I know that 'which' and 'that' open non-restrictive and restrictive clauses, respectively.
However, intuitively, it seems to me that they don't have the same functions in the phrases 'for which reason' and 'for that reason'.
Does 'for which reason' mean 'for one reason of an undefined number of reasons'.
and 'for that reason' mean 'for only this reason'.
What is the difference of 'for which' and 'for that' as used in the above examples?
Thank you
This was a question from a test given to our students. The question was "What do you think the best form of transportation is for your city" Most of the students answer in this manner:
"I think the best form of transportation in my city is/are buses."
Which one is correct, "is buses" or "are buses"? Should there also be a definite article "the" before "buses"?
Answer
The verb should be is. There is no doubt about that, since the subject of the sentence The best form of transportation is singular.
However I do not consider the sentence idiomatic (perhaps because a singular subject and a plural object sounds awkward).
I would say:
The best form of transport in the city is (by) bus. The by is optional.
There are multiple examples on the site of choice of verb where the subject number differs from the object number - for example here
Given the following sentences, what is the difference between the conditional clauses in them?
- If you saw a lion in a thick forest, what would you do?
- If you were to see a lion in a thick forest, what would you do?
I'm asking this simple thing because it's confusing me, since there is no such thing in my native language (it's quite different from English).
I can understand this one (it may be a different question):
If you had seen a lion in a thick forest, what would have you done?
but it's a bit confusing me. In my native language, it's always formulated as follows:
If you would have seen a lion in a thick forest, what would have you done?
Does this make any difference in English?
Answer
There is no difference in meaning between your first two examples. However, the construction with were to see is more formal and slightly antiquated.
However, there is a difference between your second two examples, namely that this one is not grammatically correct:
*If you would have seen a lion in a thick forest, what would have you done?
In English we don't use the modal verb would in the if-clause of a condition of this sort. This condition must be phrased as in your other example:
If you had seen a lion in a thick forest, what would have you done?
In the following sentence, how do you understand the en dash?
Our findings are very interesting from an international viewpoint – business tourism.
Is the use of the en dash appropriate here?
Spoiler
By using an en dash, the author of this sentence said he wanted to give just a hint or a summary of what the findings were without having to write too much.
I came across the word sha'n't when reading Winnie the Pooh the other day and it cast me into a Thoughtful Mood concerning the Appropriate Spelling of this word.
This word is a contraction of "shall not", with the ll and the o removed. Where, then, do the apostrophes belong?
Here are the three options that I see:
shan't: this is consistent with other -n't words and seems to be what is typically used. But what about the ll?
sha'n't: clearly, the Best Literature uses this form. This would seem a logical form to have it in, for are there not two places where letters have been omitted?
sha'nt: based upon the prevailing wisdom of my primary school†, the first position in which letters are omitted is where the apostrophe, of which there should be only one, should go. However, it doesn't feel right in this case. Also concerning the matter of having only one apostrophe, perhaps that was intended as one per word. Or perhaps it's just nonsense, additionally considering such words as fo'c'sle.
One article I found on this matter was the Wiktionary article on sha'n't:
This came briefly into use at the end of the eighteenth century. It is not an older form of the contraction, though, as shan't predates it in print by about a century. (Source: World Wide Words [1])
It then proceeds to call sha'n't a "nonstandard spelling of shan't". The Wiktionary article I consider myself quite at liberty to discard, for A. A. Milne was using sha'n't in the 1920s, a decade which I would not generally consider to be at the end of the eighteenth century. In fact, it seems to me they're blatantly misquoting the article cited, which speaks of it occurring in the nineteenth century plus a few years either side of it.
So then: which are appropriate? What are the general rules concerning where the apostrophes should go in contractions? Why isn't English consistent? Why isn't Winnie the Pooh mandatory reading for all English speakers? (Discard the last two questions if you wish.)
† I am not generally inclined to give all that they say credence, naturally, for they are the same schools that teach the Victorian cursive letter forms and that two spaces should exist between sentences; that aught else is a travesty on the English language and that you probably won't get your pen license if you don't do it these ways—not that I ever did get mine.
Answer
An apostrophe generally indicates an omission, but in this case I would favour shan't over sha'n't for readability and consistency.
Sha'nt looks wrong, and I've never heard that their should only be a single apostrophe at the first omission.
Looking for a "general rule", an article called That Cute Li'l Ol' Apostrophe that claims:
We never use more than one apostrophe to a word.
While the general rule is to use the apostrophe in place of the last missing letter, such as in "shall not -> shan't", if we need to choose between missing letters that we'd normally pronounce and those that are silent, use the apostrophe to denote the missing sounds.
Another claims the following:
Well. at first glance, it appears to me that our way of ‘making’ contractions is to 1) lop off the last half of the first word and 2) smash it together with the “not”, contracting the “o” with an apostrophe. See for yourself…
shan’t= shall (minus the “-ll”) + not (minus the “o”) = sha n’t
Which is then moved together (sha->n’t) to spell: shan’t. Personally, I believe that this contraction (judging by the way we use the word, and say it) is an ‘evolved creature’ from the two contractions “shouldn’t” and “can’t”; as opposed to its parentage being shall and not. It just makes more sense. [Shouldn’t + can’t= shan’t]
The OED lists both shan't and sha'n't as colloquial contractions of shall not, but not sha'nt. Shan't appears in 139 quotations, sha'n't appears in 25, and sha'nt is in only five.
Project Gutenberg's out-of-copyright books are usually older and don't necessarily reflect contemporary use, but searching their August 2003 CD of 600 ebooks: there are 589 results in 103 books for for shan't, 122 results in 29 books for sha'n't, and only three results in two books for sha'nt.
Another common contraction, won't, comes from woll not (an archaic version of will not). It also has two chunks of letters omitted. Should this be wo'n't or wo'nt? Motivated Grammar writes:
Did the contractions won’t and shan’t spring into English fully formed, like Athena from Zeus’s noggin? No, interestingly. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (printed in 1855), has wo’n't, as do some (modern) editions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and The Ohio Educational Monthly in an article from 1868. Likewise, sha’n't was commonplace in the old days, plastered across the pages of the dreadful Victorian novels that I had to read in AP English as a lesson as to what happens to those who show an interest in reading. Books like Evelina; or, The history of a young lady’s entrance into the world (why did every single book in those days have to have a subtitle?)
Now the interesting thing is that won’t and shan’t live side-by-side with wo’n't and sha’n't in these old books. Some quick results on Google Books between 1600 and 1800: 777 won’ts, 57 wo’n'ts; 216 shan’ts, 73 sha’n'ts. Between 1600 and 1700: 48 won’ts, no wo’n'ts; 1 each of shan’t and sha’n't. So it seems it was never the case that the multiple-apostrophe form was more common. For some reason or another, English writers have always preferred a single apostrophe over strict application of “put apostrophes wherever a letter’s missing”. (Michael Quinion guesses that the double-apostrophe form was a later edition, suggested by logic-minded grammarians, that died out because it was a pain to write and looked weird.)
Quinion pointed out shan't is actually older than sha'n't and summarised:
The abbreviation, as you say, strictly demands the extra apostrophe, and it was probably the influence of logically minded eighteenth-century grammarians who persuaded many people to put the extra one in to start with — but whenever did logic ultimately matter in language?
So: the rules aren't really clear, but shan't is the most common, sha'n't is somewhat old fashioned, and sha'nt is extremely rare.
Why isn't English consistent?
Because it's evolved from a big mish-mash of several other languages over some 1,500 years.
Why isn't Winnie the Pooh mandatory reading for all English speakers?
Because nothing is mandatory reading for all English speakers. If Winnie the Pooh is mandatory reading, what else should be mandatory? Where do you stop? The only mandatory reading for English speakers should be the English language.
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".
I often read "thank you to people who..." And "thank you to everyone..." On facebook.
I think it should be "thanks to people..." And thanks to everyone".
What do you think?
I have gone through several threads here but haven't found an answer to my question.
In my paper, there are two theorists and each has a theory. Theorist A has theory 1 and theorist B has theory 2.
Can I use both example 1 and example 2 and express this fact?
1) A's and B's theory are worthwhile considering.
2) A's and B's theories are worthwhile considering.
I reckon that 1) is a form of ellipsis standing for A's (theory) and B's theory... Does 2) imply that both A and B have EACH devised more than one theory or that I include A's theory and B's theory to form the plural "theories"?
And on a similar note, Bohr has written one book on a subject and Gitman has written one book:
3) The Bohr and the Gitman volume are worthwhile considering.
4) The Bohr and the Gitman volumes are worthwhile considering.
Which one is correct?
Many time my mind stops working when it comes to the usage and comprehension of English synonyms. Indeed, the vastness in English language make me puzzled for the proper use of the word in sentence. The reason is that one word has lot of synonyms and used based on condition.
In this time I can't distinguish the usage of following words :
Magnificent, Splendid, fabulous, sumptuous, marvelous
I am able to grab the meaning of these words through dictionary. Almost all dictionaries define these words as extremely, impressive, excellent.
I'm really puzzled to what extent we can use these words.
For instance, I supposed that
magnificent is appropriate to scenarios, splendid (formal word of fabulous) is used in appearance, character
Am I right ? I found many times these words are used interchangeably.
For ex : which is correct in following sentence
magnificent/awesome/splendid/fabulous book, job, dinner, day ?
please help regarding exact usage of these words adding more examples
Answer
You get a feeling for these adjectives, all of the type first-class, only if you look at the etymology.
Magnificent contains Latin magnus big, and ficere to make.
splendid from Latin splendidus adj bright, shiny
fabulous Latin, as in fables
sumptuous from Latin sumere/sumptus, to take. Something made by taking a lot of expensive material.
Marvelous, French/Latin. French la merveille wonder, Latin mirabilis wonderful.
For details see Etymonline or a Latin dictionary.
Trump is the 45th US president. How do you ask a question to get this number?
Referring to something that means a step-by-step tutorial, which is the correct word / term ?
walk-through
walkthrough
walk through
I'm under the impression that the dash version "walk-through" is correct as that seems to be the most commonly used. Most spell checks flag "walkthrough" as not a word, so I'm pretty sure that's out. Most grammar checks to not seem to flag the spaced version "walk through", however, so I'm not 100% sure.
Thoughts on this?
-- EDIT --
Not sure why somebody linked to a post about "well-being" vs "wellbeing" clearly not the same word(s) I'm asking about.
According to my grammar book, but at variance to the answer to this question, the correct singular possessive if a word ends in ‑s is:
James’s car
The grammar book allows exceptions for historical nouns, so the examples in the answer to the above-linked question would pass muster.
However, I’m sure that I learnt at school (which, admittedly, was a while ago) that for a singular (proper) noun ending in ‑s, the apostrophe went after the s and there was no additional s.
I don’t wish to start a flame war on which is correct, though my question doesn't really make sense if my grammar book is wrong! What I’m curious about is when the change occurred. :
So my question is when did James’s become the correct form and James’ the incorrect one?
Answer
Since, 1810, forms like James’s (which I will call type A) have generally been more commonly used than forms like James’ (type B), according to my research using the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA).
I compared a number of names ending in -s looking for possessive forms with and without a final s. Here is a graph comparing incidences of type A and type B forms:
.
The y-axis shows the difference in incidence between types A and B. If it is above 0, that means that type A was more common in that period; if below 0, that means type B was more common. The raw data used to generate the chart is in this Google Spreadsheet.
Here’s the same data, shown cumulatively:
For the 14 names tested, type A has been more common throughout the period beginning in 1810, except for the decades starting in 1850, 1940, and 1950.
Overall, it is quite clear that type A forms (e.g. James’s) predominate, and have done so for nearly two hundred years. Nevertheless, type B forms are also quite common, and during the 1930s to the 1960s, a number of names had more incidences using type B. But since 1970, most names have had a majority of usage in type A. As for the original question’s example of James, throughout almost the entire period, excluding 1820, incidences of James’s has strongly outnumbered incidences of James’.
I was looking at a proof of loss form, and below my signature there is a section for another affiant's signature which reads:
Declared severally before me at ______________________
From examples all over the web, affiants write only the name of the location (ex: “Boston” or “Boston, MA”).
Can someone please explain why how this is grammatically correct?
To me, it makes more sense for it to read “declared severally before me at the city of Boston”, or “declared severally before me in Boston”?
Answer
It's acceptable legalese. Legal writing uses many conventions not commonly used in day-to-day writing. This same usage of at is applied in legal descriptions of real estate as well, often describing a property as being at a city or at a county rather than in it. Legal jargon has evolved expressly for legal purposes, so ex curia, it is often not standard fare. However, to be fair, such linguistic oddities are not exclusive to the field of law and its jargon. It is quite usual for an industry or a field to have special words and grammar that is understood by its members and a few others in the know but not by lay persons. Such is the nature of jargon: to create or bend language in order to widely meet specialized needs.
When it says:
You can apply for a visa up to 3 months before your date of travel to
the UK.
Source: gov.uk
Does it mean the latest I can apply for a visa is 3 months before the travel date, or the earliest I can apply for a visa is 3 months before the travel date?
Answer
There are a number of ways in which the statement may be analysed.
You can apply for a visa up to 3 months before your date of travel to the UK.
The ambiguity is in the interpretation of up to: it could mean until or it could mean a maximum of.
You can apply for a visa until 3 months before your date of travel to the UK.
You can apply for a visa a maximum of 3 months before your date of travel to the UK.
In this case, up to should almost certainly have the second meaning. There's no point in applying for a visa years before you intend to travel, because your circumstances could change in the meantime. So the authority seeks to limit the possibility of changes by forcing you to apply fairly close to the date of travel.
Is the art term "Pre-Raphaelite" capitalized or is it spelled "pre-Raphaelite"? What is the general policy for the orthography of "pre-"?
For example,
The Pre‑Raphaelites emphasized attention to nature and drew
inspiration from Medieval literature.
I'm new in this website so if my question is inappropriate, obviously tell me.. Sorry in advance :D
I'm writing a sentece and in this sentence there are two words that are near. These two words are: self-esteem and group-esteem.
Is it correct in English to put this words like this: self and group-esteem ?
(the complete sentence is: The process of comparison is automatic when there is a categorial distinction whose aim is the increase of self and group-esteem)
Thank you! :)
Consider this sentence:
You're missing posts only available to members.
I think it should actually be
You're missing the posts available only to members
or at least
You're missing the posts only available to members
The second sounds the best to me, but friends say the first one sounds best.
This is going to go on a website for the people to see. I do not know how to justify it, but I think there should be a the before posts. Does taking it out make it okay? If so, can someone please explain?
Answer
Although the modifier "only available to members" makes "posts" more specific and thus would seem to require the definite Article, it still hasn't made the Noun completely specific.
You can say "posts" is halfway from being general to being specific.
This is often confusing. Consider this other "middle" example. This is correct:
Ex. I like people who have initiative. (not all people, but still
general)
In your example, not adding an article is suitable because the Noun "posts" is specific but still general.
The alternative you're thinking of should be something like:
Ex. I want to read THE posts that WERE only available to members.
In general, when can I omit that from a sentence?
Can I omit that (emphasized) in sentence (2) below?
- We say that such algorithms handle concept drift and can learn from time-changing data streams.
- When the statistical properties of the target variable change, we say that concept drift has occurred.
- She told me that some of her classmates failed.
To me, sentences (1) and (3) sound better without that. If I omit that from (2), it just doesn't sound right when I read it out loud. (I should point out I'm not a native speaker.)
How do you decide when to omit it? Is it just a matter of taste? (I know that is sometimes mandatory.)
Can you think of sentences that "sound better" with that? Can you think of sentences that "sound better" without that? Can you think of a few sentences where it is wrong to omit that?
Answer
All three of your examples use a "that" which is a marker of clausal subordination: in your case, that "that" marks the beginning of a declarative content clause.
Sometimes that "that" marker is obligatory, sometimes optional, sometimes not allowed. There are some related rules on this, but there is no one simple general rule. It's something that native English speakers just pick up while speaking and listening and reading.
Note: Your "that" is NOT a relative word or relative pronoun. (There is another "that" which is the marker of clausal subordination for that-relative clauses. Some grammars consider that the two markers to be, or could be considered to be, the same. In any case, the "that" marker for relative clauses has a different set of rules in regard to its presence or absence than the one marking declarative content clauses.)
One rather firm rule--well, somewhat a firm "rule"--is that if the declarative content clause is the subject of the main clause, then the "that" marker is obligatory. That is so the reader will get a heads-up to realize that the content clause's subject is NOT the subject of the main clause, even though it is located at the beginning of the sentence.
There are a whole bunch of more similar rules, but they are all rather specific as to the syntactic situation that they are talking about. If the rules were simplified or made too general, then there would be too many so-called exceptions. Native English speakers know these rules implicitly (their ear does all the work), but they would usually be hard pressed to explain them--and if they attempted to explain them, their explanations would often be wrong and/or misleading.
So, I’ve stumbled upon this really long sentence, and now I’m wondering if it is grammatically correct.
So they figured since I’m a real person and I’m in the movie and I’m actually me and they wanted to use me as me in the actual movie and I didn’t even know yet that I was me in the movie although I did know I was me but I didn’t know I was in the movie, they had better let me know that I was in the movie as me and let me see if after I knew I was me playing me in the movie that I would be okay with being me in the movie as myself now that I knew there was actually a movie with me in it.¹
(I’ve counted 19 simple sentences.)
I mean that "I would do something, if it only were me. But it was not me, so I've done nothing".
Answer
No. It sounds old-fashioned, but searching through Google books for such phrases used in the 1800s, I did not find a single instance of anybody using "be it me" or "be it I" in this way. What you're looking for is "were it me" or "were it I"; this usage requires the past subjunctive and not the present subjunctive. Here are some examples:
Why, were it me, I'd take it just to spite him.
Were it me, I'd show him the difference.
Were it me, I do believe I'd be half inclined to stay, and be discovered.
"Were it I," said the second man, with a shrug of his shoulders, "I'd get it to the Admiral,"
I can make nothing of it, Roland, but were it I, I should ask my mother exactly what it means.
Were it I that sold that poor perished victim his drams, I should seem to hear his voice mingling its wailings with the storms of every bleak wintry night.
Some grammarian prescriptivists would say that it should be "were it I", but both forms seem to have been used. This is still an old-fashioned way of saying this, and I recommend saying "if it were I" or (maybe less grammatical, but more common) "if it was me" unless you want to sound like you're speaking archaic English.
I have noticed that people use 'debatable' a lot, while 'arguable' is used quite less.
What's the difference and when should one use one or the other?
Answer
According to Merriam-Webster, both these words can be used to refer to something the truth of which is in doubt:
2a : open to dispute : questionable
1 : open to argument, dispute, or question
However, a second meaning for arguable is
that can be plausibly or convincingly argued
That is, arguable can be used to describe a proposition which someone wishes to present as true. Debatable, on the other hand (especially in light of the apparent synonymy of questionable), is often used to describe a proposition which someone wishes to present as false or at least unlikely; see for example Merriam-Webster's sample phrase
the debatable wisdom of going back for another helping from the buffet
which, it seems, would indicate that going back is presented as unwise.
For example what variant is correct?
He is the man who did that first.
He himself appeared in a film about his life.
He himself appears in a film about his life.
He was the strongest man ever when he was alive.
He is still the strongest man ever even though he is dead.
He said this in his letters.
He says this in his letters.
In this photo he looked healthy.
Answer
In most of your sentences, past and present tense are both fine. E.g.:
He said this in his letters.
This is fine, because he wrote the letter in the past.
He says this in his letters.
Even though he died 100 years ago, he still speaks through his letters, so this is also fine.
Be careful with this one:
He himself appeared in a film about his life.
This is okay, but only because the verb appear can mean to take part in a film/movie, play, television programme, etc.
The only one I consider wrong is:
* In this photo he looked healthy.
If you want to use the past tense, you should use appear.
When you say he looks healthy the focus is on you, and your experience. Your experience is happening now, so use the present tense.
When you say he appears / appeared healthy the focus is on him. He appeared healthy at the time the photo was taken and, because the photo has not changed, he still appears healthy now.
In this photo he looks healthy.
OK
In this photo he appears healthy.
OK
In this photo he looked healthy.
WRONG
In this photo he appeared healthy.
OK
EDIT
Barrie England points out that, in certain contexts, “In this photo he looked healthy.” is fine. The sense is something like, “As you can see in this photo, he looked healthy in 2000.”
A friend of mine asked me for advice about an e-mail he was writing. There was a sentence like this:
I and my partners we are interested in investing in your product.
I figured it was wrong, so I suggested:
I and my partners are interested in investing in your product.
This looks grammatical to me but sounds strange. Also, I have seen a lot of people writing this:
Me and my partners we are interested in investing in your product.
which I believe is not grammatical.
So, which one of the options above is correct? Also, what would be a better choice of words?
Answer
"I and someone are interested" is grammatically correct. It is the convention in English that when you list several people including yourself, you put yourself last, so you really should say "Someone and I are interested." "Someone and I" is the subject of the sentence, so you should use the subjective case "I" rather than the objective "me". "Someone and I" clearly means two people, so you should use "are" and not "is". If it was "Someone or I ..." then you would use "is", because only one person is interested, either "someone" or "I".
It is not uncommon to hear people say "Me and someone are ...", but this is wrong because it's the wrong case. When an educated person hears "Me and Billy is going to the ball game", he immediately thinks this is either a child or a very uneducated person speaking.
"I and someone we ..." is incorrect because it is redundant. "We" is simply another way of saying "I and someone". It adds no new information to the sentence, and so there is no reason to include it. You can't just string together alternative ways of expressing the same idea: If you really need it for clarity or emphasis, you have to surround it with some additional words, like a "that is", or sometimes just punctuation that show its purpose in the sentence. You could say, "We, that is, Bob and I, are interested ..."
All that said, "I and someone" or "Someone and I" sounds strange to me, and I suspect most English speakers, because it is an unusual use of the word "someone". When "someone" is used in a list with identifiers of other people, we usually say "someone else". Like, "Bob and someone else are interested ..." rather than "Bob and someone are interested ..." (I have no idea why this is so; it's just the convention.) "Someone" without "else" is normally only used when it's the only person: "Someone is interesteed ..."
Which of the following sentences is correct?
- A variety of dishes are being prepared.
- A variety of dishes is being prepared.
I believe that both can be used, though I'd stick with the plural use of the verb. What do you think?
Answer
Both sentences are grammatical. The first makes us aware of the individual items in the variety. The second foregrounds the variety itself.
I am trying to explain to non-native speakers how to use "almost." I can't formulate (a) rule(s) to follow with regard to nouns/pronouns. So far, my only ideas are that almost can be collocated only with words (or in situations) that describe measurement or comparison. However, even this seems to fail.
For example:
almost they = incorrect (no concept of measurement or comparison)
almost everyone = correct (measurement of individuals)
A platypus is almost a duck. = correct (comparison)
They are almost the same. = correct (comparison)
It is almost midnight. = correct (measurement of time vs. temporal adverbial)
We are almost there. = correct (but spatial adverbial)
However:
He wrote almost a book. = incorrect, although in this case "book" would be a comparison or perhaps a measurement of the written material
I am pretty much at a loss. Thanks.
Consider the following quote,
“Life is once. Forever.” —Henri Cartier-Bresson, AZ Quotes
I have checked that "once" is an adverb. How can it become a predicate?
Answer
Adverbs could be part of a predicate, to be more exact, a subjective complement, but it doesn't happen very often and they are used either idiomatically or in a sentence where a participle or part of the sentence is elided.
In your quote, "Life is once" could be considered as short for
Life is given to people once. Life is lived once by
people.
and it doesn't necessarily mean once is a subjective complement alone once elided words are placed. The past participle given or lived is elided in your example.
He will be (coming) back in 5 minutes: coming is elided.
He is out (of the house/building/restaurant...): a place is elided.
The secret is out: the secret has been discovered/revealed/known.
There are more examples where an adverb could be used as a subjective complement. They should be learned on a case-by-case basis.
I was told that if an action is completed once in the past, the simple past is used.
Ex: I saw that movie.
If the action is completed more than once, the present perfect tense must be used.
Ex: I have seen that movie twelve times.
So, "I have seen that movie twelve times on Tuesday." is correct and "I saw that movie twelve times on Tuesday." is incorrect?
As far as I understand, the construction must + present perfect is used to make presumptions about past events with the connection to the present:
Look, somebody must've been here - the stove is still warm.
But what about narration which is put in past simple? Can I use the same construction like this:
When I woke up and cast a glance on the ceiling, it must have been the
early morning.
Is it correct?
Which one of the following is correct?
Management gets its ideas from its employees.
Management gets their ideas from their employees.
Back-end and front-end are common technical terms nowadays. Traditionally, they are written with a hyphen "back-end". Is there a rule in the English language that dictates this to be a correct way to write term, that signifies general single something? Or did it just "stick" that way?
Clarification 1:
The proposed answer that discusses when to hyphenate assumes back-end as a compound word. I don't think it is and this am asking this question. Compound words like on-the-fly are comprised of possible standalone words that are all required to describe the phenomenon or thing in question.
Backend is a synonym to server-side, which really is a compound word. Backend is a singularization of server-side, not a compound itself.
I understand that I may have a logical "gap" somewhere in this line, the reason why I asked is to help me clarify this.
The sentence
The user “john_smith” has been registered; go to the “User Profile” tab to view the user’s details.
reads more naturally to me than
The “john_smith” user has been registered; go to the tab “User Profile” to view the user’s details.
but I’m not sure why. In particular, it seems wrong for john_smith to go before the word user, whereas User Profile can go either before or after the word tab (although it seems to flow a little better when it’s before).
What rules of grammar apply here?
UPDATE 5/19/2018: I’ve changed “John Smith” to “john_smith” to help clarify that it is supposed to be a unique “username” assigned to a new user.
I know in English you can use the definite article with geographical expressiones such as the sea, the country, the land, the city, the beach, the seaside, but what about other geographical terms? Can I use them as generic terms to mean "the idea of ..."? I don't mean any particular place.
The jellyfish lives in the water.
(= I don't mean any particular water. I mean the idea or concept of water: an area of
water, especially a lake, river, sea or ocean)
The grasshopper lives in the meadow.
( = I don't mean any meadow. I mean the idea or concept of meadow: a field
covered in grass, used especially for hay)
The lion is the king of the jungle.
Is there a cat that lives in the desert?
There is only one type of cat that lives in the desert. The sand
cat (Felis margarita) is the only member of the cat family tied
directly to sand regions. Found in North Africa, the Arabian peninsula
and the deserts of Turkmenistan in Uzbekistan, the sand cat has
adapted to extremely arid desert areas.
Plants live in many different environments. Some live in the
ocean, some live in the desert. Plants are very important to
everyone on the planet.
Hope shows up in several places in this very dark world—such as in the
incorruptible goodness of Katniss' sister, Primrose. It shows in
Katniss' rare sacrifice for her sister, when she volunteers to take
Prim's place in the Games. It lives in the meadow and the woods, where
the natural world exists mostly unmolested by the powerful central
government.
In Africa, the rhino lives in the Savannah among zebras, lions,
giraffes, elephants, hippos, and other animals
This is what books say, but obviously they can't cover all cases:
Are “by whom?” and “who by?” perfect equivalents?
I have the feeling that the use of “who by?” is just a way of avoiding use “whom” but I have no evidence or proof. The anglophone people I talk to hardly use “whom”.
Are both expressions equally used, or is the difference between them only regional?
Answer
They're not perfect equivalents, but they're pretty close. The biggest difference, of course, is that whom is a pretty formal word, so "By whom?" is a very awkward reply to, say, "He got f'd." Either "By who?" or "Who by?" would be much more natural.
Another difference is that if someone uses a by-phrase that you didn't quite catch, or that you're surprised about, you can reply "By whom?" or "By who?", but not "Who by?", to request a repetition. ("By who?" is the most common wording in this case: "This book is by Mr. Aasefalsdfjaose." "By who?")
May I say "please join me with my family for a reception immediately following the final selection" or is there a better way to phrase the statement?
In most English verbs, there is a consistent pattern in the conjugation of present and past tense. For past tense, the same inflection is used for each grammatical person, but in present tense, third person singular stands apart from the rest.
For example, with run:
Past tense: I ran / you ran / we ran / they ran / she ran
Present tense: I run / you run / we run / they run / she runs
There is an exception, which is To be. The pattern of unique conjugation for the third person singular present tense can be seen in this chart, along with the irregularity of to be.
Setting aside to be (at least for now), is there a logical or etymological reason for the unique conjugation of the third person singular present tense?
Answer
As this is a very broad question whose full answer merits several written
books, I first present a brief orientation and outline of how we got here today, with pointers to more detailed material.
Closely related to this question are questions like these, some of which you may have actually been asking about indirectly:
In those questions as well as in the one which I believe was asked, synchronic analysis fails to provide a satisfying answer, or really any at all in most cases. Instead one must examine the language diachronically to draw out a sensible answer, and a full treatment of that answer must reach back over six millennia.
Languages with mainly unbound morphemes — atomic units of meaning at the
lexemic level only — are classified as analytic languages, while those
whose individual words each comprise multiple bound morphemes are
classified as synthetic languages.
An individual word in a synthetic language combines several bound morphemes
where each little internal piece adds something to the word’s overall
meaning. Morphological inflection can occur via affixes (give > giving, ox > oxen, walk > walked), via
sound changes of vowels or consonants (give > gave, shoot > shot, man > men, mouse > mice, this > these), or via both (brother > brethren, swell > swollen, give > gavest).
Today’s English is for the most part an analytic language. For meaning, we
rely far more strongly on fixed word-order and on little “function” words (including
auxiliary verbs, articles and other determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions) than we do on
synthesis via inflectional morphology the way synthetic languages do.
At the same time, English still has a few inflections left in it thanks to its
ultimate derivation from a long genetic line of highly synthetic languages stretching back over 6,000 years. We can trace English’s ancestors all the way to the prehistoric (read: unwritten)
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language of our distant ancestors. That language
was strongly synthetic in all its open word classes, including in its verb
forms.
One distinctive PIE verb inflection that occurred in certain verbs’ third-person present
singular conjugations was *‑t or *‑ti. This became in prehistoric
Proto-Germanic
*‑di or *‑þi, in Old
English
‑(e)þ, in Middle
English ‑(e)þ, and in
Early Modern
English
the ‑(e)th of he liveth, which passed quickly enough into the distinctive
inflection you’ve asked about, the ‑(e)s form of he lives or he itches in today’s
English.
PIE third-person singular inflections also produced forms like German
er bleibt, Latin manet or cōnstat, Old French il remaint, and
although you can no longer normally hear it pronounced in speech, also in the
imperfect il restait of today’s French (but no longer in its present
tense sauf in certain relics such as subjunctive qu’il soit for “that he/it should be”).
Old English was a much more synthetic language than Middle English was, which saw dramatic reductions in inflections as the language transitioned to
an analytic one. There are several proposed explanations for why this happened, but that’s a whole nother topic with its own lines of investigation. Suffice it to say that Middle English was a furious time of mergers and acquisitions that saw as sweeping changes to the grammar as to the lexicon.
Similarly to how Middle English remade synthetic Old English analytically by reducing inflections across the board,
Early Modern English verbs did enjoy more conjugations than today’s English does, but
these again underwent rapid evolution. From the Wikipedia article on that topic
we read:
Verbs
Marking tense and number
During the Early Modern period, English verb inflections became simplified
as they evolved towards their modern forms:
The third person singular present lost its alternate inflections:
‑(e)th became obsolete while ‑s survived. (The alternate forms’
coexistence can be seen in Shakespeare’s phrase, “With her, that hateth
thee and hates us all”).
The plural present form became uninflected. Present plurals had been
marked with ‑en, ‑th, or ‑s (‑th and ‑s survived the longest,
especially with the plural use of is, hath, and doth). Marked present
plurals were rare throughout the Early Modern period, though, and ‑en was
probably only used as a stylistic affectation to indicate rural or
old-fashioned speech.
The second person singular was marked in both the present and past tenses
with ‑st or ‑est (for example, in the past tense, walkedst or
gav’st). Since the indicative past was not (and is not) otherwise marked
for person or number, the loss of thou made the past subjunctive
indistinguishable from the indicative past for all verbs except to be.
I reckon that that’s as detailed an answer to a rather broad
question as one dare get here.
I in passing note that English does
retain a single, unique inflectional distinction in the past indicative’s singular was versus its plural were (which is also the past subjunctive irrespective of number). Verbs other than be are no longer so marked.
Lastly, in John Lawler’s comment:
And
{‑Z₁}, the English third person singular present tense suffix —
one of the 8 inflections left in English,
and one of three that all use /z/, /s/, and /əz/ — is the only mark of
present tense around (everything else can be taken for an infinitive, and
often is in nascent Englishes). So that suffix, and the subsequent worry
about “is XYZ singular or plural?” becomes a status symbol, like whom,
and is often mistaken and frequently omitted. That’s the way the cookie
crumbles, etymologically speaking.
When John writes {‑Z₁} using an archiphonemic {Z}, what he means is that
that morphological inflection ends up being pronounced in three slightly different ways depending on its surrounding phonologic environment:
Moreover, we use that same {Z} archiphoneme for three of English’s eight
remaining inflections:
Second we use it for the plural
inflections of singular nouns.
And third we use it for possessives formed
via enclitic.
All three of these follow the same pronunciation rules to
translate archiphonemic {Z} into actual phonetics. (Please don’t worry about
the spelling; spelling is merely an immaterial side-effect of writing technology, and so
shouldn’t be paid any attention to here since we’re talking about language not technology.)
In the following sentence, is the usage of also considered grammatically correct, or is there something wrong with it?
Write something also on an alternative approach to this problem;
explain the pros and cons of that alternative.
The sentence doesn't feel right, but I thought I would seek the input of the well-informed before jumping to conclusions.
I would like to make it known that I am not the one responsible for this sentence, nor will the person responsible ever know of this inquiry — it is purely for the sake of self-satisfaction.
Answer
It’s not flat-out “wrong”, but this doesn’t sound anything as good:
As any of these:
Also write something on an alternative approach to this problem.
Write something on an alternative approach to this problem as well.
Write something on an alternative approach to this problem, too.
The first is probably the best of those.
Is it proper grammar to write:
Please join my wife and I for coffee...
Or is it
me and my wife
Or
my wife and me
In a paper I read, on the fifth page (labelled "359"), it says resultative secondary predicates can only be stative adjectival passives. For example, "John hammered the metal flat" is valid but "John hammered the metal flattened" is not. However, there are other secondary predicates that don't follow this rule. "I prefer my food salted" uses "salted," a resultative, as a secondary predicate. Also, "This software comes pre-installed by the manufacturer" is a valid sentence, but I don't think "pre-installed" is an adjectival passive, so I am not quite sure about the rules on secondary predicates and passives.
In Early Modern English you normally would add ‑st or ‑est to verbs to conjugate them to the second person singular indicative tense (past and present), but what do you do for verbs that already end in ‑st or ‑est? Would you just add another ‑est?
For example:
you jest > thou jestest
you jested > thou jestedst
you rest > thou restest
you rested > thou restedst
Doing this makes the words really hard to say, especially with the past tense, so is there an exception for words like these?
Answer
Try "thou dost jest", "thou didst jest" etc. These are equally correct but not so hard on the unaccustomed tongue.
If you have a more illustrative title, feel free to change it. I searched but I couldn't find one.
This may be an easy and trivial question; if so, I am sorry.
What are the differences between these two sentences?
These two guys seem to be inseparable.
These two guys seem inseparable.
I can intuitively say that the latter one is grammatically wrong. Could you please explain?
EDIT: What I think is John Lawler's and FumbleFingers' answers are worth to read. The reason why I noted that someone who wants to learn the answer of this question, accidentally misses FumbleFingers' answer.
Answer
Your intuition is incorrect. They are both grammatical. And they are identical in meaning. The only difference between these two sentences is how many syllables they have.
The cluster to be, consisting of the infinitive complementizer to, plus the predicate adjective auxiliary infinitive be, is frequently deleted after the predicate seem (or appear) before a predicate adjective, like inseparable (meaning 'very close friends'). There is no specific rule saying when to perform this deletion; it's a matter of individual choice, like many other rules in English.
The reason why to be can be deleted here is that it has no meaning, and serves merely to mark the complement clause as an infinitive (required after seem) and the predicate of the complement clause as a predicate adjective (required before inseparable). So it's dispensable.
There are lots of syntactic rules (which means "processes", btw, and not rules for "Correctness" -- think of them as grammatical apps in your brain) in English that have the effect of shortening, moving, or deleting such frequently-occurring but semantically null chunks, and otherwise make speech faster. And supposedly easier.
Easier for the speaker, anyway. They don't always make things easier for the understander, or the learner, though. Frequently you have to put all that stuff back into the sentence to make it clear.
This rule (or app) is To-be-Deletion; a similar one for a different situation is Whiz Deletion.
We will make the convention that exact categories be skeletally small.
Is this construction (used in a mathematical context) correct? There is something that strikes me as odd in that "be". Should it be "are"? I know I've seen a similar way of using "be" like that, without conjugating the verb, but I'm not completely sure when it should be used.
Answer
I am not a linguist, so please understand that this is only the best I can do, and may be more long-winded than necessary.
Grammatical mood is the quality of a verb that conveys the writer's attitude toward a subject. Verb moods indicate a state of being or reality. Commonly known moods are indicative (states reality), interrogative (states questioning), imperative (states command), conditional (indicating a conditional state that will cause something else to happen), the now uncommon subjunctive mood (indicating a hypothetical state, a state contrary to reality, such as a wish, a desire, command, recommendation, or an imaginary situation, etc.) The conditional mood has largely replaced the subjunctive in English.
The subjunctive clause can be a mandative subjunctive which is a clause following a mandative word (expressing a demand, requirement, request, recommendation or suggestion) and usually, but not always, begins with 'that' and contains a bare infinitive.
Sometimes the bare infinitive can be hard to spot unless it stands out. With inflected verbs such as to be, it is easy, as the inflected forms are 'am, are, is', whereas the bare form is 'be'.
- I suggest that you be careful.
With other verbs, sometimes the bare infinitive is apparent only in the third person singular.
- It is important that he stay by your side.
The important word is the mandative word.
- We demand that he refund our money immediately.
- He insists that the Carrot Bisque be the first course for the celebration.
NB: that is not a necessary element in the mandative subjunctive, but the bare infinitive is:
It is important he stay by your side.
It is imperative he tell the truth.
I suggest he depart immediately.
Your example:
- We will make the convention (that) exact categories be skeletally small.
is a correct use of the subjunctive, which is very common in mathematics today. It can also be seen in poetry, and earlier writings before the conditional came to be used commonly, e.g. the Bible.
Edited to add: I had a lot of help in making this answer correct. I am very appreciative of this and just want to acknowledge that.
So, I've checked Is "must" ever grammatical as a past tense verb?
and Past tense of "must" when meaning logical probability and I'm also almost confident that I cannot say "must had to." How can I say that?
For example, in these situations (I'm copying the examples from the wordreference forums, where they are still not answered):
But translating a story, which is already in the past tense, I came across the following problem: What if a text is already in the past, and you basically have to go one tense further back grammatically to express a surmise/conjecture about events even further back in the past than the past of the story. In other words, is there a past perfect form of "must have"?
Here's the context to make it more clear:
[…] He was walking down the street, mulling things in his head. Maria? Was it really possible that they would meet again here, in London? It must had been 10 years since they had last talked to each other […]
The trouble I'm having is that this doesn't sound quite right to me, but neither does it sound good (to me) if I substitute "must have" for "must had." In the context, it doesn't seem "past-tensey" enough, if you catch my drift. So, would the above sentence be grammatical or not?
A similar example is the following one:
[…] The truth was, Frank was not that much taller than Maria; she must somehow had made herself appear shorter […]
Should it be "must somehow have made herself appear shorter"? Again, would that be "past-tensey" enough?
Answer
Must has no past tense. Instead we use the past tense of have to. That means your first example should read It had to have been 10 years since … and the second She had somehow to have made herself appear shorter … I don't pretend that either is ideal.
What is the correct way of these two sentences?
Strictly linguistically, sentence 2 should be the correct one, since the crown belongs to the queen and not to England but it sounds really awkward to pronounce.
Answer
It is a common misconception, partly because of bad use of terminology, that the English 's construction is closely equivalent to a genitive in languages like Latin, German etc with overt case marking.
But in reality, 's works quite differently: it can be appended to the whole noun phrase, including adjuncts such as prepositional phrases and relative clauses. This means that the following are in principle perfectly common and grammatical:
(a) [The girl next door]'s dog just died.
(b) [That man I saw yesterday]'s car is parked in my space.
(c) [The queen of England]'s crown is worth its weight in gold.
Of course, if you find that having a lengthy or syntactically complex noun phrase is clumsy to read, you can always rephrase. In reality, a case such as (b), though fairly common in spontaneous usage, would probably be avoided by careful writers. But a phrase such as "The queen of England" is short and simple enough that there's no need to contort the sentence in my opinion.
To avoid confusion, I personally avoid applying the term "genitive" to this construction in English. That way you avoid false expectations if you're used to the more prototypical "genitive" of other languages.
Is there a word in English for the inability to utter a specific sound like the rolled R for instance? In my language, there is a name for people who can only pronounce the uvular/guttural R instead of the rolled R. I'm curious to know if there is a word in English for this condition.
Answer
There is the term Rhotacism
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rhotacism
which relates to the difficulty in producing what many would consider to be a 'typical' /r/.
I just recently came across "assist someone do" searching Google for examples to my previous question, and would like to check with you whether it is an acceptable option to "assist someone to do (or "in/with" doing)", or a snapshot of language in transition -- analogous with "help someone do" -- that I caught here.
Please consider the following examples for this:
NAFDAC is to assist you do your business right.source
Our company will assist you do your assignments...source
(Go down to bottom of page and look up "Transtec Inc.,
Robert Rasmussen PE") We are a specialty engineering company with award-winning expertise in pavements and pavement materials. We can assist you do your job better.source
Answer
The correct form, as you point out, is 'to assist someone to do (or "in/with" doing)"'.
Quote 1 is from an ESL source, and could be interpreted as 'here to insist you do' or 'here to help you [to] do'.
Quote 2 is ungrammatical. It should be 'assist you in/with doing'.
I couldn't locate quote 3, but comment is as per quote 2.
(Amended and updated based on comment below)
I got confused about the usage of "yes" and "no".
I knew in English,"yes" or "no" should response to the meaning of sentence.
take a example. assuming a stuff is available.
is it available? -yes.
isn't it available? -yes.
but I not sure to say "yes" or "no" when someone ask a complicated question with double-negatives.
is it unavailable?
isn't it unavailable?
Answer
Is it unavailable?
(a) If it is unavailable then you answer:
"Yes." or "Yes, it is unavailable."
(b) If, on the other hand, it is not unavailable then it is available. You have a choice and can answer:
"No." or "No it isn't unavailable.
or you can say:
"No, it is available." or "No. In fact it is available."
Discussion
So far I have only dealt with the first part, i.e. the question "Is it unavailable?" In theory I should now go on to explain the second part, i.e. "Isn't it unavailable?"
However
In real-life, no-one would ever ask that.
If you try to memorise all these different responses you will become hopelessly confused. The key is not memorisation, it is understanding the purpose of the question.
A question is a request for information. The best way to deal with it is simply to give the information! You know whether X is available or not. Therefore you can simply say which is true. No matter how complicated the question, reply by talking about availabilty.
Example
Me: Good morning, I want some X. Is true or not true that X is available or isn't available, or is it?
You: We have plenty of X available. How much would you like?
or
You: I'm sorry, we don't have any X available today. Would you like me to order some for you?
Conclusion
In real life we don't try to imitate the form of a complicated question with double-negatives -- we simply answer.
I saw this on a billboard recently
We have new and pre-owned cars and trucks
Clearly the intention is to modify "cars and trucks" with the two adjectives "used and preowned" and although the construction does make sense intuitively (and colloquially), I was wondering if there are any specific rules about this kind of "dual-and" construction or any other situation where you have multiple adjectives modifying a string of objects simultaneously.
Answer
[Edited]
The problem with this kind of double reference is that it might sometimes give rise to ambiguity. That is why the words "respective" and "respectively" are used when it is necessary to let readers know that the first verb refers only to the first noun, and the second only to the second.
While this example is not really ambiguous, several interpretations are theoretically possible:
We have used cars, and we have
pre-owned trucks.
In this case, you would use "respectively".
We have used and pre-owned cars, and
we have used and pre-owned trucks.
In this case you would not use "respectively". However, since some writers do not use that word where it is needed, the reader is not always sure how to interpret such a sentence if there is no "respectively". It could also be confused with the following interpretation:
We have used and pre-owned cars, and we
have trucks.
My advice is to use this type of sentence only when there is no chance of confusion at all, when there is no chance that the reader would want to read back or speculate as to how it could be intended. Even if some thinking will clear up ambiguity, and even though it is then not explicitly "wrong", why make the reader exert himself if you could also write it such that it is clear immediately?
My textbook sets this question:
In each of the following sentences, a word has been used in sentences in different ways. Choose the option corresponding to the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.
The average of 3, 4, 5, 7. and 10 is 6 whereas the mean is 5.
The books says that it is wrong and median should be used instead:
In this sentence, mean has to be replaced with median for the sentence to make sense.
My question is: isn't mean correct? For years I've studying the word mean in mathematics, and now the book says: use median.
I don't think the sentence is wrong due to the mean being written as "6", because even if I write the wrong mean, the usage of the word is correct, I'm just writing the wrong answer.
If you look at this link, it says, mean should be used for symmetrical data sets, and median for skewed data, In the above sentence, the data being skewed my guess is that is probably the reason median is being used and not that mean is written as 6 whereas actually median is 6.
Mean or Median
Answer
It is wrong to say "the mean of this set of numbers is 5". Not grammatically wrong, but mathematically wrong. The sentence could be made correct by changing it to, "the mean is 5.8", or you could change it to, "the median is 5". If the writer's intent was to tell you the median, then the error is saying "mean" when he means "median". If the writer's intent was to tell you the mean, then the error is saying "5" when the correct value is "5.8". As the sentence also mentions an "average", which is normally understood to be the same as "mean", it seems likely the intent was for the last number to be the median.
You seem to be getting stuck on the idea that the sentence could be corrected other than by changing "mean" to "median". Well, sure. Any time someone says, "How would you correct this sentence?", there are likely thousands of possible changes. Suppose someone said, "Thomas Jefferson was the first president of the United States". I could correct that by replacing "Thomas Jefferson" with "George Washington". I could replace "first" with "second". I could insert "Democratic-Republican" between "first" and "president". I could replace "Thomas Jefferson" with "Yuri Gagarin" and "president of the United States" with "human to travel in space". Etc etc.
I came across this sentence:
"His memory was like that of a baby."
I was wondering why the possessive "baby's" wasn't used and why "baby" is acceptable whereas the possessive form is required in this sentence:
"Ian's car was like that of his."
My question is a little broader than the title and applies to a term which is described by more than one "word". Is the term (in this case "ice cream") one word, or two?
Based on my research, the three dictionaries that I consulted, Merriam-Webster (MW), MacMillian (MM), and the Oxford Dictionary (OX) all seem to provide some leeway in expressing exactly what a word is and if it must be delimited by spaces and/or punctuation. See definitions below:
MW(b)(2): "any segment of written or printed discourse
ordinarily appearing between spaces or between a space and a punctuation mark"
OX 1a: "single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing,
used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and
typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed"
MM 1: "[countable] a single unit of written or spoken language"
MW and OX use words like typically and ordinarily indicating that there is the possibility for multi-word words, but don't exactly provide sample sentences with any. Even MM doesn't quite spell out what comprises a single unit. However, I would argue that "ice cream" independently, that is, taken as two separate words, is two units of language, rather than one.
Even in looking up compound word examples, these are delimited by a space on either side, that is, condensed into one clear-cut word by means of placement (such as backstab) or they use a hyphen (such as white-collar).
With this predicament in mind and as a yes or no question (providing justification), is "ice cream" as is, no hyphen and not stuck together as "icecream" or "ice-cream", one word, or two?
Lets assume I have an object X of which I want to say (1) it's more important than Y and (2) it's smaller than Y (Y is left implicit in the examples.) If I say X is more important before saying X is smaller, would more extend it's meaning into small? In other words, which of the following two sentences is grammatically correct and also unambiguous, i.e, implies unequivocally that X has more of both attributes?
(1) X is more important and small.
(2) X is more important and smaller.
Of course, the inverse it's easier: X is easier and more important.
Now, if both adjectives are more than two syllables long, is it necessary to use more twice?
(3) X is more important and expensive.
(4) X is more important and more expensive.
This same problem appears when making lists:
(5) X is more important, expensive and small.
(6) X is more important, more expensive and smaller.
Of the examples above,
Back in high school, my English teacher told me that we should always use "I don't think" than "I think...not..."
For example, the sentence "I think he doesn't like it" is wrong - we should use "I don't think he likes it".
But over the years, I have found many native speakers also use "I think...not...", so I am wondering if it is grammatically correct to say a sentence like "I think he doesn't like it".
Many thanks
Lee
Answer
Changing the order of the words often changes the meaning or nuance.
"I don't think he likes it" is the normal formulation. It focuses on the thoughts and opinions of the speaker. Its purpose is to make a commentary.
"I think he doesn't like it" can be used as a way of contradicting expectations, e.g.
"Don't poke the cat with that stick."
"We're just playing."
"Well, I think he doesn't like it."
This focuses on and directs the attention towards the feelings of the cat -- its purpose is to change someone else's perceptions.
Note that the basic meaning here is, "He doesn't like it. " The addition of "I think" does not indicate doubt on the part of the speaker. It is used to make the statement seem less harsh.
Answer
Yes, it is grammatically correct to say a sentence like "I think he doesn't like it". Just be aware that such a rephrasing usually changes the meaning or requires a particular context.
I have a document about a problem description where that description is given step by step, like this:
- RED entry
- BLUE entry
- ...
Now, I want to explicitly refer to two entries in that document, but I'm not sure about the most grammatically correct way to express myself:
- In problem's description at RED and BLUE' entries the word X must be replaced by Y.
- In problem's description at RED and BLUE's entries the word X must be replaced by Y.
- In problem's description at entries RED and BLUE the word X must be replaced by Y
Which one of that is the most correct ?
Answer
None of your sentences are particularly easy to understand for a native English speaker. I think what you mean is something like this:
In the problem description for the RED and BLUE entries, the word X must be replaced by Y.
You have two cases where you are using a possessive with -'s where you should just be using an attributive, namely:
Note that in both cases you really need the definite article.
The reason for this is that the English possessive is typically only used in places where the possessor actually owns the possessed thing. In situations where the possessor is inanimate or is only associated with the possessed thing, the attributive is more often used (though in some situations the possessive may still occur).
I am writing a subordinate clause in the "Related Work" section of my academic paper. Which is correct?
In [1], Smith et al. pointed out that the solution is feasible.
OR
In [1], Smith et al. pointed out that the solution was feasible.
I am quite confused.
On the one hand, I remember clearly the verb tense in the "that" clause should follow that of the verb in the main sentence. Hence, "was" should be used, following "pointed".
On the other hand, Smith's work is always there and always thinks that the solution is feasible. Hence, the present tense should be used.
Which reasoning is correct?
(NOTE: The OP is asking if it is obligatory that the "is" verb is backshifted into "was", or if backshifting is not allowed, or if backshifting is optional. -- F.E.)
Answer
I believe you can use either was or is but I would not use is in the sentence you wrote. This is a stylistic preference.
You state "Smith's work is always there and always thinks that the solution is feasible." Then why would you not think Smith et al. are not always present in [1]?
In [1], Smith et al. point out that the solution is feasible.
If it was some time ago, it might be better to stick with the past, and if you feel it is necessary to point out the continuing validity of the solution, you can do that.
In [1], Smith et al. pointed out that the solution was feasible, an option still in use today.
It partly depends on the (style and substance of the) rest of your paper, your preference, and the style preferences of the journal/audience to whom you will be presenting your work. I would either go with point/is or pointed/was. Pointed/is sounds a bit strange to my ear.
Does using vastly to mean to a [very] great degree; extremely in contexts not involving measurement or comparison, now sound common and idiomatic to British ears, or is it still likely to be considered objectionable, or at least controversial, by a majority of educated native speakers of British English?
vastly
The use of vastly to mean "to a great degree" in contexts not involving measurement or comparison has been criticized as an affectation, especially in British English. Such use is common and idiomatic in American English (emphasis is mine):
The soil is a vastly complex ecosystem --Barry Commoner, Columbia Forum, Spring 1968
I am aware that I have vastly oversimplified some of the most complicated questions --Richard Neuhaus, Harper's, October 1971
In contexts of measure or comparison, where it means by much, by a great deal, as is vastly improved, a vastly larger audience, vastly is still in regular use (emphasis is mine.) Where the notion of measure is wanting, and it means no more than 'exceedingly, extremely, very' as in I should vastly like to know, it was fashionable in the 18c. (e.g. The City ... was vastly full of People--Defoe, 1722. This is all vastly true--E. Burney, 1782. A'nt you come vastly late?--Sheridan, 1799), but became less common as time went on, and is still now in restricted use.
Here are a few sourced examples of such uses of vastly, which, according to M-W and Fowler, might sound (or should I say, should sound) objectionable to many native speakers of British English:
I desired by means of this voice to give the impression that the story being told was enormously old and vastly true. Penguin Random House
They will vastly appreciate it and will cooperate with you more fully. As a teacher, you must be able to think fast and adjust lesson plans as the occasion demands.
Dude, the internet is vastly full of people who know more than you and have called your bluff. (Source: ft86club.com)
I had plenty of time and did not need to stick to a schedule - if the train was vastly late (i.e. more than three hours late) it did not bother or worry me, or interfere with my plans. (Source: NYC reviewer on TripAdvisor)
The account of coercion here is vastly oversimplified.
This is a vastly complex issue.
Answer
I didn’t know that it was considered ‘objectionable, or at least controversial’! To me it sounds entirely idiomatic, conveying a sense of something being not merely immense, but exaggeratedly, astonishingly and perhaps inappropriately immense: ‘to an exceedingly great extent or degree’, as thefreedictionary has it. At first glance ‘exceedingly great’ seems tautological, but at times that is the point: bigness is one thing; mind-blowing bigness is notable for that additional reason.
Perhaps my favourite instance is from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: ‘Space [says the Guide] is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.’ That is from a magnificently literate 1978 UK comedy series, broadcast on the tremendously proper channel BBC Radio 4. From then until now I have never heard anyone criticise Douglas Adams’s use of ‘vastly’ here.
I would be willing to wager that the most common current usage of ‘vastly’ is in the expression ‘vastly overrated’: this is smoothly used as the single example in this definition of overrated at the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.
The expression ‘vastly complex’ is also very common, e.g. used perfectly naturally in a discussion of human groups systematically observing the world in order to establish policies in interacting with it (Kenneth E Wilkening, Acid Rain Science and Politics in Japan, p11).
I have also come across ‘vastly complex’ pretty regularly in hardcore Systems Analysis, where complexity is par for the course (the whole point of Systems Analysis), so vast complexity also has a place.
Two systems-related examples:
1 Blogger dr24hours describes him/herself as a systems engineer and health care researcher, and says the following (with my emphasis) in a 19/07/12 blog post entitled ‘Applications of Systems Theory’:
The systems which produce and publish scientific knowledge are
vastly complex and interrelated, and form a complex system.
2 At the University of Queensland, Brendan Markey-Towler (Ph.D student) and John Foster (Professor of Economics) published their 2013 paper entitled ‘Understanding the causes of income inequality in complex economic systems’. They say (my emphasis):
It is argued that such a complex systems approach (despite being
vastly simplified here) provides a superior basis for understanding
income inequality compared to standard economic analysis. (p1)
However, in the context of the vastly complex and adaptive system that
is the economy [...] (p2)
Kahneman (2003) noted that the perception of stimuli largely depends
on the ‘availability’ of certain bits of information within a vastly
complex situation. (p11)
I should note that I am a native speaker of British English, with loooong experience of other Englishes both literary and academic across a number of disciplines. From that standpoint I would always have said that ‘vastly’ is the kind of term that is easily prone to hyperbolic overuse (a bit like ‘literally’), at which point it would indeed seem blunderingly affected, but that using it judiciously can make a certain kind of point perfectly well.