding more nested dependent clauses inside dependent clauses, doing this forever in theory. (In practice it becomes extremely hard to understand after you've nested your clauses more than two or three layers.) But no matter how deep your nesting goes or how complicated the dependent clause becomes, it's still a single component in the structure of the higher-level clause. Dependent clauses do not magically move outside the structure of their parent clauses, nor do they change the grammatical analysis of the clauses that contain them.
I assumed you would use dots to show left-out unnecessary text in a quote, such as in
The definition of used oil is "oil ... that is xyz".
The deleted portion is non-useful text that would confuse my readers, but I want to show them that the cited passage is a direct quote from regulations except for leaving out some words. Are dots the correct way to do this?
Which sentence is correct?
are we meeting before the class or
are we meeting before class
I often come across sentences such as, "Our program assists, at no cost, students maintain independent living..." I believe it should be written as, "Our program assists, at no cost, students to maintain independent living..." Input? This isn't a question about the word "help" - this is specifically about the word "assist."
In the chorus of the song "Gone Country" by Alan Jackson, there is this sentence:
She/He's gone country, look at them boots
How come them is used instead of their? I am not a native English speaker so I am interested in knowing about this peculiar (at least to me) word choice.
This existing thread would tend to indicate that them can be used for that, but look at that boots don't really make sense?
If I am writing the sentence: John is/was presented with an award yesterday.
Which tense should I use? is or was?
How about this? "Please ensure step 1 is completed before proceeding to step 2"
Why "is" is used in this case?
Answer
The only circumstances in which you would use is, would be if you were employing what is known as the historical present.
It is a literary device in which a series of happenings are stated in the present tense even though the reader is aware that it is taking place in the past - e.g.:
There am I, walking down the street, mindin' me own business, and this chap walks up to me and says, 'Are you my long-lost nephew?'
This previous question, on the site will tell you all about it.
What would you call a linguistic construct that is just big enough to convey a meaning within a context, longer than a word but not having the length and proper form of a complete sentence? Like, for example, "good job" or "nice shirt" — neither of those is a full sentence but both get the point across. A sentencette, or is there a formal term for it?
Answer
The basic grammatical units are morpheme, word, phrase, clause and sentence. In the definition given in the ‘Longman Student Grammar of Spoken English’, a phrase is ‘a structural unit built from words, consisting of a head plus (optionally) modifiers.’ In 'The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language', David Crystal puts it a little differently: 'A cluster of words smaller than a clause, forming a grammatical unit.' (He mentions that it is sometimes called a 'group'. This is the term used in functional grammar.) To take an example, the sentence ‘Egyptians have approved a controversial new constitution’ contains two phrases: ‘Egyptians’ and ‘a controversial new constitution’.
This is the generally understood use of phrase. It is not to be confused with its use in the approach to grammar known as ‘immediate constituent analysis’. There, phrase is used rather differently, in that a sentence is divided into a Noun Phrase and a Verb Phrase, and each of those is further divided into all the constituent parts of the sentence.
For example, user clicked the button. I don't know if the user is male or female, what gender should I use? Now I read a book, where the user is "she", but I've seen before books where the user was "they". So, what is right?
Answer
In addition to Ham and Bacon's answer (universal "he" and singular "their") you can also do the following:
(polite) imperative to avoid mentioning the actor: "Please, click the button to proceed."
passive tense to avoid mentioning the actor: "Button must be clicked to proceed."
use "one", though this is more appropriate for formal texts then for user instructions: "One must click the button to proceed."
Also, from the free dictionary, on usage of she there is an interesting observation that it can be and is used as a generic she:
Usage Note: Using she as a generic or gender-neutral singular pronoun is more common than might be expected, given the continuing debate regarding the parallel use of he. In a 1989 article from the Los Angeles Times, for instance, writer Dan Sullivan notes, "What's wrong with reinventing the wheel? Every artist has to do so in her search for the medium that will best express her angle of vision." Alice Walker writes in 1991, "A person's work is her only signature." It may be argued that this usage needlessly calls attention to the issue of gender, but the same argument can be leveled against generic he. This use of she still carries an air of unconventionality, which may be why only three percent of the Usage Panel recommends it in sentences like A taxpayer who fails to disclose the source of ? income can be prosecuted under the new law. · Some writers switch between she and he in alternating sentences, paragraphs, or chapters. This practice has been gaining acceptance, especially in books related to fields like education and child development, where the need for a generic pronoun is pervasive. It can also be seen in academic journals, where the sentence The researcher should note that at this point in the experiment she may need to recheck all data for errors might be followed later in the same section by The researcher should record his notes carefully at this stage. This style may seem cumbersome, but if generic pronouns are required, alternating between she and he can offer a balanced solution in an appropriate context.
There are many style guides lying around on the net and wiki has relatively nice overview.
Why is it that certain pages in English-language books are numbered using Roman numerals, but other pages are numbered using (so-called) Arabic ones?
Has it always been this way? Or was the split once different? Or wasn’t there a split at all?
Surely page numbers were not always used; I’m pretty sure the Romans never used Arabic numerals in any event.
When did we start doing it this way, and why?
Answer
Briefly put, Roman numerals are an alternate form of enumeration. It makes it easy to see the difference between the foreword and the actual content of the book. This is also the reason it's used in nested lists.
The history is that page numbering and Arabic numerals started to become popular in English at about the same time. It wasn't until centuries later that prefaces began to be numbered like this.
I found a source that explains the history really well:
Numbering pages started out not as a tool for readers but a guide for those who physically produced books. In Latin manuscripts copied in the British Isles as far back as the eighth or ninth century, numbering was sometimes used to ensure that individual sheets of parchment were collated in the correct order. Use of numbering was sparse. It’s been estimated that around 1450—just before the birth of printing in the West—less than 10 percent of manuscript books contained pagination.
Fifty years later, the proportion of now-printed works with pagination was much higher. Part of the change reflected the new role of page numbers. Rather than strictly being tools for compiling leaves in the proper order, by the 1510s scholars were starting to refer to page numbers of printed volumes in their own writing.
When Did Books Get Page Numbers—and Are They Even Useful Anymore?
Please note that this only applies to the "body" of the work. Also, a number of the earlier works had folio numbers, not page numbers. The preface material would usually not be numbered at all (it would sometimes be numbered with the body, other times it would have numbered sections). This book (1575), for example, has no numbering in the preface (except for what was penciled in later), although the rest of the volume is foliated.
It should also be noted that well into the 17th century some books still didn't have any page numbers.
Roman numerals were the original number system used in Europe. Fibonacci is credited with popularizing Arabic numerals in Europe in 1202 with his book Liber Abaci. The book Numerical Notation: A Comparative History gives some more information about this.
English didn't see any Arabic numerals for quite some time, however. And it also took some time for the numerals to become popular and eventually replace Roman numerals in almost all contexts. Apparently, an important factor was the printing press, which created a new literate group unattached to the traditional Roman numerals.
The first time an Arabic numeral was used in an English book was William Caxton's book Reynard in 1481. It was a signature mark, "a2", which can be seen here at the bottom of the page. It was only the signature mark(s); the rest of the book used Roman numerals. Caxton published 6 books like this, until he went back to Roman numerals for the signature marks in 1484.
More and more books would have a mix of Roman and Arabic numerals starting in 1505 (where the date used Arabic numerals). The paper Numbering by the books: the transition from Roman to Arabic numerals in the early English printing tradition looked at all the books in the Early English Books Online database between the start of English printing and 1534 that contained both Arabic and Roman numerals (which was 55 books). Of those 55, there were 26 with Roman numeral foliation and 17 with Arabic numeral foliation. In 1523, the first book to only use Arabic numerals was published.
My own research found that only the earliest books (before 1600) used Roman numerals as page numbers (for the body). Prologues were either part of the body in terms of pagination or were not paginated at all.
The earliest instance I can find of book in English with separate pagination for the prologue and the rest of the book is Moderation truly stated (1704). The preface, entitled "A Prefatory Discourse" is over 50 pages, so it's convenient to have it be numbered.
It is known that generally the definite article is not used with names of people. However, when the names are preceded by names of occupations then, as some sources say there must be used "the". For example: "The psychologist Mike Smith is going to deliver a speech." But some English speakers say that the article should be omitted. For instance: "Author Conor MacGregor is coming on" not "the author Conor MacGregor is coming on." So, could anyone tell me what variant is grammatical to use with "the" or without?
Answer
Your sources are correct; it should be: "The psychologist Mike Smith is going to deliver a speech."
Although using the definite article in this case sometimes sounds odd to American ears, when it is not a real title you should include it. This has to do with the concept of "false title". You can use the "Good morning" test, to determine the correct usage:
The first one is okay, because "Doctor" is a real title; thus "Doctor Smith" does not require the definite article (indeed, must not have it). The second one, although acceptable to some, especially in AE, is not correct, because "pscyhologist" is a false title.
Linguists call this an anarthrous occupational nominal premodifier. The best analysis of this is by Greg Pullum at Language Log (2004-11-07).
I am writing an essay for my English class. At one point I make a statement about the book and end the sentence. Afterwards I've inserted a direct quote from the book on its own. Here's an example:
Jake is in love with Kate. "Jake looked at Kate and his heart began to
race..." (Johnson 102)
That is exactly how I have it written. Is this correct, or should the quote be within a sentence? Also, is it all right to use the ellipsis there because I left out the end of the quote? Should there be a period after the citation? Ugh!!
(I posted this on English learner's group, but no one gave an answer. I hope this is a more appropriate group to post this question.)
Is the following sentence grammatically right to write in literature?
How could I not but close my eyes?
As "I could not but close my eyes" is a valid sentence, I felt like this one should also be valid. But I am confused whether 'could not but' can be used like that in interrogative sentences.
