grammatical number - Apostrophe in “beginners guide”

In the phrase beginners guide to …, where should the apostrophe go?

1. Beginner’s Guide to […]


2. Beginners’ Guide to […]

In my particular case, this is the title for a presentation so there are multiple beginners that are being addressed.

Answer

If your intention is to address each member of the audience directly, I suggest you prefix the phrase with an appropriate article, as in:

A Beginner's Guide to Shoe Hurling

or

The Beginner's Guide to Shoe Hurling

The use of the apostrophe before s seems more apt in this context.

Although:

Beginners' Guide to Shoe Hurling

is also grammatically correct, but would make your presentation sound impersonal.

grammar - Identifying parts of a sentence

How do the bolded sections of the sentences below function grammatically? (taken from David McCullough's John Adams)

1. Philadelphia, the provincial capital of Pennsylvania on the western bank of the Delaware River, was a true eighteenth-century metropolis, the largest, wealthiest city in British America, and the most beautiful.

   
   
   

   
   

   It seems to me that "most beautiful" could be tacked onto the the string of adjectives ( the "largest, wealthiest") that precede it. Is there a name for this sort of construction, wherein the last item in a string of modifiers is pulled out and moved to the end?

   
   




2. Distilleries and breweries were thriving. Adams found the local beer so much to his liking that he temporarily abandoned his usual hard cider.

   
   
   

   
   
   

   I'm not sure what's modifying what here. I see the main clause, "Adams found the local beer," and the subordinate clause, "that he temporarily abandoned his usual hard cider," but what's going on the middle?

   
   

Sentence with two clauses linked by "that"

How can I improve the sentence I have below in terms of grammar and clarity?

To my mind, the sentence has 2 problems:

1. It is quite long and possibly lacks clarity (I would like to test that).




2. It contains two clauses linked by 'that', which I think may be poor grammatical form (maybe I'm wrong about this?)

In September 1882, the collective's system leaders submitted their
application to the government, who subsequently invited them to submit
a revised application that should provide more clarity on how the
system will address the challenges that it faces.

Answer

Your sentence actually has more than two clauses. Simplification is the starting point for complex sentences, so let us start by dividing off the first clause and go from there.

In September 1882, the collective's system leaders submitted their application to the government. It subsequently invited them to submit a revised application to provide more clarity on how the system will address potential challenges.

Without context, clarity is an issue. Who is the collective? Application for what? What system? Thus it is hard to judge how good my changes actually are.

grammar - "Exchange emails with whomever you want to put me in contact [with]"

I realize the "never end a sentence with a preposition" rule is controversial these days, but let's assume for the sake of argument that it should be followed. What is the proper construction of a sentence that has a prepositional phrase inside a prepositional phrase, such as in the title of this post?

Is there a way to make this strictly correct, but not so cumbersome?

I can make time for a phone call, or just exchange emails with whomever you want with whom to put me in contact.

Is this simply a case where there is no way to avoid ending the sentence with a preposition (short of clobbering it with the ugly stick)?

Answer

I can make time for a phone call, or
just exchange emails with whomever
you want me to contact.

But seriously, yer killin' me with the preposition thing.

grammar - How to simplify "noun phrase" + "noun phrase" structure

Example 1: User 1 and user 2 have the same request.

In this example, I would like to remove the second "user" to shorten the sentence. I wonder if I need to change the first "User" to be "Users". If not, then I do not know how the following writing style is correct.

In our technical writing, we often use "Figs. 1, 2, and 3" to mean "Figures 1, 2, and 3". Since I cannot find a related grammar for such a usage, can anyone give me some hint or tell me which one is correct. (It will be better if there is an explanation)

Another example is to simplify "from user 1 to user 2." I do not know which one of the following two writing is correct: "from users 1 to 2" and "from user 1 to 2."

Thanks!

meaning - "He acted strange(ly?)"

It would make sense if both of these sentences were grammatically correct; but is anything different between them meaning-wise?

He acted very strange when I told him about the missing amulet.

He acted strangely about the whole deal.

What difference is there between using an adverb here and using an adjective?

Answer

Acted is a verb which can take an adjective in what looks like a modifying position. Some verbs are like that; they are called copular (or copulative or copula) verbs. Let's consider the verb look, where using an adjective and an adverb produce different meanings.

For some meanings, you have to use nice:

John looked very nice in his new clothes.
*John looked very nicely in his new clothes.

For others, you have to use nicely.

John looked at me very nicely.
*John looked at me very nice.

In the first example, very nice is in some sense modifying John, while in the second, very nicely is modifying looked.

For the verb act, you can use either an adjective or an adverb:

John acted very strange.
John acted very strangely.

and the meaning isn't any different between these two sentences (or at least not much). I would say that in the first sentence, John is acting as if he was very strange, and in the second sentence, John's actions are very strange. In this case, the meanings end up being the same. But consider:

John acted very quiet.
John acted very quietly.

Now, these mean different things. In the first, John is simply being quiet. In the second, John is doing something and trying hard not to call attention to it.

perfect aspect - 'could have + past participle' to talk about possible events in the future

BACKGROUND

In this earlier thread, Edwin Ashworth approved a use of 'could have + past participle' for the future event that was precluded by context as in:

(1) Mary could have arrived tomorrow, had she managed to get that flight.

But he did not approve a use of 'could have + past participle' for possible events in the future as in:

(2) */?Mary could have arrived tomorrow.

Nor did he approve a use of 'may have + past participle' for possible events in the future as in:

(3) (?)Mary may have arrived by next week.

(4) *Mary may have arrived tomorrow.

I think that there is no reason to treat 'next week' and 'tomorrow' differently insofar as both refer to a future time. So the different treatment for the latter two examples is because of the existence of the preposition 'by'. That is, inserting 'by' would somehow increase the acceptability at least for the 'may have + past participle' construction.

QUESTION

My question is whether inserting 'by' would increase the acceptability of the 'could have + past participle' construction as in (2):

(2') Mary could have arrived by tomorrow.

Note that (2') is along the lines of (2) in that Mary's arriving tomorrow is a possible future event as opposed to a future event precluded by context as in (1).

ADDITIONAL EXAMPLE

An example of the 'could have + past participle' construction being used in a possible future event similar to (2') is found in this Harry Potter:

Malfoy could have attacked half the Muggle-borns in the school by then!

I'll have to admit that it was not easy to find an example of the 'could have + past participle' construction being used in a possible future event. So maybe it's not that idiomatic to use the construction for a possible future event. Does that mean that (2') as well as the Harry Potter example is somehow unnatural?

verb agreement - Use of the singular or plural "is" or "are" in ambiguous situations

In this sentence:

The only exception are questions that are narrow enough that they can

be reasonably answered definitively with one or two possible
solutions.

Should it be "The only exception is" because "exception" is singular, or "The only exception are" because "questions" is plural?

Answer

The default is that the verb agrees in number with its subject, so The only exception is . . .
If that sounds awkward, you can write The only exceptions are . . . , which is probably preferable anyway, given that questions is plural.

grammar - My family *is* or My family *are*?

I've done a bit of research and I understand that "family" should be preceded by singular or plural verb depending on how you want it to be treated. For example,

His family is one of the oldest in the county.

and

His family are all doctors.

These are apparently both correct.

But in the following instance, could a grammar expert tell me which should be be?

When his family are abducted

or

When his family is abducted

?

Thanks.

grammaticality - Why do some people prefix people's names with "the"?

Lately I've been seeing a trend that I find disturbing for some reason, mostly in Indian publications but also in some American ones - prefixing people's names with "the". For example: The Mr. Gandhi said that taking the Narendra Modi's name was tantamount to committing a crime in the party.

Is this proper usage? It surely doesn't sound right.

When do you leave out the preposition in a relative clause?

A non-fiction titled "Do the Right Thing" published in 1998 has this sentence:

(1) Am I treating this stranger with the same consideration that I would a friend?

Another book (fiction) titled "Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel (by Jon Land)" published in 2013 has this sentence:

(2) ...and treat the enemy with the same consideration with which they had treated the residents of Willow Creek.

Are both these grammatical and natural English?

If so, it seems to me that the that clause of (1), as well as the which clause of (2), is a relative clause. And that in (1) the preposition with has been left out of the relative clause.

Assuming that both are correct English, my question is why (1) is possible without the preposition with stranded at the end? (Edit: Is it because the relative clause of (1) lacks the lexical verb "treat"?)

Also, if preposition stranding is possible with these relative clauses, are these possible English?

(1a) Am I treating this stranger with the same consideration that I would treat a friend with?

(2a) ...and treat the enemy with the same consideration which they had treated the residents of Willow Creek with.

Edit: Here is another example without ellipsis, and it's taken from a hospital website in England:

(3) We Ask That Our Patients:

treat our staff with the same consideration that you would expect to be treated yourself. Violent, abusive or intimidating behaviour of any kind will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate removal from the practice list.

Now, should the editor of the website have added with at the end of the boldfaced portion?

Revamp: Since there has been some confusion due to ellipsis in (1), I would like to give this question a revamp.

After reviewing the answers and comments so far, I have concluded that the omission of "with," along with that of "treat," in (1) was simply due to ellipsis, and that the boldfaced clauses in (1), (2), (1a), (2a) and (3) are all relative clauses. (Any criticism would still be welcome as to any part of these conclusions.)

So let's forget about (1) and focus only on non-elliptical examples, i.e., (2), (1a), (2a) and (3). The issue now is whether, in each of these non-elliptical constructions, "with" is redundant, essential, or optional, on the meaning of which I will elaborate in the following three scenarios:

Scenario A: If it's redundant, (2), (1a) and (2a) will be ungrammatical, and only (3) will be grammatical.

Scenario B: If it's essential, (3) will be ungrammatical, and (2), (1a) and (2a) will be grammatical.

Scenario C: If it's optional, (2), (1a), (2a) and (3) will all be grammatical.

Which is the right scenario and why?

Edit: For those who support Scenario C, please elaborate on what it is in these examples that renders optional the use of preposition "with", when in general you are not to leave out a preposition from a relative clause if that preposition is part of the relative clause.

prepositions - Does using 'by' in this syntax suggest facilitation or purely cause / effect?

Have a look at this sentence:

'We finance better housing for our customers, by helping turn their houses into homes.'

Does 'by' in this sentence only indicate that the logical cause and effect is out of place? That first we help, then we finance? (usage of the gerund, first clause deems to be the first action, usage of the preposition 'by'). Therefore the sentence would be constructed: 'By financing..., we help turn...'.

However, does the sentence sound correct to you? In that 'we finance... by helping turn', the 'by' is a synonym of 'and in doing this' (we help turn...), showing that financing helps transform their lives, facilitating help via financing without need to change the syntax?

In the end, the answer is in the syntax. The linear L-R cause / effect sentence would be coherent in replacing 'by helping' with 'to help': 'We finance better housing for our customers to help turn their houses into homes'.

Also 'by' can be kept and the cause / effect understood R-L when you see the word 'better' as key. Being a comparative, it compares the established experience of helping, the comparative should indicate progress up to and after a main verb in the present tense e.g.: 'We serve better our users by helping understand them'. Hence grammatically 'We finance better (the) housing for our customers, by helping turn their houses into homes.' Thanks for all the input.

grammar - Why is ‘such an one’ obsolete?

One begins with a vowel and should therefore have an and not a in front of it. Why is it, then, that ‘such a one’ is what is actually said?

It appears to have been the case when the King James Bible was translated in 1611:

1 Corinthians 5:5

To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

(Bible Gateway)

Moreover, the google yield of "such an one" loeb has several instances from the 20th c.

Other questions like this one or this one do not explain why an is obsolete. Was the pronunciation different before? What changed?

One hypothesis would be that earlier orthography was considered to stand above phonology. Is that the case?

grammar - The usage of "an"

In Visual Studio 2019 there is an error report "initial value of reference to non const must be an lvalue" why is there an "an" instead of "a"? Should not be a typo of the team.

grammaticality - Past perfect/simple question in an example

Talking about the trip I did a few years ago:

I have been there and it was amazing. I had not seen a frozen sea until that time!

Did I use past perfect correctly or should I just say "I did not see .."? Also is the "until that time" ok?

Answer

The verb forms are fine, but, depending on context, until then might be more usual than until that time.

grammar - My family *is* or My family *are*?

I've done a bit of research and I understand that "family" should be preceded by singular or plural verb depending on how you want it to be treated. For example,

His family is one of the oldest in the county.

and

His family are all doctors.

These are apparently both correct.

But in the following instance, could a grammar expert tell me which should be be?

When his family are abducted

or

When his family is abducted

?

Thanks.

grammar - Could Present Perfect Continuous form a grammatical tautology in some sentences?

I have joined a grammar MOOC starting with an introduction to English tenses. One of the practice questions left me confused. The question is as follows:

Do these two sentences have similar meaning or different meaning?

1. Julie has studied French for two years.


2. Julie has been studying French for two years.

I'm not sure how similar is similar, but having a questionable sense of the language I think I should follow the rules. Grammar books state that Continuous tenses are designed to emphasise duration. If an author finds relevant to emphasise the duration, this semantic or emotional meaning is relevant to the reader.

Both of the sentences deliver information about the duration. I'm not sure if there exists any difference in connotation or the second sentence is an example of 'grammatical tautology'.

Answer

In spoken English, there are two interpretations possible: 1) Dissimilar, in that in example 1 Julie has completed her study of French after two years; or 2) Similar, in that Julie has studied and is continuing to study French after two years. Nothing inherent in the two examples, in my experience, enables one to distinguish which the speaker/writer means. Again, in spoken English, the presence of "has" in the first example implies that a longer period may well be in the offing. In other words, it implies an ongoing action. In its absence, the past tense is implied, suggesting the period is complete.

grammatical number - Usage of double plural

Here we have the plural in the end:

"communication technology services"

Here we have two plurals(quite common in google):

"communications technology services"

Eventually, we could have three plurals =)

"communications technologies services"

When should we use more than one plural to describe this?

ellipsis - "If you don't have a fresh chicken, I'll take a frozen (one)." – When can an adjective act on behalf of a whole noun phrase?

Consider these sentences:

1. If you haven't got a fresh chicken, I'll take a frozen.


2. If you haven't got a fresh chicken, I'll take the frozen.


3. If you haven't got fresh cream, I'll take canned.



4. If you haven't got (any) fresh cream, I'll take some canned.


5. If you haven't got fresh cream, I'll take the canned.

As you see, frozen and canned are adjectives that are used attributively but their accompanying nouns are left out. Is it grammatical to do so? Under what conditions? Does the phrase remain a noun phrase?

Of course, the problem can be detoured by adding back the omitted nouns (frozen chicken/one, canned cream), but the question is, cannot the adjectives do alone?

You can also share your native impression and tell us (preferably in the comment section) which of the sentences above you find acceptable and which unnatural.

relative pronouns - "To ensure" vs. "To ensure that" + subject + predicate

Is any of these two sentences incorrect:

-(without that): "To ensure the voters are not influenced by mass-media, the campaign will end 7 days before the elections take place."

-(with that): "To ensure that the voters are not influenced by mass-media, the campaign will end 7 days before the elections take place."

Is the presence of that mandatory?

Answer

I agree with both the previous commentators. WS2 is correct in saying that the relative pronoun here 'that' is frequently elided. I share Hot Licks's view that inclusion of 'that' is stylistically preferable.

word choice - I can run faster than _____. (1) him (2) he?

Consider the sentence "I can run faster than 15 miles per hour." Its meaning is clear and to my eyes obviously grammatically correct. Now let me present some variations that have given me trouble for a long time.

• I am faster than 15 miles per hour. – To me this is clearly incorrect. Directly comparing me to a speed doesn't seem right. We need to compare my speed to a speed, or me to another person.




• I can run faster than him. – Compared to the base sentence, there is a distinct shift in meaning of the comparison. While before I named a speed faster than which I can run, now I am naming a person. It doesn't seem quite right. I realize the parts of speech can change, but my initial objection is that "him" is not a speed.




• I can run faster than he. – This seems most correct to me, but still somehow feels objectionable. Is this in fact the correct way to say it? And if so, is it proper as is or need I say "... faster than he can" or even "... faster than he can run?"




• I am faster than him. – With "am" instead of "can run" it now seems slightly more correct. But is it?




• I am faster than he. – I'm in doubt here. It doesn't seem wrong to me to say, "I am faster than he is" or even "I am faster than he is fast." (Though I suppose that is a given since I could hardly properly compare to some other category as in "I am faster than he is smart.")





• My speed is faster than his. – Hmm. This seems more proper as "my speed is greater than his."

So which of these constructions is correct and which is incorrect? Is there a general rule that I can follow?

UPDATE

The scholarly article Syntactic isomorphism and non-isomorphism under ellipsis may be of great interest to some readers!

Once we accept that the elided constituent and its antecedent can differ in form, it becomes reasonable to ask how large this difference can be. The answer in Rooth (1992), Fiengo and May (1994), Chung et al. (1995) and subsequent work is that the wiggle room is actually quite small: the elided constituent and its antecedent are allowed to differ only in the realization of inflectional morphology. Other than that, both constituents have to be syntactically and lexically isomorphic.

Answer

You find both accusative pronouns (me/him/her/them) and nominative pronouns (I/he/she/they) in this syntactic position in standard English. The forms with the nominal genitive pronouns (mine/yours/hers etc.) are a red herring because they stand for something possessed rather than the person themself.

The traditional rule for comparison with a person is that you must use nominative. However, according to my research, accusative is more common.

I searched the Corpus of Contemporary American English for this syntactic structure, followed by a comma or a period to ensure we are not looking for cases like faster than he is, with a verb following the pronoun, in which case nominative is obligatory.

There were 1046 results for the accusative pronouns and 450 for nominative pronouns, more than 2 to 1 in favor of accusative pronouns—the “traditionally wrong” form. Both forms are standard, so my advice to a writer choosing between these forms is to consider that the “traditionally correct” form is unimpeachably correct but a bit formal. Choose the form that best matches tone and formality level of your writing.

For the curious, the queries looked like this:

[jjr*] than me|him|her|us|them .|,
[jjr*] than I|he|she|we|they .|,

where[jjr*] means any comparative adjective.

Update 2011-05-23

Using the new Google Book Corpus search, I was able to construct a Google ngrams-like graph comparing these usages over time, using these two queries: accusative, nominative:

As you can see, until the late 1980s, the formal usage was more common than the informal usage. Since then, however, accusative has very rapidly eclipsed nominative, even in this corpus, which represents professionally published works.

pronunciation - How would you spell "Tehran" in English for it to be pronounced "correctly" (i.e. as in Persian)?

Native English speakers do not pronounce the h in Tehran so it is pronounced like "Teran". But in the original pronunciation in Persian the h is pronounced, resulting in /tehˈɾɒːn/.

Is there any alternative for the spelling of Tehran to be pronounced "correctly", i.e. as in Persian, by a native English speaker?

(I'm asking this question because a friend is asking me for the correct spelling of his name Mehran which with the exception of the first consonant is pronounced like Tehran.)

Edit: Bahrain (البحرین) is another similar word with the h dropped in its English pronunciation /bɑːˈreɪn/, while in Arabic it is /bɑːħreɪn/.

Answer

There is no way to truly force this pronunciation in English.

In English, we just don't pronounce the /h/ sound at the end of syllables. Because it is not a part of our phonological grammar, it can be difficult for a native English speaker to articulate the sound, or even perceive the sound at all, in that context. So, even if you pronounced it correctly and asked the native English speaker to repeat after you, they might still leave out the /h/ sound.

Since there is no context in which an English speaker pronounces /h/ at the end of a syllable, there is no spelling convention that indicates it should be done to someone who is unfamiliar with Farsi.

It is similar to trying to write something in katakana that will make a native Japanese speaker pronounce "cat" as we do in English. Japanese speakers have the /t/ sound, but it can't occur at the end of a syllable, so the closest approximation would be "kato" (or "katto" but let's keep it simple).

There are two spellings available to you, each one sacrificing one feature in favor of another.

1. The standard spelling "Tehran" maintains the two-syllable prosodic form and indicates the "h" for those who are familiar with Farsi Latinization and phonology. But it will not cause an average speaker to pronounce the "h".


2. The alternate spelling of "Teheran" (which was mentioned in the comments) puts the "h" in a context where it can be pronounced (at the beginning of a syllable — "he"), but in order to do so, adds a vowel and therefore another syllable. This is called epenthesis and is also how Japanese (among many others) repair unpronounceable clusters. The disadvantage is that you now have three syllables instead of two; also, you still aren't guaranteed to get pronunciation of the /h/ sound — between vowels, an "h" in an unstressed syllable often goes unpronounced in English.

Irregular verbs: differences between BrE and AmE

I've just found BrE sneak/sneaked/sneaked and

AmE sneak/snuck/snuck.

Are there more of these deviations?

Generally, lists of irregular verbs in grammars are so poor that they show only half of what there is to know.

PS I see there is an article on the verb form snuck on the Internet.
"snuck" in AmE

grammaticality - "The more..., the less.." type of sentence corrections

The more you think about it, the less likely you will take action.

I feel that sentence sounds a bit awkward, especially the less part. I am not so sure if the sentence is correct, grammatically.

So what's the right way to put it? Or how can I rephrase it?

Answer

Your problem is that we don't say "You will less likely take action", we say "You are less likely to take action" or "It is less likely you will take action". So one of those is what your second clause has to invert:

The more you think about it, the less likely you are to take action.

Or

The more you think about it, the less likely it is you will take action.

phrases - Where and/or when is the term "flight ticket" used?

On a forum I frequent some users were complaining about a question using the turn of phrase "flight ticket" as something no English speaker would ever say.

I disagreed because it sounds like something I've heard plenty of times, even though I usually say "plane ticket" myself.

But I'm not sure in which regions of the English speaking world, or in which era or age group it's preferred.

Google Ngrams tells me "flight ticket" is more popular than "aeroplane ticket" but less popular than "airplane ticket", "air ticket", and "plane ticket"... but I couldn't figure out much more about the history or demographics of the phrase.

prepositions - Usage of both apostrophe and “of” together

I was reading Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and noticed following sentence:

About those boots of Ralph Paton’s.

It is really in old (old as in early or mid twentieth century) English that they use apostrophe and of together? Would it not be proper to say:

About those boots of Ralph Paton.

Answer

No, you have to use the so-called “double genitive” here:

About those boots of Ralph Paton’s.

It has to be a noun or pronoun in the possessive case, not in the subject case. That’s why it is

a friend of mine

Not

a friend of *me

See other questions with the double-genitive tag for more examples and explanation.

Use of the article "the" with proper nouns

I'm writing a leaflet for children from primary schools who will visit our school.

Is it correct to write:

the "amerigo vespucci" school is waiting for you!!!!

Is the use of the definite article correct in this case? I am defining which school is waiting for them, I'm saying we and no others but us are willing to meet them?

Comma before "and" which is being used after a list of items containing other and/s

I am confused about whether one should put a comma before an "and" which is being used after a list of items containing at least one other "and".

I don't use the Oxford comma, and I feel it's not necessary to put a comma before an "and" which is before the last item. I do know that if one item has an "and" in it, then we have to put a comma before the "and" to clear any ambiguity. But I am confused about a particular sentence which is mentioned below:

I will certainly go to university with a more motivated and mature attitude and contribute to its multicultural environment.

Here, I don't think a comma is necessary before the "and" which is before "contribute", as there is no ambiguity. So should I put a comma or not? If I do not put one, is it grammatically incorrect?

Is every sentence in a tense?

I know that "tense" indicates time. If that is true, then not every sentence can be indicated of its tense.

Please review these sentences:

"If I could go to the market , I must have taken breakfast (by now)."
"If this great mountain was given my secret, it would have broken."
"If she were tall like you, she would never have asked you to pick those clothes for her."

Here all these sentences have main clauses in past, but I don't know whether past indefinite or not.

Still, these are imaginary conditions, supported by “if”; so can we say that these sentences have no tense?

Some people told me that their roots are in the present as we are indicating the absence of the mentioned conditions implies that the sentence indicates the present continuous, or some other sort of present.

But that sounds strange, as the sentence itself does not narrate the absence of that condition but only the supposition of “if” that were true... so what is the tense.
Thnx for all responses. Now i can safely say that this sentence is making use of auxiliary modals in subjunctive mood. Still according to my perspective, it indicates towards a timeless phenomenon( Though no one knows about the future) still its pointing towards a timeless phenomenon, still if someone wants to refer it to a tense, i think its is present indefinite because it indicates that i am not a bird. "If I were" suggests that I am not.Otherwise the sentence itself does not refer to time. And as i have understood English language does not make use of tense only to indicate time, the total sentence structure depends on many thing sand also the mood of sentence changes the total outlook of any sentence. So tense and/ or mood can be understood if they indicate real things rather imaginary ones.

I failed to understand any better through these answers.

capitalization - "Not" or "not" in book title?

Assume I have written a book and want to name it:

The Joy of Not Being Stupid

Would the "not" be capitalized?

Answer

Blue book of grammar and punctuation: The following rules for capitalizing composition titles are universal.

•Capitalize the title's first and last word.
•Capitalize verbs, including all forms of the verb to be (is, are, was, etc.).
•Capitalize all pronouns, including it, he, who, that, etc.

•Capitalize the not.

Do not capitalize a, an, or the unless it is first or last in the title.

•Do not capitalize the word and, or, or nor unless it is first or last in the title.
•Do not capitalize the word to, with or without an infinitive, unless it is first or last in the title.

If the subject changes its number within a sentence but it's the same thing after all, how do I deal with this kind of ‘plurality’?

Terminology clarification first. Let's say, plurality herein means the quality of being plural; the state of being plural or not, which is not the dictionary definition. I couldn't find another appropriate term for it. Well, grammatical numerity? Hmm.

---

In this sentence, the number (plurality) of the subject changes at the middle of the sentence. The subject was singular, but soon becomes plural.

It's split into two and merges/merge back into one a hundred times.

We can also think of an inverted version of it. The subject was plural, but soon becomes singular.

The two are merged into one and (are)/is split back into two a hundred times.

---

How do I deal with this kind of plurality? What should I assume its plurality is? Do I have to break it down into two or more sentences?

Answer

I would either make the verb agree with the stated subject, or introduce a new pronoun for it.

So either:

It's split into two and merges back into one a hundred times.

or

It's split into two and they merge back into one a hundred times.

(Probably the former option, because it works better with the repetitiveness of the action.)

Likewise:

The two are merged into one and split back into two a hundred times. (I agree with @sumelic that the participle helps here.)

or

The two are merged into one and that is split back into two a hundred times.

Also, I didn't do it here, but I would probably always use a comma before the phrase a hundred times in these examples.

syntactic analysis - Can you make this sentence clear?

I insist on putting this never-before-heeded advice in my math syllabus every semester (this is only my third one). I often obsess about the way I write things and I actually re-read it myself this time and realize that it's probably not good English, and certainly not understandable. I could not figure out a nice, concise way of stating that third sentence (the one I put in square brackets, []).

Please can someone suggest a good, concise (but not terse) edit for the sentence in square brackets which would be clear to college freshman who are in a basic skills (that is, high school level) math class?

How to do well in this class: ...

3. Do all of the homework as soon as possible. Do the homework to make sure you understand the underlying concepts. [You will not learn what you need to know from me in lecture – not because I’m such a lousy lecturer, though I might be -- but because you only learn math by doing it.] Ask for help when you cannot understand a problem.

Thanks.

P.S. You are now probably the only people, other than me, to have read it.

P.P.S. "Concise" means as short as reasonably possibly so that the reader will still understand it (and I can fit my syllabus on 2 sides of a paper). "Terse" is shorter than than "concise".

Edit: All the answers were helpful (even the one inexplicably given a down vote, which I cancelled). I used a combination of them:

3. Do all of the homework as soon as possible. You learn math by doing math. You will learn the concepts in lecture. But you will only learn all of the detail by doing the problems (despite my peerless lectures!). You will be expected to know the material from each lecture by the next one.

Answer

How to perform well in this class...

Complete all assignments as soon as possible. This will assure you understand the underlying concepts. You will learn concepts in the lecture, but you will only fully understand them by practicing those concepts through completing the assignments. Above all, ASK QUESTIONS when you cannot understand a problem.

I am not sure what level you are teaching towards, but one suggestion I have is NEVER criticize yourself towards your students [...not because I’m such a lousy lecturer, though I might be...] stop that! If you don't have confidence in your abilities, how do you expect your students to? Everyone has room for improvement, this much is true, but don't start them off thinking that you can't lecture, its self defeating.

Good luck!

syntax - Reason for Subject-Verb Inversion: Only in cases where A is B, shall the Company do X

In the following, why does subject-verb inversion occur? Is it necessary? And what is this type of inversion called?

Colleague’s original:

Only in cases where A is B, the Company shall do X.

I changed to the following:

Only in cases where A is B shall the Company do X.

Searching Google for “shall the Company” gives examples such as:

In no event shall the Company ...
Under no circumstances shall the Company ...

And these all seem quite natural.

“In no event” and “under no circumstances” seem to be prepositional phrases, yet I would say simply, with no inversion:

In the fridge, you will find some beer.

Is the S-V inversion maybe some sort of archaic style that remains in legal or maybe religious texts? Perhaps a remaining German-style syntax?

Answer

It's grammatical.

Subject-verb inversion is required when preposing a negative adverbial of time, place, or circumstance.

• At no time did he say that. ~ *At no time he said that.


• Under no circumstances may she enter. ~ *Under no circumstances she may enter.

It is not allowed, however, when preposing other adverbials.

• *With no hesitation did he speak up.


• *With no grace did he accept it.

Only is a negative.

adjectives - "1 or 2 friends is enough" or "1 or 2 friends are enough"

I don't know which sentence is grammatically correct.

• 
  

  1 or 2 friends is enough.

  
  





• 
  

  1 or 2 friends are enough.

  
  

grammar - Definite articles before abstract nouns which don't relate to any (very) particular instances

I know that the title may be little misleading but here is the example which bothers me.

New approach to (the) ellipticity of linear differential operators

On contrary, I am sure that the following are correct

It follows from the ellipticity of the Laplace operator. (specified abstract noun)

Ellipticity is closely related to hyperbolicity. (just abstract nouns)

Similarly, I am not sure how to write the following sentence

I still believe in (the) kindness of people.

Where the following ones are obvious.

Kindness must be sustained. (specified abstract noun)

The kindness of John is beyond all norms. (just an abstract noun)

Thus, Here is my actual question eventually.

Question. Am I specifying abstract nouns in my examples and I should use "the" or is my specification artificial and I should omit "the"?

Answer

Though the use of one or more adjectives before an abstract noun does not make it specific, i.e., requiring a definite article, a prepositional or participial phrase after it does.

I am impressed by their unbounded kindness. [possessive pronoun, adjective]

I am impressed by the kindness of all my former students. [prepositional phrase]

I am impressed by the kindness shown to me after the accident. [participial phrase]

meaning - "He acted strange(ly?)"

It would make sense if both of these sentences were grammatically correct; but is anything different between them meaning-wise?

He acted very strange when I told him about the missing amulet.

He acted strangely about the whole deal.

What difference is there between using an adverb here and using an adjective?

Answer

Acted is a verb which can take an adjective in what looks like a modifying position. Some verbs are like that; they are called copular (or copulative or copula) verbs. Let's consider the verb look, where using an adjective and an adverb produce different meanings.

For some meanings, you have to use nice:

John looked very nice in his new clothes.
*John looked very nicely in his new clothes.

For others, you have to use nicely.

John looked at me very nicely.
*John looked at me very nice.

In the first example, very nice is in some sense modifying John, while in the second, very nicely is modifying looked.

For the verb act, you can use either an adjective or an adverb:

John acted very strange.
John acted very strangely.

and the meaning isn't any different between these two sentences (or at least not much). I would say that in the first sentence, John is acting as if he was very strange, and in the second sentence, John's actions are very strange. In this case, the meanings end up being the same. But consider:

John acted very quiet.
John acted very quietly.

Now, these mean different things. In the first, John is simply being quiet. In the second, John is doing something and trying hard not to call attention to it.

antonyms - Opposite of honorary member

Defining a honorary member as a person which isn't actually a member of an organization but is recognized as such by the organization because of his/her contributions to the organization or society as a whole, I am wondering if there exists a noun or an adjective used specifically to refer to the real members.

I am looking to use it in the following way:

This mailing list is intended for both real and honorary members of our organization.

Why not just use real? I've thought about using real, standard or actual, but I feel like they all imply that one of the member categories is more important or otherwise superior to the other one, when for the matter at hand they are supposed to be considered equal.

Answer

I would use "regular members" in contradistinction to "honorary members." Here is the relevant meaning of regular in Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003):

regular adj ... 4 a : constituted, conducted, scheduled, or done in conformity with established or prescribed usages, rules, or discipline

Depending on the type of organization it is and the qualifications for regular membership, you might use the term "dues-paying members" (where dues-paying simply means "paying regular membership dues") or "rank-and-file members" instead. The relevant definition of rank and file in the Eleventh Collegiate is this:

rank and file n ... 2 : the individuals who constitute the body of an organization, society, or nation as distinguished from the leaders

But "regular members" is probably the most inclusive and neutral term to use.

word choice - Indefinite article before symbols

The choice of "a" versus "an" depends on the pronunciation of the following word. Mathematical writing may use symbols as nouns or adjectives, and their pronunciation is not always clear. Here is a made-up example.

Consider a (⊗,≤,1) triple such that S forms a commutative monoid with (⊗,1) and x ≤ x ⊗ y for any x and y.

In "a (⊗,≤,1) triple", how would one choose the indefinite article to use before the operator?

Answer

Yes, you use 'a' or 'an' according to how you pronounce the symbol (or tuple or acronym or letterism). There is no default.

However, things can get a little more complicated than that when writing...
Some say asterisk, some pronounce star
Some spell as a letterism others pronounce as an acronym (a U.P.S. not an UPS)
Some say an before words starting with h and u by rule (an H.I.V. patient not a HIV)
(I don't if the h is pronounced, or I palatalise a word as starting with yu)

In short, say it how you pronounce what follows, and that actually informs people how you pronounce what follows and may help ensure they follow the same convention.

commas - How to avoid confusion when "and" is in a list

How do I avoid confusion when "and" is in a comma-separated list?

E.g. "The guy eats, weighs a lot, and moves and jumps well."

If I don't use a serial comma, it would be:

E.g. "The guy eats, weighs a lot and moves and jumps well."

As you can tell it may cause some confusion when "and" is part of a list.

Answer

The practice of not using a serial comma when the last element is preceded by the word "and" often bothers me because these missing commas are very often spoken. When I read, I usually hear the printed text being spoken in my mind. So I would definitely add the serial comma, but as an editor I would not hesitate to add "he" to the third item in the series, which is to me a clause with a missing subject. Thus:

"The guy eats, weighs a lot, and he moves and jumps well."

Punctuation should be based not only on printed rules — the sound of the spoken words should also be a guide.

hyphenation - Making acronyms/initialisms from hyphenated words

Should we use only the first part of a hyphenated compound word to coin an initialism/acronym?

E.g. would "on-site detector circuit" become OSDC or ODC?

Or does it depend on the particular hyphenated word?

apostrophe - "Guys", "guy’s", or "guys’" (guys’)

Which way is guys written in this sentence: "What are your guys favorite cars"? Should the word guys be written as guys, guy's, or guys' in this sentence?

test - Present continuous to discuss action's frequency

I saw the following on an ESL test:

John: How often …………… ?
Dave: He …………… at least five days a week.

a) does he exercise - swims
b) is he exercising - is swimming
c) is he exercising - swims
d) does he exercise - is swimming

I think both (a) and (b) are acceptable and the test isn't standard. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Answer

As a native speaker, I would expect ESL test questions to be blatantly obvious to me, such that all the wrong answers are clearly things that only non-native spakers would say. The question here doesn't meet my expectations. Obviously (a) is the most natural without context, but in the right context any of (b), (c), or (d) would be possible for native speakers in some situations.

J.R. gave this conceivable scenario for choice (c) in his comment on the question:

"Have you seen Paul lately?"
"No, why?" "He's looking really good!"
"Really? Lost a lot of weight?"
"Yeah."
"Wow. How often is he exercising?"
"He swims at least five days a week, I think. I'm always seeing him at the pool."
"Good, it's nice to hear about someone keeping their New Year's resolution for a change."

Alcas similarly gave a conceivable scenario for the "is swimming" choices (b) and (d):

"He only used to exercise once in a blue moon, but he's swimming at least five days a week now"

The question is faulty.

descriptive grammar - When describing an action by two persons is it ever correct to name oneself first?

When describing an action by two persons and that action has a negative outcome or nature, is it correct to name oneself first? As in I and he played poorly.

orthography - Hyphenation in pre[-]determined

Pre-determined or predetermined? I've seen both forms. Are both right, or only one of them? Is there any dialect difference between AE and BE? Do the same rules apply for all words starting with pre prefix?

Possessive nouns, the apostrophe, and no 'S'

I was watching an episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. It's an American show hosted by an Englishman.
He displayed a paragraph of text during the show which read, "The Bad Boys Club' T-shirt."
I am confused. The club is called The Bad Boys Club so I figure it's irrelevant that there's not an apostrophe in or after the word Boys. But please can someone explain the lack of an S after the word Club?

orthography - How do you write "a class's constructor"?

I want to write this sentence:

In a singleton pattern, a class's
constructor needs to be private
instead of public.

it is correct to write:

• a classes constructor


• a class' constructor


• a class's constructor


• a classes' constructor

Question: Why do some people preface a question with "question"?

Is it acceptable in the English language to do so? If so, what part of English would the first "question" be called...a conjunction?

hyphenation - use of hyphens in a compound adjective

I'm currently reading "Assuming a mantle of power" from International New York Times (May 14, 2015), and the article is about a soft power look that female leaders are donning, with pencil skirts and three-quarter-sleeved jackets being the best examples of the look.

Then, I came across the following phrase:

Put simply: written one pencil-skirt, three-quarter-sleeved jacket suit critique, written ’em all.

1. Is "one" the determiner? And are "pencil-skirt" and "three-quarter-sleeved" adjectives? Is "critique" being a noun that "one" modifies? Then what is "jacket suit"?

I guess what I'm really asking is how come there are no hyphens between "sleeved" and "jacket;" and "jacket" and suit"? As far as I know to make a compound adjective that modifies a noun before it must be hyphened.

Not comprehending these mechanics here, I'm totally confused what the author is trying to convey here.

Can somebody explain what the meaning of the phrase and all the hyphens here? Or if they are used wrong, maybe suggest the right way to use them?

Answer

NR - it would be helpful if you could post the link to the article you are referring to. I am looking at the US version of the article, published May 13 entitled "Nicole Sturgeon, Cloaked in a New Mantle of Power".

In the retail and style industries, the term 'pencil skirt' is generally never hyphenated. However, the initial outfit being described in this article is, in fact, a dress. This is why 'pencil-skirt' is hyphenated the first time it is used in the article; the author is describing a pencil-skirt dress.

As Fashion Director of the New York Times, and I might add a phenomenal writer, I'm going to guess that when Vanessa Friedman originally penned her article, she punctuated her (arguably nasty) zinger correctly:

Put simply: written one pencil skirt, three-quarter-sleeved jacket suit critique, written 'em all.

It is possible that the style editor of the International NYT, or some other editor, or perhaps Friedman herself, inserted the unnecessary hyphen. The editor may have seen the words hyphenated when describing the pencil-skirt dress and thought the hyphen needed to stay in the zinger, for symmetry's sake... and she may also have hoped to improve the readability of said zinger.

The style of skirt is pencil; the style of jacket is three-quarter-sleeved. I hope this is helpful.

time - Which vs. What in regards to Continuous Numbers (like Temperature)?

As this question makes clear, "which" is used when there is a set number of choices available, while "what" is used when there is not a set number of choices available.

Which term do we use, however, when we are referring to continuous numbers as opposed to discrete numbers? How about numbers that are technically continuous but are in practice discrete?

Discrete number example: Which parking spot were you assigned to? (There are a discrete set of parking spots which one could be assigned to).

Continuous number example: Which/what temperature do you brew your beer at? (There are an infinite amount of temperatures available; however, brewers typically brew between the ranges of 40*F and 85*F, so it would seem to be discrete. On the other hand, there are an infinite amount of numbers between two consecutive integers, i.e 41.1, 41.2, 41.22, 41.3333 ...)

When referring to time, which is another example of continuous or discrete (there are 24 hours in a day, but an infinite number of units in between two consecutive hours), I always hear people use "what"-- "What time is it? What time shall I pick you up?"

Answer

'What' is usually used for continuous data treated as, or rather being considered as, continuous: 'what time is it?' / 'what temperature do you brew your beer at?' / 'what speed are you doing?'

For days and years, both 'what day/year was that?' and 'which day/year was that?' are used. Time is continuous, but is often treated as if it were discrete, and is probably then being considered as discrete. This gets even more complicated, as you point out, because age in years is almost always treated as being (and is often thought of as being) discrete, but 'what age is he?' would be used.

articles - "A" vs. "An" in writing vs. pronunciation

When starting a word with a vowel, the preceding "a" becomes an "an". I often find that when writing words that start with letter "N" or "M", I will pronounce them "EN", "EM", etc. (This is because in programming, letters are often pronounced in certain terms.)

So, when writing a question on SO, do I write "an NSString" or, "a NSString"?

Answer

The choice of a vs. an is actually based on the phonetics of the start of a word, not the orthographic representation. This is why you say things like an honorable solider (the h is silent, so phonetically it begins with the vowel sound). Similarly, you would say a one-eyed pirate as one phonetically begins with the w sound.

So in the case of your example, it would be an NSString since phonetically it's en-es-string.

grammar - The last moment of something but not sure when to use

My hands were trembling until the last moment of checking the results .
Or should i say

Until the last moment ,my hands were trembling by checking the results

Does the last moment comes in first or after comma?

grammaticality - Future tense in conditional clauses

All the textbooks I have ever come across during the course of my studying English emphasize that future tense should not be used in conditional clauses.

For example,

If it rains in the evening, we will not go for a walk. (if it will rain in the evening...)

We decided to go for a walk if it didn't rain in the evening. (...if it wouldn't rain in the evening)

However, in the following sentence I'm really inclined to use the future tense.

Don't implement this feature if it will significantly increase the complexity of the user interface.

According to all the rules I know of, the future tense is illegal here. However, my gut feeling tells me that the sentence is correct. If I am wrong, the question ends here. Otherwise please read on. I find the last example different from my first two because:

• In the first examples we must wait and see if the condition is true, and then make a decision accordingly, whereas in the last example, we must actually analyze/predict/forecast the future in order to make the decision in the present.


• _{(might be irrelevant)} In my first language - Armenian - where we have a special mood for conditions, the translation of the third sentence actually uses indicative, whereas the first two use that special mood (the conditional mood, as it were).

Since the second would-be principle is easier for me to experiment with, I noticed that every time a condition uses the indicative mood in my language, I'm inclined to use the future tense in English. As another example:

I will give you the money if it will make you happier.

Am I imagining things or are my examples of the future tense in the conditional clause valid? If they are valid, what rule would you suggest to distinguish the cases when it's OK? (I do realize that translating a sentence to another language and analyzing the translation doesn't really count as a rule).

Answer

I think the difference between the two types of examples that you've exhibited is the relative placement in time of the action in the "if" clause, and the action in the other clause.

• If it rains in the evening, we won't go for a walk - here, the event of raining occurs BEFORE the decision about whether to go for a walk.


• My teeth will rot if I eat too much sugar - presumably, I'll be eating the sugar BEFORE my teeth rot.


• If it will significantly increase complexity, don't implement this feature - here, the increasing of complexity occurs AFTER the implementation of the feature.


• I will give you money if it will make you happier - here, you becoming happier occurs AFTER I give you the money.

In all the cases where the "if" part happens first chronologically, we use the present tense. In the cases where the "if" part happens second, we use the future tense. However, because sentences of the first type are far more common than sentences in the second type, a good rule for learners to adopt is "don't use the future tense with IF".

relative clauses - "a person in respect of whom" vs. just "a person whom"

I just read an article containing this sentence:

These criteria may be satisfied if the applicant is found to be a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations because they are unable or unwilling to return to their country because of a well-founded fear of persecution.

I don't understand what the phrase "in respect of" is doing here when you can just say "a person whom Australia has protection obligations […]".

Is it grammatically correct if I don't include that phrase?

Answer

No. "...a person whom Australia has protection obligations" is not correct in this sentence. You can't say "Australia has protection obligations a person". You need a preposition.

I'd also note that this is legal language, and the odd sounding "in respect of whom" (vs. the simpler "for whom") may relate to use of that particular prepositional phrase somewhere else.

grammar - Dependent clause after pronoun

This question arose from why sentence #1 is correct and why sentence #2 is incorrect -

I pity those who lost their money in gambling.

I pity them who lost their money in gambling.

I have asked the question in ELL forum, as well as in Linguistics forum.

But the answers their made me more confused.

RULE 1

Jlawler's comment contains the direct answer to the question. Definite personal pronouns (I/me, you, he/him, she/her, it, we/us,
they/them) cannot take a restrictive modifier. In other words, they
cannot take a dependent that narrows the set of entities that they
denote. This trait of personal pronouns underlies their use as test
words for constituent structure. For example:

 (a)  The man with the hat knows the woman with the scarf.

 (b)  He knows her. 


 (c) *He with the hat knows her with the scarf.

Sentence (a) is the starting sentence. Sentence (b) shows proform
substitution; the personal pronouns he and her have been
substituted in for the noun phrases the man with the hat and the
woman with the scarf. Based on the acceptability of sentence (b), one
concludes that both the man with the hat and the woman with the
scarf are constituents. Definite pronouns such as he and her (and
them) take the place of constituents, in this case of complete noun phrases.

The unacceptability of sentence (c) reveals that the strings the man
and the woman in (a) are not constituents. In other words, the
definite personal pronouns he and her cannot take dependents
(=modifiers), since they necessarily replace an entire noun phrase.
This fact explains why them who lost their money in the question is
bad English. The relative clause who lost money is a postdependent
(=postmodifier), and as such it cannot modify them (because them
as a definite personal pronoun cannot be modified).

The plural demonstrative pronouns (these and those) behave
differently. They can take postdepndents (=postmodifiers, i.e. a
modifier that follows them), e.g

 (d)  These with hats know those with scarves. 

This is simply a trait of the plural demonstrative pronouns (these
and those) -- there is no good explanation why plural demonstrative
pronouns behave differently than definite personal pronouns; they

simply do. Note that the plural demonstrative pronouns also behave
differently than the singular demonstrative pronouns in this regard,
e.g.

 (e)  *This with a hat knows that with a scarf.

Singular demonstrative pronouns (this and that) are behaving like
the definite personal pronouns; they cannot take dependents.

The combination plural demonstrative pronoun + restrictive relative
clause can actually be viewed as a particular construction in
English and related languages. That is, it is a combination that
occurs relatively frequently and has therefore been lexicalized.
German has a very similar construction, e.g.

 (f) Diejenigen mit einem Hut kennen diejenigen mit einem Schal. 
     those      with  a   hat  know     those   with  a   scarf.

By acknowledging that one has a particular construction, one is in a
sense admitting that there is no real grammatical "explanation" for
the phenomenon. It simply exists.

Finally, note that there are certain apparent exceptions to the
principles mentioned above. There are uses of personal pronouns that
actually allow modification, e.g.

 (g) He who studies a lot gets a good grade. 

In this example, the personal pronoun he is not referring directly
to a specific entity, which means it is not definite; it is, rather,
being used as an indefinite pronoun; it means 'the one, anyone', e.g.
Anyone who studies a lot gets a good grade.

MY CONFUSION

Reading this answer make the following sentence consider wrong -

It is she who stood second in class.

So another person came up with another rule -

RULE 2

Nominative personal pronouns can be modified by relative clauseas just
like demonstrative pronouns; it's the objective personal pronouns that
can't. He who, she who, they who, you who are all grammatical, if
archaic. Him who, her who, them who, however, aren't.

MY CONFUSION

Now this rule create a conflict with the rule 1 I quoted first. In the first rule it says - He with the hat knows her with the scarf - sentence is wrong, but if we consider the second rule then this particular sentence should be correct.

Another problem with the second rule is that it makes the following sentence incorrect -

The action was performed by her who is the secretary of XYZ company.

So another rule came in picture -

RULE 3

"Them," combined with the "who," has to be used with a preposition
like "to," "from," or "with."

"I pity them," by itself, is a grammatically correct sentence, but
when you connect the dependent clause with "who," it is no longer
correct.

Now I am really confused. Can anyone here please help?

grammar - The definite article before nouns mentioned for the first time

I've been taught that when one mentions an object for the first time and it's countable, one should use a/an before it.
I know that there are exceptions, when you speak of a renoun object which everybody knows, like the moon.

But I cannot see why the author uses definite articles in some places in this piece:

"It had better use THE advertisement with THE shirtless guy rather than THE shirtless girl."

That ad/guy/girl were mentioned in the text for the first time. Why does the author uses the definite article before them? And could you please provide some rule which would clarify the usage of articles for me?

Answer

You were taught wrong. (Or at least you were taught a rule that works much of the time, but doesn't always).

You use the definite article when you are referring to one specific item. Obviously "the moon" is a good example, but in your case there is (presumably) only one advert with the shirtless guy. Therefore you use the definite article. It doesn't matter if you are referring to it for the first time. It also doesn't matter that there may be many advertisements - there is only one with the shirtless guy, so that is the one we mean. The second part of the sentence qualifies the first.

Similarly there is only one shirtless guy and only one shirtless girl in the advertisements we are considering, so they also get the definite article.

If there were several advertisements with the shirtless guy the first article would become indefinite. If there were several shirtless guys the second article would become indefinite. If there were several shirtless girls the third article would become indefinite.

adverbs - "Not once he would" vs. "not once would he"

Not being a native speaker and suffering semantic satiation from overthinking this, I'd like to ask this probably overly simple question.

Not once would he...

uses reversal for negation and means "he wouldn't even once..."

Not once he would...

is litotes for "He would frequently..."

Is that correct or did I mess up? If I did mess up, how to correctly express the two meanings?

Answer

Actually, whether the "not once" construct means "never" or "several times" might depend on the rest of the sentence – not just the order of "he would" or "would he". For example, there's nothing wrong with:

Not once would he strike out, but three times that game.

grammar - Use of would and past tense

Can any of you, the respected teachers help me know which of the following is right: 1. It's been quoted that she would work diligently. She would earn a huge sum of money and then she would enjoy this with her friends on weekends. b. It's been quoted that she would work diligently. She earned a huge sum of money and then she enjoyed this with her friends on weekends. Look forward to your answer

prepositions - "like I" or "like me"?

In high school we learned to say "than I" and "as I" because you could potentially add an "am" to the end of the sentence. Examples:

"She is smarter than I." (Think: "...than I am.")
"He is as tall as I." (Think "...as I am.")

So analogously, shouldn't it be "like I" as well:

"He is sincere, just like I." (Think: "... like I am.") But universally, it seems that we use "like me". Where does this reasoning break down? Is there history here?

Answer

The rules you were taught are artificial. It is very rare to hear "as I" used in the way you have it in your examples out in the wild. It may be correct according to prescriptive English grammar, but it is not idiomatic to the language until you add the extra bits. One would say either:

She is smarter than me.

or

She is smarter than I am.

The same pattern emerges when looking at like. Used by itself, in idiomatic English, you would use the object pronoun when the word is used alone, and the subject pronoun when the phrase extends into a sentence-like structure.

Despite the vain longings of those few people who want English to be nice and neat (and have a one-to-one correspondence with Latin and Greek), our language has its wrinkles and inconsistencies. This is one of them.

past perfect - "Get used" vs "got used"

I'm learning English grammar with the book by Raymond Murphy: English Grammar in Use [3rd Edition]. In the exercises for unit 61, I have to complete the sentences using used to. I can't understand why I have to say get used to living instead of got used to living for this example:

Sue moved from a big house to a much smaller one. She found it strange at first. She had to __________ in a much smaller house.

Is it past simple or past perfect?

Answer

I can see why this would be confusing.

• She would have to get used to living in a smaller house.


• She had to get used to living in a smaller house.


• She had gotten used to living in a smaller house.


• She got used to living in a smaller house.

All of these are acceptable. Each has a slightly different time reference; the first one is looking ahead, and the last two are looking back.

As Brett indicated, the problem with the one in the book (had to got used to) is you don't use "got" after "to".

grammatical number - Which is it: "1½ years old" or "1½ year old"?

1½ is not yet 2 or more, so which do we properly say: "1½ years old" or "1½ year old"?

Answer

If the entry is part of a classification:

That kid is a one-and-a-half-year-old.

If the entry is describing the age of the person:

That kid is one and a half years old.

Both of these work, and work similarly for whole numbers:

That man is a 50-year-old [person].

That man is 50 years old.

word choice - Should "forty-year" in this context be hyphenated?

Mr. Willow’s more than forty-year experience in the industry persuaded me to apply.

Or is the following a better way of saying it?

Mr. Willow's more than forty years of experience in the industry persuaded me to apply.

Are they both correct, or should the hyphen in the first example be removed?

word order - A question on split-infinitive

A question on split-infinitive

I encountered the passage below from a website presented just below.

http://audiobookbay.nl/audio-books/the-political-pope-how-pope-francis-is-delighting-the-liberal-left-and-abandoning-conservatives-george-neumayr/#more-57024

But to Catholics in the pews, his pontificate is a source of
alienation. It is a pontificate, at times, beyond parody: Francis is
the first pope to approve of adultery, flirt with proposals to bless
gay marriages and cohabitation, tell atheists not to convert, tell

Catholics to not breed "like rabbits," praise the Koran, support a
secularized Europe, and celebrate Martin Luther.

In the italic part "not to convert" and "to not breed" has the same grammatical role with disparate forms. One with adverb modifier NOT before to infinitive, the other with Not just before infinitive.

Is the difference between two forms just one of styles without any difference of role or is there any profound difference that I don't know about?

(I posed this question because students in Asian areas learning English as a second language are having English grammar tests asking to recognize the error of TO NOT infinitive and to correct it to NOT TO infinitive. But as the sentence in question manifests the sort of test is out of date and inappropriate. Am I right?)

Answer

The primary problem with the sentence is not that there is a so-called split infinitive, with "not" being positioned between "to" and "breed." The primary problem is that the combination of "not to convert" with "to not breed" violates the rule of parallelism. To avoid the lack of parallel structure, the sentence should read as

either

Francis is the first pope to ... tell atheists not to convert, tell Catholics not to breed "like rabbits"

or

Francis is the first pope to ... tell atheists to not convert, tell Catholics to not breed "like rabbits"

I suspect many (most?) native users of English probably would not notice, and certainly not object to, splitting an infinitive with "not." But most native users would notice the lack of parallel structure resulting from combining "to not" with "not to" in a list.

As for whether it is acceptable to split infinitives, while there are some prescriptivists who will insist to their graves that the split infinitive is an abomination, there are strong arguments that the split infinitive is a widely accepted feature of standard English.

punctuation - Using a comma before "and" in a list

I am confused as to when commas are supposed to be used before the conjunction and.

This question answers it but I am still a bit confused.

For instance the following two sentences:

• I am going to buy apples, oranges, and bananas at the store.


• I am going to buy apples, oranges and bananas at the store.

Which of the above sentences is the correct usage of a comma?

Answer

Such use of a comma is often called a "serial comma" or an "Oxford comma".

It is typically a matter of style, at least where there is no ambiguity. For example, with or without the comma, your example statement

I am going to buy apples, oranges[,] and bananas at the store.

is not ambiguous. Omission/inclusion of the comma is optional. (According to Wikipedia, use of the Oxford comma is more popular in American English than British English.)

In certain situations the serial comma can resolve some ambiguity. In these cases it should be used:

I am going to buy soup, broccoli[,] and asparagus.

hyphenation - Should hyphens go between these examples?

I understand that we usually don't use hyphens when the meaning is clear (e.g- noise-cancelling headphones).

I am just a bit confused when the hyphen is put between just two words instead of more than one word acting as an adjective (for example- the down-to-earth man).

Would words such as "race car" and "tree house" need hyphens between them?

grammaticality - Is it grammatically acceptable to start a sentence with "That that..."

This is something that I've recently had someone tell me is not grammatically correct. Now, to be honest, it's not something I would likely ever use in everyday language but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not perfectly acceptable.

So, as an example:

That that you have eaten is poisonous.

This is similar (in my mind) to "That which...".

There are certainly examples of this both in modern usage (if you want to call it that), in the form of a Wikipedia article about ambiguity in a phrase that is missing punctuation:

That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is

According to this article's text, this phrase is grammatically acceptable:

The sequence can be understood as any of three grammatically-correct sequences, each with at least three discrete sentences, by adding punctuation:

• That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is.


• That that is, is that that is. Not is not. Is that it? It is.


• That that is, is that that is not. Is not "is that" it? It is.

But, Wikipedia is not always trustworthy.

This also appears historically, possibly the most noteworthy appearance is in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Hamlet, though the latter may not be the same usage.

Twelfth Night, Act 4 Scene 2:

Bonos dies, Sir Toby: for, as the old hermit of
Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily
said to a niece of King Gorboduc, 'That that is is;'
so I, being Master Parson, am Master Parson; for,
what is 'that' but 'that,' and 'is' but 'is'?

This is the fool, speaking in jest, though... one might suppose that poor grammar is used intentionally?

Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 1:

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

Here, I could see this as being a stand-alone sentence (That that earth should patch a wall...), so it may be applicable here... but I think the first "that" is not a pronoun here, so it may not be the same.

So, is there an explanation of this form? Is it acceptable? As you may expect, this is difficult to look up because there certainly are acceptable forms of "that that" that appear internally in sentences. This is not what I'm interested in.

Answer

It seems like this has been established in the comments, but in the interest of providing an answer, there's nothing ungrammatical about starting a sentence this way.

It's common to start a sentence with a pronoun and a determiner, as in this Confucius quote:

He who has really set his mind on virtue will do no evil.

Grammatically speaking, this is a variation on the same thing. Many writers, out of a belief that repeating a word is improper or just unpleasant, seem to substitute "which" for "that" in these situations. Ralph Waldo Emerson did so in the following quote:

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do

But by most contemporary prescriptive rules for choosing between "that" and "which," that should be used when the restrictive clause alters the meaning of the sentence. Emerson wasn't merely adding the clause about persistence as additional information:

That, which we persist in doing, becomes easier to do

Contemporarily and prescriptively speaking, a more strictly adhering phrase would be:

That that we persist in doing becomes easier to do.

Just like a contemporary writer would generally prefer

Something that we persist in doing becomes easier to do

rather than

Something which we persist in doing becomes easier to do

But few people will judge Emerson for his stylistic choice of writing "that which," especially in poetry.

Another alternative, if you're interested in avoiding "that-that," is to use "what." "What" by definition can mean the thing or things that.

What is, is.

What we persist in doing becomes easier to do.

As pointed out in the question, using "that that" isn't foreign to talented writers. It is just as grammatical as the alternatives, and in many cases would be an appropriate thing to write. But if you're more interested in style and less interested in adhering to rules, you can rephrase sentences like this, and you'll be in the company of great writers either way.