conjunction reduction - Repeating the definite article

I have a question about repeating the definite article. At my job, we have to discuss various cost elements. In our reports, people never repeat the definite article, but I think it's necessary. Here are some examples:

• The proposed and objective indirect costs are summarized below. VS. The proposed and the objective indirect costs are summarized below.




• The variance between the proposed and objective indirect costs equates to $450,000. VS. The variance between the proposed and the objective indirect costs equates to $450,000.

I believe that the term "indirect costs" is a non-count noun -- you are discussing a set of indirect costs (i.e., there are multiple different indirect costs items, such as engineering overhead, material overhead, G&A, etc).

Failing to repeat the definite article seems to suggest that you are referring to one set of indirect costs when you are really discussing 2 different sets of costs (i.e., the adjectives "proposed" and "objective" are referring to 2 different sets of costs/subjects). That said, the meaning is likely still clear within the context of the overall document. Should the definite article be repeated in this case?

Changing verb tense in a quote after ellipsis

I am using a block quote in my manuscript. The sentence starts off something like this:

Our approach provides a general procedure to deal with this problem by
using...

The block quote is a bit long and I'd rather cut it down to:

Our approach [...] uses...

but now I've changed the tense of using to uses. Is this appropriate? Do I need to make this clear, as in us[es]? That looks really bad.

What is the preferred way to deal with a change in verb tense created by the use of ellipsis?

Answer

Yes, the formally correct way to indicate that you have changed a direct quotation is by using brackets, but I would use them around the whole word you changed, like so:

"Our approach ... [uses] blah blah blah."

As StoneyB points out in the comments below, some styles prefer you to put the "..." in brackets as well, so it's clear that they weren't part of the original quotation. This does not appear to be universal, but should be equally acceptable.

"Our approach [... uses] blah blah blah."

grammar - Are contractions "open"?

My apologies if this has been asked and answered before.

I know that word classes can either be open or closed; for example, nouns are an open word class and allow for new nouns to be created to communicate new meanings.

I also know that contractions are not a part of speech in themselves, but I recently had a debate with a friend over whether it was grammatically correct to create new contractions the same way other words are. I was arguing that it is acceptable, and I wanted to use the point that contractions are "open" as nouns or verbs would be, but that isn't quite right. Is it grammatically correct to create new contractions? If so, what grammatical rule or property would allow it? The word in question, if it helps, was "how're", as in "How're you doing?"

Thanks for your time.

prepositions - Is the structure "X, whom I've had the pleasure of being the mentor of" proper?

John is the mentor of Anna. John introduces Anna as:

1. "Anna, whom I've had the pleasure of being the mentor of".

Would the following be more correct?

2. "Anna, of whom I've had the pleasure of being the mentor"

Answer

The second way is only "more correct" if you don't like ending phrases like that with prepositions. Many people might think it sounds weirdly formal.

subjects - Who vs. whom when the he/him test is unclear

I'm not sure whether the following sentence requires who/whom:

Does anyone know who/whom I can speak with about that?

If a similar sentence began with who/whom, it would be "whom." Whom can I speak with about that? You can speak with "him" about that. Note, however, that this example uses "can I" vs. "I can."

However, I think the answer is "who" in this case. "Who I can speak with about that" is the direct object of "know."

Does anyone know what? Does anyone know "who I can speak with about that"?

Is it correct that since who/whom is part of a clause and not a direct object by itself (the whole clause is), the default answer is "who"?

I understand that "whom" has fallen out of use, but, nevertheless, I hope I can receive a detailed answer about the correct usage for the sake of improving my grammar.

Answer

• Does anyone know who/whom I can speak with about that?

As noted, the question to ask is what function the Wh-word has in the subordinate clause. If it's the subject of that clause, it has to be who. But I is the subject, so that's not a consideration.

If it's not the subject, then what is it? It would appear that the Wh-word refers to the object of speak with:

• I can speak with Indef about that

So, since it's an object, you are officially allowed to use whom, if you really want to.
Remember, however, that using whom at all, ever, marks your speech as more formal than usual.

Remember also that most other English speakers don't know the official rule (Consider: you're confused about it -- how many others are?), and they often make up their own erroneous rules, which will cause them to judge your use of whom as incorrect, even if it is officially correct. So if you're using whom to be "correct", you'll have to be satisfied by your own superiority. In other words, you can't win.

The only reasonable solution is to never use whom. It serves no purpose and fulfills no need that you can't satisfy by using who (or occasionally that) instead. The only place it's actually required in English is as the object of a Pied-Piped preposition, i.e,

• Does anyone know with whom I can speak about that?

is OK, but

• *Does anyone know with who I can speak about that?

is ungrammatical.

Pied-Piping requires whom, but stranding the with at the end is equally grammatical,
since Pied-Piping is optional; and it's far more fluent:

• Does anyone know who I can speak with about that?

... though my conversational American English would prefer:

• Does anybody know who I can talk to about that?

grammar - Pronunciation of ‘an hundred’

I just saw a number of comments complaining about the first n in the phrase ‘an Herculean task’, claiming it implied a mute h. But is that true? My impression has been that earlier all words on h + vowel got an an, regardless of whether or not the h was mute. Was ‘an hundred’ pronounced ‘an undred’?

PS. Let me be clearer that I am not asking about standard contemporary usage. I never doubted that ‘an Herculean task’ had an archaïc ring to it. But the fact that something is archaïc does not make it wrong.

grammar - Did I show you my graduation photo or have I shown you my graduation photo?

So I was on my way home from school, and I overheard two people talking about something. The one asked the other:

''Did I show you my graduation photo?'', I asked my self whether it shouldn't be ''Have I shown you my graduation photo?'', since it is a link to the present.

The two people weren't native speakers and neither am I, but I have a feeling that both are correct in AE.

Could anyone enlighten me about which one is correct.

Thank you

Answer

Normally questions with "Did you ...?" refer to a definite time in the past indicated with adverbs or adverbials such as yesterday, lately, last week, last year etc.

And normally questions with "Have you + past participle" ask about a fact with no regard as to when it was. A professor of literature might ask a student "Have you read Hamlet/Beowulf? The professor wants to know whether the answer is yes or no.

These are the normal uses, but in real life questions asking for facts are also done with "Did you...?" as has already been said in the posts above. Why? Well, I think in colloquial language it's a bit cumbersome to analye such questions and in fast talk there is often no time for such analyzing. So the grammar system is often simplified and speakers use "Did you...?" when actually "Have you ...?" should be
used.

possessives - Using apostrophes correctly

I've read a great article about the usage of apostrophes. But there are still some points that are unclear.

Why do we say...

• school project but not school's project?


• car service but not car's service or even cars' service (plural form)?


• apostrophe usage but not apostrophe's usage or apostrophes' usage?

Answer

Because all three are compound nouns, which have nothing to do with the Saxon genitive. "Car service" is a type of service. "Car's service" would be service owned by a car. Much like railway is a type of way, not a way belonging to a rail. Compounds don't have to be written as one word, though. That is all.

idioms - Is there a more modern way to say "it's a pity"?

Is it okay nowadays to use the phrase "it's a pity" in the everyday conversation in the contexts like in following example:

"Please how do I get to airport?"
"It's a pity, I don't know."

If not, what would be an appropriate equivalent?

Edited (added):

As it follows from answers, this phrase is almost never used by native English speakers. Could you please specify how this phrase sounds for native speaker - as too formal or as archaic or anything else?

Answer

Certainly "I don't know, I'm afraid" is more common in England today. In this particular context, referring to yourself, I would say it sounds more archaic than formal.

"It's a shame" would often be used in other circumstances, e.g. "It's a shame the weather spoiled the event." Today "it's a pity" would be more commonly used in such a circumstance.

grammar - Past Perfect vs Past Simple

The following quotation is from Greg Egan's novel Permutation City:

The terrace house, one hundred and forty years old, was shaped like a cereal box. It had originally been part of a row of eight; four on one side had been gutted and remodeled into offices for a firm of architects; the other three had been demolished at the turn of the century to make way for a road that had never been built.

I'm wondering why the Past Perfect is so heavily used in the second sentence? I know that quite often P/Perfect and P/Simple can be used interchangeably:

The past perfect is neutral as regards the differences expressed by the past tense and present perfect. This means that if we put the events further into the past, they both end up in the past perfect...
When describing one event following another in the past, we can show their relation by using the past perfect for the earlier event, or else we can use the past tense for both, relying on a conjunction (e.g. after, before, when) to show which event took place earlier...
(Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik - A Communicative Grammar of English)

So, it seems the quotation from Egan's novel might be rendered as follows:

The terrace house, one hundred and forty years old, was shaped like a cereal box; two stories high, but scarcely wide enough for a staircase. Originally it was a part of a row of eight; four on one side were gutted and remodeled into offices for a firm of architects; the other three were demolished at the turn of the century to make way for a road that had never been built.

Is there any difference in meaning? Which of the variants seems better worded? I don't know English well enough to be able to assess such nuances. For my ear Egan's style sounds a bit heavy. He uses Pluperfect very intensively which results in phrases like this one, for one more example:

When he had asked for a package of results that would persuade “the skeptics” about the prospects for an Autoverse biosphere, he hadn’t been thinking of academics in the artificial life scene. He’d wanted to convince his clients that... and so on.

Why not put it simply?

When he asked for a package of results that would persuade “the skeptics” about the prospects for an Autoverse biosphere, he wasn’t thinking of academics in the artificial life scene. He wanted to convince his clients that...

What is your opinion?

What is the word for deciding between two equally pleasant alternatives?

A word like Dilemma.I know of deciding between two unpleasant alternatives.

pronunciation - Is the "ng" sound often pronounced simultaneously with the "n" sound?

Don't native speakers in some regions pronounce [ŋ] simultaneously with the [n] sound in order to connect it without releasing the "g"?

For instance, can the word "singer" instead of sɪŋ·ər, be pronounced more like sɪŋn·ər?

I'm asking because every time I try to pronounce that word, the "g" sound is released automatically, even though it's very slight, and the only way to avoid it is adding the "n" sound.

My native language is Russian.

Answer

Firstly, native English speakers do not add an extra n after the /ŋ/ in the word singer, though some do have the same issue as you with having difficulty producing /ŋ/ in the middle of words like singer and singing.

The "ng" sound in medial and final word position can be challenging for native Russian speakers. What's happening is that /ŋ/ is a continuant sound, and if you release the tongue from the sealed position for the /ŋ/ while you are still producing airflow, you will make a /g/ or /k/ sound because the release of the built-up air produces the sound.

The way to avoid this problem is to begin to shape the vowel for the "-er" before releasing the /ŋ/ tongue position, and to release the tongue gently into the vowel. If no air is allowed to build up, the plosive/stop g sound will not be produced.

You can hear the pronunciation of singer in this video: https://youtu.be/c-3HtmE5muY
and get more information about the /ŋ/ phoneme in American English in this video: https://youtu.be/-DZ5GICTHVU

I will be making a more specific video to help with words with "-nger" and "-inging" in the future, as I have heard from many Russian and other non-native speakers that these are particularly difficult to make without the "g" sound intruding. I'll add it to this post as an edit when it's complete.

verbs - Does "help" take the preposition "to"?

I've seen the verb "help" be used transitively and intransitively - in the latter case, followed by the preposition "to" - in various sentences. For example, these should have identical meaning:

I'll help you do it. / I'll help you to do it.
Jim helps run the shop. / Jim helps to run the shop.

Should it be used intransitively in this way, though? If we have a transitive version, doesn't it make sense to use that instead if we're using this verb with an infinitive? It also seems to me that using "help" intransitively in this way can lead to ambiguity; for example:

It helps to buy holidays.

... could mean that some previously stated thing helps with the process of buying holidays, or that buying holidays - in general - helps something. What would be the more likely meaning of the above sentence?

Answer

The to in all of the sentences above is not a preposition.

It's an infinitive complementizer, i.e, a meaningless word that introduces the verb in an infinitive clause complement, the same way the complementizer that introduces a tensed clause complement in

• I think that you're wrong.

Such complementizers are often deleted, though this depends on the matrix verb.

• I think you're wrong.

In the case of help, the to complementizer is optional for Object complements

• I helped her to pick out the presents.


• I helped her pick out the presents.

but required for Subject complements

• To buy bread daily helps me.


• *Buy bread daily helps me.

even when they're Extraposed and leave a Dummy it in subject position

• It helps me to buy bread daily.


• *It helps me buy bread daily.

However, if the it is not a dummy, and actually refers to some real thing, then the complement is an object complement, not a subject complement, and the to is optional.

• It (i.e, the bus line) helps me buy bread daily.

To avoid confusion, avoid ambiguous pronouns, and distinguish dummy it from referential it.

subjects - "as bad at English as me" vs. "as bad at English as I"

1. He was almost as bad at English as me.




2. He was almost as bad at English as I.

The first one sounds better as-is, but not when you change the second one to He was almost as bad at English as I was.

Which is correct?

Answer

To begin with, one and another are bad at English:

• He was bad at English.


• I was bad at English.

Using "almost as___as" to compare your proficiency, in full, one writes:

He was almost as bad at English as I [was].

The construction,

He was almost as bad at English as me,

though more familiar to the ears, is wrong, as me (object pronoun) cannot take the place of he (subject pronoun) in the sentence, which is always a good way to check if these constructions are right:

• Me was almost as bad at English as he [was] ?!

If one does this switch with I, though, then it makes sense:

• I was almost as bad at English as he [was].

Errors in the usage of subject/object pronouns are quite common, especially when comparing things. In this example, the pronoun[s] used must always be the subject form. Other examples:

• Jake was almost as bad at English as I [was].


• I was almost as bad at English as she [was].


• They were almost as bad at English as he [was].


• He was almost as bad at English as they [were].


• She was almost as bad at English as we* [were].

Using us in place of we is probably the next most popular error after I/me. Very frequently, one hears comparisons such as the following:

• They are better than us


• He's just as bad as us

Though colloquial, this usage is ungrammatical. Again, one can always perform the switch in order to verify the correctness of a comparison:

• Us are better than they ?!


• Us are just as bad as he ?!

It is clear that we is the correct pronoun choice.

The wrong usage of them in place of they is also another common error in this regard.

word choice - In reply to "Do they have...", which is correct — "yes, they do" or "yes, they have"?

My daughter is in an 5th grade English class in Germany with a teacher who teaches British English.

The teacher asked what is the correct response to

Do they have some?

My daughter, who has learned mostly from hearing American English spoken, responded:

Yes, they do.

The teacher said that she should instead say:

Yes, they have.

What is going on here? Is this a difference between American/British English or is one of these more correct than the other?

Answer

Your daughter is correct: in standard British (or US) English, it should be “Yes, they do.”

The key here is that do, not have, is the auxiliary verb. Have can sometimes be an auxiliary, but in this sentence it’s the main verb. So:

“Do they like pizza?” “Yes, they do.”

“Have they had lunch yet?” “Yes, they have.”

“Do they have some?” “Yes, they do.”

(In some dialects, your teacher’s form would be fine; also, it was quite standard historically. But I think (though I’m not sure) that most speakers who’d use that form would also pose the question differently, inverting the main verb without using an auxiliary do, and would still match the verb of the answer to the initial verb of the question: “Have they any?” “Yes, they have.” parallel to “Heard ye the tidings?” “Yes, I heard.”)

grammar - In "go to sleep", is "to" a particle or a preposition?

In the phrase go to sleep, I've always thought of sleep as a noun by analysis with go to school, which would make to a preposition. However, sleep could possibly be interpreted as a verb, which would make to a particle.

Are both interpretations correct, or just one?

grammar - Double possessive: a friend of Steven's

I am wondering about the "double possessive" I have been reading about.

I have a couple of sentences as an example:

He’s a new client of Jane and Kevin’s and a close childhood friend of Steven O’Neill’s.

I thought that the above sentence was correct, because it sounds natural to use the apostrophe S to me, in the same way that we say "he's a friend of mine."

However, I have heard people criticize sentences such as that one above as having a "double possessive" because of the OF as well as the apostrophe S.

Is the above sentence correct or should it be:

He’s a new client of Jane and Kevin and a close childhood friend of Steven O’Neill.

Thank you - any help would be greatly appreciated.

grammar - Bootcamp or Boot Camp?

As the title says, what is the correct version of these two words in English (GB)? I get mixed results when trying to look this up on Google.

I'm building a replacement website for a client that offers bootcamp/boot camp training classes. Her former website uses the word 'bootcamp' but after doing market research on her competitors for the purposes of search engine optimisation, I'm finding some companies are using 'boot camp' and some 'bootcamp'.

It's quite important to get this right, as search engines today ignore the keywords meta tag, meaning I can't add both versions, so I'm forced to use one of the other and I would like to get it right.

Answer

Both are correct, especially on the web.

I did two corpus searches to see which came up more.

Corpus of Contemporary American English:

• Bootcamp: 39.


• Boot camp: 1101.

News on the Web (NOW):

• Bootcamp: 4585.


• Boot camp: 8372.

So in American media and publications, boot camp is far more common. However, in web publishing, bootcamp and boot camp are both common, though boot camp still occurs more frequently. Especially on the web, bootcamp is frequent enough that it is a valid option as well.

negation - Negative in a question with various negative valence words

so I was walking to a very nice place in Berlin today only to find it empty yet again. I was asking myself why this is... and now I am confused.
Which of the following forms of asking are correct? Which are proper English sentences and which are not grammatically correct? Finally which is the best choice (if that doesn't depend on opinion):

a) Why isn't there ever anyone?

b) Why is there never anyone?

c) Why is no one ever there?

c1) Why is there never no one?

d) Why is there never someone?

e) Why isn't there no one ever?

f) Why isn't there ever someone?

I am obviously not a native, so please don't be too focused on words order (or edit the question if need be)... I really want to know what would be the best combination of words?

Answer

You need to disambiguate the word there. In sentence c. it is an adverb of place, whereas in all the other sentences it is the dummy subject. In fact, my native-speaker ears find sentences with both theres better. My preference would be for:

• a) Why isn't there ever anyone there?

or, best of all:

• b) Why is there never anyone there?

Sentence c. also sounds ok:

• c) Why is no one ever there?

How to choose between British and American English for technical documents

I'm not a native English speaker. I'm Italian and I'm doing my thesis in the Netherlands. I have to write technical documents for non-native English speakers, so I didn't receive any advice for choosing which one dialect (British or American) to use, as long as I stay consistent.

My concern comes from the fact that, while British is the original form, American is more related to my field of interest (electronics) and, I would say, more related to the spread of English as universal language.

Is there any reason because I should use one over the other?

My audience is not well specified because the document is meant to be conserved, but most likely European people, not necessarily Dutch.

Answer

Actually I'm a writer. The difference is enormous. You probably cannot write a single sentence that would please a rigorous editor in the U.S. and a similarly qualified person in the U.K.!

It is not just a question of spelling a few words. The differences are so pervasive that I personally as a professional U.S. writer would be incapable of writing text which would not be massively re-written if I submitted it to a British editor.

So yes, you have to choose. Questions to consider, in order of importance.

1. Which are you most comfortable in already? Your text above read nicely to me, so I suspect perhaps you are most comfortable in American English.




2. Which English does your editor speak? If you write your text in perfect American English and your editor has learned British English, it's going to be a long, hard edit.




3. Which type of English are your source materials written in? It's going to be a lot easier to write American English if all the texts you are drawing from are in American English. And of course the reverse is true!

I suggest relying on these factors since it's impossible to know whether your audience prefers British or American English. Britain is closer geographically for Europeans, and BE is the language often used in airports, hotels and train stations. However, many Europeans have spent time in the U.S., or at least watch American movies. In the scientific realm, there are more publications written in American English so scientists may have more exposure to it.

grammar - 'In vs 'of' which one to use?

I have a sentence which I am very confused about which one is correct:

"Currently they are also the market leader in digital marketing of The Netherlands."

Other possibilities:

"Currently they are also the market leader in digital marketing in The Netherlands."

"Currently they are also the market leader of digital marketing in The Netherlands."

Kind regards

Answer

I can understand the confusion. Each sentence is slightly different and it's not very easy to see why. The first sentence is the most different in my opinion. 'Of' makes it seem like the Netherlands is being marketed by the company, as opposed to the company being the leader of marketing in the Netherlands.

The second sentence is right on the money as far as getting the point across is concerned. I assume the point of the sentence is to say that the company is the most prominent digital marketing company in the Netherlands. I'm also assuming 'they' is referring to a company, however, that isn't really important.

The third sentence is slightly off the point. The 'of' makes it seem as though the company is the leader of digital marketing in the same way an alpha wolf is the leader of a wolf pack. In other words, it seems like they make the rules on how digital marketing is to allowed to be done.

The use of 'of' in these cases indicates what is being acted on. "Currently they are also the market leader in digital marketing of The Netherlands." The Netherlands is being marketed by the market leader. "Currently they are also the market leader of digital marketing in The Netherlands." They are leading digital marketing.

'In' is just indicating where the action is happening. "Currently they are also the market leader in digital marketing in The Netherlands." Where are they leading digital marketing? In the Netherlands. Where are they leading in the Netherlands? Are they leading in basketball, sales, labor, what? They are leading in digital marketing.

syntactic analysis - Should I use the word "that" in a sentence when it is not required?

In this sentence

My sister told me that she didn't want pancakes for breakfast.

The sentence would still make sense even if the word "that" is taken out. How would one decide to use the word "that" in a sentence? Is it considered better writing when "that" is not used when it is not required?

Answer

Short answer

As a rough rule of thumb, if the verb in the main clause is both high frequency and simple, we tend to prefer to omit that [except in highly formal writing]. In other circumstances we normally prefer to leave it in.

---

Full answer

My sister told me that she didn't want pancakes for breakfast.

In the sentence above, the phrase she didn't want pancakes for breakfast is a Complement of the adjective told. This type of clause is known as a content clause (as opposed to a relative clause, or a comparative clause).

Content clauses are often introduced by the subordinator that:

• I know [that you ate my last chocolate biscuit].

We only use that with declarative content clauses, not interrogative ones or exclamative ones:

• *I wonder that if she is going to the party. (ungrammatical)


• *I saw that how big the elephant was! (ungrammatical)

When to use that in declarative content clauses

We always use that with a content clause when a content clause is the Subject of a sentence:

• [That you were late again] will not impress the powers that be.


• *[You were late again] will not impress the powers that be. (ungrammatical)

We also always use that if the content clause has been moved to a position before the Subject:

• [That I need help] I freely admit.

The sentence above is a version of I freely admit that I need help, where the Complement of admit has been moved to before the Subject, I.

We rarely use that if the content clause is the Complement of a preposition:

• I will see you after you've finished your meeting.


• *I will see you after that you have finished your meeting. (ungrammatical)

[There are a handful of very unusual prepositions such as notwithstanding which allow that.]

In nearly all other cases where the content clause is the Complement of a verb, noun, or adjective the word that is optional. It can be omitted or included as you see fit:

• I know that you ate my biscuits.


• I know you ate my biscuits.


• I'm happy you ate my biscuits


• I am happy that you ate my biscuits.


• The fact you ate my biscuits really gets my goat.


• The fact that you ate my biscuits really gets my goat.

We are far more likely to omit that it's the Complement of a simple high frequency verb, adjective or noun. We are also far less likely to omit that in formal writing:

• The notion you ate my biscuit is laughable. (slightly awkward because of notion)


• We therefore need to underline we going to be there. (awkward because formal and because of the long as well as low frequency verb underline)

Conclusion

In the Original Poster's sentence the content clause is the complement of the simple and high frequency verb tell. The context is also not formal. The Original Poster can therefore freely omit that. The sentence will be both grammatical and appropriate.

---

References

^{Most of this information is available in: A Student's Introduction to English Grammar Huddleston & Pullum, 2005.}

grammar - walk-through, walkthrough, or walk through?

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.

dictionaries - Hyphenation (end-of-line division) of "Germany" and some other common words

I am currently trying to build a database of English words and their hyphenations (end-of-line divisions) (en-US, if it matters), and thereby have come across some words which I have found contradicting hyphenations for. If those words were exotic, I would not be wondering about it, but some of them are frequently used. For example:

• Germany: Merriam-Webster - Ger-ma-ny; Hunspell (which by far is the most dominant spell checker and hyphenator in the open source scene, driving applications like LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and the like) - Ger-many




• freely: Merriam-Webster - free-ly; Hunspell - freely




• rapid: Merriam-Webster - rap-id; Hunspell - rapid

I have read a lot of articles (most of them on this site) about hyphenation. The general consensus seems to be that we should look up the respective word and its hyphenation in authoritative sources. But what if those sources contradict each other?

Another advice which often was given was that we just should hyphenate between syllables. Since I am not a native English speaker, this is extremely difficult for me. While I would have done it right with Germany and freely, I would never have done it right with rapid (in my world, it would have been ra-pid).

I always have considered the Oxford English Dictionary to be the most authoritative English dictionary. Imagine my surprise when I saw that they neither show hyphenation nor syllabication. The Wiktionary does show hyphenation, but only for some words; the examples mentioned above, being very common words, are not among them, so it's worthless in this respect.

Could somebody please give me a hint what I should do if two important sources which both can (somehow) be considered authoritative show contradicting hyphenations, and even more important, could somebody please tell me if there is a reliable method to identify words which are suspect in this respect in the first place?

To explain the latter: I am currently using the hunspell data to build my database semi-automatically; otherwise, I couldn't handle it. The hunspell data is the only one I have found to be usable to get the hyphenation of a word quite easily.

As a second step, I would like to be able to identify and separate suspect words, which I then could look up manually in different sources (hoping that only about 5% of the words are suspect).

EDIT 1

As a reaction to one of the comments, I now have found a word where at least 3 characters are left at each side after hyphenation, but where different "authorities" hyphenate differently:

Microsoft Word 2010 hyphenates inconceivable as in-con-ceiv-a-ble, where Merriam-Webster has in-con-ceiv-able.

Another one: Merriam-Webster says cli-ent, where hunspell says client, i.e. does not hyphenate that word at all.

EDIT 2

@Hot Licks has pointed out that the dictionaries are showing syllable boundaries, not hyphenation points (if any). However, at least in case of Merriam-Webster, this is the same. From their dictionary API documentation:

...    (text = boldface)
    HEADWORD
    - This is the first bold word in an entry
    - contains "syllable" break points (that is, 
      end-of-line hyphenation points) here indicated 
      by asterisks, which will translate to raised dot, 

      {point} in Merriam-Webster font. 
    - may contain superscript homograph numbers 
      {h,1}, {h,2}, etc., in the same font (bold)
    - single word space after  field

Please note the text following the second hyphen. IMHO, that means that each syllable boundary is a hyphenation point, and vice versa.

EDIT 3

I have found more precise information. From Merriam-Webster's guide to pronunciation:

Hyphens are used to separate syllables in pronunciation
transcriptions. [...]

The centered dots in boldface entry words indicate potential
end-of-line division points and not syllabication. [...] As a
result, the hyphens indicating syllable breaks and the centered
dots indicating end-of-line division often do not fall in the same

places.

What is the adverb for 'seasoned'?

I am looking for a word that means the blend of maturely, beautifully, and correctly and has to be used the way some art is executed, for example:

Just for the sheer beauty of it, without understanding it, do you enjoy any language? if spoken in a seasoned way?

I fell in love with her house! the calligraphy on her wall was done so seasonedly?

I know that word doesn't exist, that's why I am asking :)

Answer

I don't think I'd use seasoned like that. It means flavoured, prepared or weathered; not mature, beautiful and correct. Perhaps the word you're looking for is expertly or artfully, which would fit both examples.

grammar - Can't decide between She/her

I have 3 questions regarding she/her and my logic is posted below:

1. Only one of the contestants was chosen, she/her.

I think the answer is "she" and here's my logic:
This sentence is written in the passive voice so the subject no longer "does" an action or "is" something, but rather is acted upon. "One" is the simple subject here despite the fact that she is not choosing. And I believe the "she/her" is an appositive that's placed at the end of the sentence instead of placed right next to the word it's describing; therefore, the proper pronoun here is "she" because subjects take the nominative case. If I place the pronoun right after "one of the contestants", "she" would be the appropriate appositive here in formal language.

"Only one of the contestants, she, was chosen"

2. Was it she/her you hoped to find?

I think it's "she" because "she" is a predicate nominative here so it takes the subject form in formal language. If I mess with the syntax, I can get the following:

"It was she you hoped to find."

In this rearranged sentence, "she" is the predicate nominative and takes the subject case, while "you hoped to find" is just some adjective clause describing this woman.

3. Congratulations on beating everyone else in the Pokemon League...but there's still one more opponent left--me!"

I'm assuming the "me" part is shortened for "It is me" In that case, I would go with "I" because it's the predicate nominative of the clause.

Do we choose "me" or "I" in this sentence? "Me" sounds better, but is there some rule here I'm missing?

-

I'm not sure if my reasoning is entirely correct. Thanks in advance.

Link on Predicate Nominatives:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/it-is-i-versus-it-is-me

Answer

Traditional/prescriptivist "grammar rules" (the kind that you might be tested on) aren't a complete system for creating natural-sounding sentences

You didn't mention the source of these sentences in your original post. In a comment, you clarified that they are adapted from the following questions in Paragraphs and Essays with Integrated Readings, 12th Ed., by Lee Brandon and Kelly Brandon:

• "19. Was it (I, me) you hoped to find?"




• "7. Only two were chosen, Kathy and (he, him)."

  
  
  

  (p. 512)

This is a typical context where you might be expected to apply prescriptivist "grammar rules". According to that framework, the answers to 19. and 7. would be "I" and "he" respectively.

Note that you aren't being told to write your own sentences, but to choose one option in a sentence that you are given.

The "rules" you use to answer questions like this aren't the rules that English speakers unconsciously rely on to construct natural-sounding sentences, and they aren't even exactly the same as the rules that English speakers consciously rely on to construct formal, but non-archaic-sounding written texts.

The traditional rules don't constitute a fully productive grammatical system. Rather, they explain the form of certain special constructions that are used and thought of as "correct" in rather formulaic expressions. For example, "The only people there were John and I" is much more likely as an example of a "predicate nominative" than the "The only people there were the pastor and we". Writing guides may recognize exceptions to the traditional rules when they produce results that are judged as being too stilted; for example, this post from the Grammarphobia blog, by Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman, says "In all but the most formal writing, “It’s me” is now acceptable" (How should you answer the phone?).

Natural-sounding sentences don't follow traditional "rules" (they do follow rules, just not the same ones)

For me, the natural spoken forms equivalent to the three sentences that you mention would be as follows:

1. Only one of the contestants was chosen: her.




2. Was she the one you hoped to find?




3. Congratulations on beating everyone else in the Pokemon League ... but there's still one more opponent left—me!

Basically for the reasons given in Araucaria's answer. The function of the English pronoun form often called "accusative" is really not analogous to the function of the accusative case in languages like Latin, Russian or German, so you can't just rely on principles like "subjects take the nominative case" and "appositives take the same case as their antecedents" and expect them to apply unproblematically (even in formal English). In a number of contexts, English "accusative" forms have what could be informally labelled a "disjunctive" role: they seem to be used as a kind of default form in a variety of contexts (this is covered in many other posts on this site; e.g. "Who wants ice-cream?" — Should I say "(not) I" or "(not) me"?) From the formal perspective of the modern science of linguistics, Araucaria's formulation relating the "nominative" case in English to finite/tensed verbs seems to be common, and from some perspectives, that makes the English case distinction not really a true nominative/accusative distinction at all. Omer Preminger says "insofar as English has anything you’d want to call
‘nominative’, it's [...] the thing we’ve been calling ‘accusative’ or
‘objective’ case" ("Case in 2017: some thoughts", p. 29).

To sound natural in formal language, rephrase

If I was trying to sound formal, and also to avoid violating any rule that has ever been proposed by any prescriptivist, I would say something like the following:

1. Only one of the contestants was chosen: it was she.




2. Was it she whom you hoped to find?




3. I congratulate you for defeating everyone else in the Pokemon League ... but you still have one more opponent left—me!

Rewording sounds much better than using bare "she" and "I" at the ends of sentences 1) and 3). Replacing "Congratulations on beating" with "I congratulate you for defeating" isn't a matter of grammar, but it increases the formality. Even with heightened formality, I couldn't find a way to make "there is still one more opponent left—I" sound natural, so I would reword instead.

If you can't rephrase ... you can be "correct", but it will sound bad

If you somehow need to stick with the original wording, and just choose which out of "she" or "her" would be preferred by an extreme "stickler" prescriptivist, your reasoning is correct for that purpose. In traditional grammar, "nominative" forms are used to match the case of a nominative antecedent, or as a "default" case in certain context (see some of the citations in my question "Being [he/him] is not easy." Which is prescriptively "correct"? or in the answers there).

1. Only one of the contestants was chosen, she.

   
   
   

   Despite sounding awkward, or possibly outright unacceptable, to a modern English speaker, "she" would be correct according to traditional rules because of the principle of case-matching (with the nominative NP "(only) one of the contestants", as you mentioned), or failing that, because of the principle that nouns take nominative case as independent elements of a sentence.





2. Was it she you hoped to find?

   
   
   

   This certainly ought to be nominative according to the traditional rule of matching the case of the subject and the case of the complement of a copular verb.




3. Congratulations on beating everyone else in the Pokemon League ... but there's still one more opponent left—I!"

   
   
   

   Rather than calling "I" a shortening of ""It is I" in 3), I would say that it is appositive to "one more opponent (left)". But the exact terminology and analysis of "appositives" is fairly messy anyways, and it doesn't lead to a different answer (because according to traditional prescriptivists, "one more opponent" in "There's still one more opponent left" would be analyzed as a nominative NP).

As I said, being able to choose the "correct" option in contexts like this is of limited practical value. You can construct all kinds of sentences that are "technically correct" according to the standards of archaic prescriptivism, but that sound terrible and won't be effective at producing whatever effect you actually want to produce in your readers/listeners.

grammatical number - Should a noun following "singular they" be singular or plural?

I've understood how to use singular they on a single sentence, but the problem comes with articulated sentences like this one:

If a person lies to you this way, they are probably thieves.

My doubt is about its correctness, I would also say it this way:

If a person lies to you this way, they are probably a thief.

Is the second sentence correct?

Answer

Try:

If {a person / someone} lies to you like this, they are probably a thief. [Singular subject]

If people lie to you like this, they're probably thieves. [Plural subject]

copular verbs - Does English allow a zero copula in subordinate clauses?

In a casual search of the web, I found a few indications English does not allow zero copulas (https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/a/1468). However, I frequently see sentences with subordinate clauses that juxtapose a noun phrase with an adverb phrase, such as the following from a contemporary sci-fi author:

Kai stares up at me from the grave, his eyes hard as obsidian.

If this clause were made into a sentence, it would take an obligatory verb:

*His eyes hard as obsidian.
His eyes are hard as obsidian.

The original clause seems to contain an implicit "to be." Is it an example of a zero copula? If not, what is this construction called?

Answer

It depends on your definition of a clause. The traditional definition is "a finite verb and all its dependencies"; then your phrase is not a clause.

The construction is called an absolute construction: a noun and an attribute together forming an adverbial constituent.

Subject-verb agreement with plural nouns

I am confused about numbers. Which one is correct?

Goals is what makes me feel alive.

or

Goals are what makes me feel alive.

And another example I am confused about:

Another factor is his enemies...

or

Another factor are his enemies...

Answer

In the first statement, the subject is clearly plural. This demands a plural verb: are.

The second statement is a bit confusing, because the subject is not very clear, partly because the sentence is not complete, so it is difficult to see the entire picture, but also because there is an understood "that" missing.

It is tempting to take enemies as the subject, but that is incorrect. The subject is "factor".

Another factor is [that] his enemies were gathering around him.

This is much clearer than:

Another factor are his enemies were gathering around him.

Is "when" a preposition?

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

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

I had intended the correction to be this sentence:

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

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

grammar - Location - sentence constructions

Having studied English from an early age, I've been always taught that English has a fixed sentence structure and words within it appear in a fixed order.

For example, one is supposed to say: A pen is on the table. Or: There is a pen on the table. According to this principle (the subject coming before the predicate), one shouldn't say: On the table is a pen.

However, reading some English books and articles, I've noticed a violation of this rule. I've seen it in sentences like these:

• In the east is the Atlantic coast.


• In the far north is the famous Arctic region.


• In the mountain region are big deposits of coal.

What is the justification of these structures? Are they correct?

Comma usage and properly identifying clauses in sentence

I cannot figure out whether or not I need a comma between the word "cigarettes" and "according" in the following sentence:

More college students are using marijuana daily than smoking
cigarettes according to a national survey released Tuesday.

My gut tells me the first clause is independent and the second dependent, which would mean I do not need a comma. Is this correct? Am I correct in thinking independent clause + dependent clause does not need a comma?

word usage - What is the history of “partner” being used to refer to boyfriend–girlfriend relationships?

In North America (especially Canada and the United States), the word partner is more and more commonly used to describe someone who would otherwise traditionally have been called a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Why is this, and what is the history behind it?

In trying to answer this question, I came up with a number of theories, but I haven’t been able to verify them, so I’m interested to see whether an expert can shed light on what’s happening here.

Just to be clear, I understand the historical etymology of partner. My question comes from the recent use of the word by people who would not have used it just a few decades ago.

---

These are my theories:

1. Political Correctness — With the rise of gay culture and the acceptance of same-sex relations in the Western world, partner provides a gender-neutral word to describe someone’s significant other. By using partner, a person would not have to reveal the sex of their significant other, and so this use, especially among the internet and counter-cultures, in the name of political correctness, then spread to opposite-sex couples.




2. Relationship Complexities — Boyfriend and girlfriend are somehow perceived as narrowly defining a relationship, implying certain undesirable characteristics about that couple’s relationship. With the growth of the internet, casual dating, and delayed marriage, relationships have become more complicated than ever. Partner is used to neutrally describe the relationship without implying too much or too little about how the couple feel about each other. This may have come from the historic use of partner to describe a significant other in a domestic partnership.




3. Opposition to Patriarchy — (similar to political correctness) Terms like marriage and boyfriend or girlfriend are perceived by the hippie or hipster cultures to have come from a time of patriarchy. Partner is a way to escape from this historic oppression over relationships.

pronouns - Is "My dog can run much faster than I" correct?

I have been revisiting English grammar lessons for a test & I'm reading Pronouns. During a self test I came across this sentence "My dog can run much faster than ___".
I selected "me" & computer said its wrong.

Is "My dog can run much faster than I" correct?

Answer

Yes. Me is an object pronoun, so it doesn't do the action, it receives it. I is a subject pronoun, so it does the action.

In this sentence, both you and the dog are doing the action. Just add can at the end of the sentence and it won't be as confusing.

My dog can run much faster than I can.

Me can't run.

Edit - I must add that regardless of whether or not this is how we speak or if this actually the way we think of it , in the context of an English assessment, this is the right answer and explanation of that answer. Though, in truth most would just say me, even though it is not technically grammatically correct.

(http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/i-vs-me/)

grammatical number - Is 'rest' singular or plural?

When 'rest' means what is left after everything or everyone has gone, been used, dealt with, or mentioned, is it singular or plural?

My guess is, this depends. When 'rest' refers to countable things and the number is more than one, it is plural; otherwise it is singular.

For example,
suppose there are five boxes. You carry two; then there are three left. We can say 'the rest ARE three.'
suppose there is one bottle of salt. You sprinkle some; then there is less salt. We can say 'the rest IS less than one bottle.'
Is my description correct?

ordinals - What will be the question for "he is my second son"

What will be the correct question to get an answer like "he is my second son". Here the actual answer is the word 'second', which denotes the order.

Can the phrase 'ordinal status' be used? Like "What is the ordinal status of Mr. Singh among the prime ministers of India"? Is this correct?

single word requests - What is the possessive form of "y'all"?

I generally hear y'alls's used as the possessive form, but I have also heard yourn. Since y'all is a colloquial pronoun, its possessive form is basically liberated from prescriptive linguistics which would probably say that y'all is a contraction for you all and therefore must be possessivized as of all of you.

Do you know if there is a "standard" way to make y'all possessive, insofar as y'all usage can be considered standard?

Answer

It depends on whether you are indicating individual or group possession.

Did y'all get your coats?

Your is used because each person has a coat.

Is that y'all's house?

Y'all's is used because the house is theirs collectively. I never use y'alls's because y'all is already plural and doesn't need the s before the apostrophe.

For what it's worth, I'm from the Alabama and use both y'all and y'all's regularly.

Why do distributive adjectives mostly take a singular noun while quantitative adjectives mostly take a plural noun?

I am sure that there are some exceptions to this, but I have noticed that distributive adjectives like “each”, “every”, “either”, “neither”, etc., mostly take a singular noun, while quantitative adjectives like “some”, “many”, “all”, “few” etc., in most cases take a plural noun. Both of these set of words refer to the number of something, sound similar and are used in similar contexts, but they have different rules guiding them. Is there some deep reason for why this is the case?

nouns - Is "close helmet" correct? Why/why not?

I've been debating this for a while now with a comrade of mine. Wikipedia (and others) give "close helmet" as a type of medieval helmet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_helmet

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/close+helmet

My compatriot argues that, as-is, this doesn't make sense, that it should be either "closed helmet" (with an extra D) or "close-helmet" (hyphenated). I say "close helmet" is perfectly fine, and simple Google searches turn up more results for this form of it, but I can't find a convincing argument for why it is correct other than because it seems to be the most common usage.

My friend says that "close helmet" is only correct if "close" is an adjective, as in "she sat close to me", but that doesn't really make sense for a type of helmet, since ALL helmets can be considered "close" to one when worn.

Yet, using "close" as a verb ("I shall close the door") doesn't really make grammatical sense either. The defining feature of this type of helmet is that it can open and close (or it is related to the opening/closing; I'm not entirely sure of the details), so "close helmet" makes some kind of sense, but I don't know a grammatical construction that allows this.

Or is this just a relic of older English that has survived into the present?

At first, I was sure that "close helmet" was correct, but the more I think about it the more confused I make myself. Help?

Answer

Actually, according to this Wikipedia article it is close as in "close the door."

The close helmet, also called the close helm was a military helmet worn by knights and other men-at-arms in the Late Medieval and Renaissance eras. It was also used by some heavily armoured, pistol-armed, cuirassiers into the mid 17th century. It was a fully enclosing helmet with a pivoting visor and integral bevor.

Also, being a technical and historical term, it simply is; even though it sounds strange and unfamiliar to our modern ear.

Several senses of the word as listed here are readily identifiable as sources for the usage.

grammar - What (if any) is the proper hyphenation for the phrase "it's all too easy"?

Are any of the following correct?

It's all too-easy
It's all-too-easy
It's all too easy

Explanation/citations would be greatly appreciated

Answer

There is no need to hyphenate the phrase unless it is used either as a compound noun or as a compound adjective.

As a compound noun, it is likely to be a nickname, in which case, capitalise the initial letters:

• 
  It's All-Too-Easy (as in names such as John-Paul, or Maria-Luisa)


• It's 'All Too Easy' (as a nickname) and It's All Too Easy (as a non-hyphenated name) would both also be acceptable.

As a compound adjective, it would need a determiner before it, e.g.,

• It's the all-too-easy solution to all our problems. Don't you believe it.

ADDITION:

In the plural, eg 'all-too-easy solutions' no determiner is needed, as Kris commented, below.

Present perfect continuous

How are we to understand whether present perfect progressive implies that the action is still in progress, versus implying it has stopped just now or recently?

In simple sentences like these two,

• I'm tired [now] because I've been running.
• Why is the grass wet [now]? Has it been raining?

it's obvious that the actions are complete, but not in the following five sentences:

• I have been living in Paris for two weeks.
• I have been reading for two hours.
• I have been talking with Jane on the phone(since 5:30 for ten minutes).
• I have been doing my homework.(For an hour)
• I have been working in the garden (for two hours).

grammaticality - Is "I just spent all my money" grammatically incorrect?

Lyircs of Free by Natalia Kills:

I'm free

I just spent all my money

but I rocked that like it don't cost a thing

Shouldn't it be "I've just spent all my money"? As far as I remember, our English told us to use Present Prefect in such case because of the just.

Answer

American English tends to use the past tense in places where British English uses the present perfect construction, and this may be one such place. But in any case, the lyrics of popular music are not always written in Standard English and will consequently conform to a different set of grammatical rules.

Simple Past or Past Perfect

If I went to a place last night where I needed to show an id, but I forgot to have it on me. So if in the morning I was speaking to a friend(reporting on what happened), which one of the following would be correct:

I had heard that you needed an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary

I had heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.

I heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.

The first one seems correct to me, but I might be wrong. Ideas?

And which one of the following should I say in the context above:

Reporting on what had happened

Reporting on what has happened

Reporting on what happened

Answer

I had heard that you needed an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.

This sentence is correct. It implies that you knew about the necessity of carrying an ID before the events of last night.

I had heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.

This is also correct, although some people might say that the use of Present Simple with need doesn't agree with the past perspective. I believe, however, you can use it because in this place the ID is a norm and it is still valid.

I heard that you need an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessary.

This is correct but not very clear. I heard doesn't show that you knew about the ID beforehand. I prefer the previous two examples.

You are reporting what happened since you have already mentioned that these events took place last night.

orthography - Should I use a hyphen in the term "in(-)situ visualization"?

The term in(-)situ visualization denotes a visualization or graphics that is depicted in place, for instance, a sparkline that is embedded into text.

As the dictionaries tell, the adjective or adverb in situ is written as two words. But for concatenated terms in scientific language, oftentimes, in-situ (with a hyphen) is placed in front of the main noun. Searching for the term in Google and Google Scholar, I find both alternatives about equally frequent. Also, the COCA Corpus lists both versions for related terms such as in(-)situ burning.

What is the correct spelling of in(-)situ visualization? Is there a specific rule that applies?

Answer

No hyphen needed.

In situ (adverb & adjective) is a Latin phrase (?'borrowed phrase') with a specific meaning. The same form of the phrase can be used for all purposes.

Use of the hyphen is a scholarly hypercorrection, I believe.

word choice - "Prefer to do something" vs. "prefer doing something"

What's the difference between the two:

• What materials do they prefer working with?


• What materials do they prefer to work with?

idioms - Use of "them" as an article, not a pronoun

I've seen a lot of times the pronoun them used like an article. For example, in the title of the Delta Rhythm Boys Them bones, or in the first sentence of "Money for nothing":

Now look at them yo-yo's, that's the way you do it.

I know that it's not "proper English" (i.e., not something you'll use in a serious writing), but I'd like to know when it's commonly used, and why. Is there any difference between using it and using the?

Answer

It's a non-standard
(although perfectly valid within the context of a valid personal and location based free choice in the subset of English which one chooses to consider valid within one's own frame of reference)
use of 'those' - I think it's also an American dialect/regional variation

word choice - Can I say "Where can I find 'a' post office"?

It's a question in a grammar app.
"Where can I find _ post office please?".
I chose "a", but it says "the" is the correct answer.
Same problem with this question:
"Let's go to _ cinema tonight."
I know the answer is "the", but I don't know why "Let's go to a cinema" is wrong.

I thought when you specific mean which cinema or which post office you should use "the", otherwise "a/an" is also okay.

Could someone please help me?

Answer

Go to the — is idiomatic English used even in cases where the speaker isn't referring to a specific (definite) location, but rather seeking a specific kind of service or business. For example, we go to the post office, the hospital, the store, the hairdresser, and so forth. You can think of it as a kind of metonymy where “go to the store” means “go shopping” and “go to the barber” means “get my haircut.”

The same idea applies to similar constructions like “Where is the post office?” Following the same logic as above, this roughly means, “Where can I post my mail?” Likewise, “Where is the bathroom?” asks “Where can I use a bathroom?” (You could also parse this as “Where is the [nearest] post office?” but I think the idiomatic explanation is a better fit.)

Note that a native speaker would find the question “Where can I find a post office?” entirely natural, and in some cases might even prefer it. Thus, your answer to the grammar quiz wasn’t incorrect, strictly speaking. However, quizzes like that typically ask for the “best” answer, and in this case “best” likely means using the “go to the —” idiom.

adjectives - "not as" versus "less"

English speakers seem to prefer "less powerful" over "not as powerful", and "not as big" over "less big". There's at least a ten-to-one ratio in both cases—See this Google Ngram. There also seems to be a trend over time where English is moving from "less" to "not as", but I'm most interested in current usage.

Is there a rule for which adjectives we use "less" with, and which we use "not as"?

Answer

These are two completely different constructions. They're semantically related, but they have quite different syntax. As has been pointed out, they're not strictly comparable, so one should expect they wouldn't show up with the same Ngram distribution. If they did, that would be significant; but the opposite isn't. Variation is always the null hypothesis in language.

• The as...as construction, called the Equative
  (there are two varieties, the "exactly as..as" and the "at least as..as" equative)


• The more/less construction, called the Comparative.
  Both equative and comparative are in the same semantic territory as


• The most/least construction, called the Superlative.

Semantically, these are all very complex, involving at least two different propositions, both quantified, and a comparison between them. In addition,
all of these constructions (except the "exactly as..as" equative) are Negative triggers, in that they allow NPIs like ever:

• He's as fit as I ever expected him to be.
  (but only for the "at least as..as" case:
  
  
  
  
  • He's at least as fit as I ever expected him to be.
  
  
  • *He's exactly as fit as I ever expected him to be. )
  
  



• He's fitter than I ever expected him to be.


• He's the fittest one I ever saw.

That is, logically, they all contain at least one negative and two quantifiers; this is industrial-strength logic, rife with peculiarities and ambiguities. Anyone wishing to propose a logical structure is welcome to do so; it's been done before, many times, but never successfully, to my knowledge.

This is true without any not, or never, or any other overt negatives in the sentence. Adding an overt negative to any of these constructions results in two negatives and two quantifiers, and at this point most people lose track of what's going on, usually resulting in overnegation of some kind.

I'm not even going to mention the syntactic peculiarities; semantics is more than enough.

EDIT: I have dealt with some of the syntactic peculiarities here, by request.

grammar - When do you use "relate to" versus "relate with"?

I have a feeling that maybe you use one preposition with people, and the other with situations. For example, you might relate with a student who's nervous about an exam, whereas you relate to test anxiety. Am I correct in assuming this? If not, what grammatical rules determine whether you use "to" or "with" following the verb "relate"?

phrases - Idioms similar to "dig your own grave"

I'm looking for an idiom or phrase similar to "dig your own grave"

It's for this scenario:

Person 1 made a comment and is now attempting to explain it/talk themselves out of an awkward situation, but they are just making it worse.

Person 2 tells them "stop, you're digging your own grave"

I need something better than "digging your own grave" because it doesn't flow with the rest of the scenario. It's not snappy/quick enough.

Could "quit while you're ahead" work? It sounds good but based on the meaning of it I'm not sure it fits properly.

I hope someone can help - I also hope my question makes sense, I have no idea it's half 6 in the morning and I haven't slept yet so brain is running a little slower than normal :P

CJ x

Answer

I offer two idioms for your consideration: quit while [one is] behind and cut [one's] losses.

But first, let's look at the more traditional phrase "quit while [one is] ahead." Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, second edition (2013) has this entry for that phrase:

quit while one's ahead Don't try to improve on something that is already accomplished, as in Those drapes we hung are even enough—let's quit while we're ahead. This idiom also implies that further action runs the risk of spoiling something. Also see LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE.

According to Charles Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder & Fred Shapiro, The [Yale] Dictionary of Modern Proverbs (2012), the expression "quit while you're ahead" goes back only to 1919:

Quit while you're ahead

1919 Charles E. Van Loan, Score by Innings (New York: George H. Doran) 245: "'That's right!' growls Sam Horgan, who was down on the floor with the dice. 'Quit while you're ahead, you cheap skates!'"

Within fifty years, however, people had begun occasionally using a variation on this expression that comes much closer to the sense that the posted question requires: quit while [one is] behind, meaning to stop making things worse by continuing to pursue a losing or failing course of action.

For example, from Ohio AFL-CIO, News and Views (1968), quoting a column by James Reston in the New York Times that was reprinted in the Columbus [Ohio] Citizen-Journal on November 8, 1968 [combined snippets]:

"The trouble with Hubert Humphrey is that he probably won't quit while he's behind [after losing to Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential election], or enjoy the pleasures of defeat, He will rest for a few weeks and then get back in the political battle, ...

The expression also appears in David Profumo, The Weather in Iceland (1993) [combined snippets]:

Kit said he was getting bored with the low strike-rate, so we decided to roll the fishing grounds for just two more days before packing it in. This is usually a mistake (it's better to quit while you're behind, than compound your failures), but for once we had a real run of luck, and managed a double-header.

And from David Berg, The Trial Lawyer: What It Takes to Win (2006):

On the other hand, if your witness cratered on the stand—was so bad it's doubtful redirect can help her—quit while you're behind. Ask a few questions if you have to, but add nothing new to stir up significant recross.

The other relevant idiomatic phrase, which has much the same sense as "quit while you're behind," is cut [one's] losses. Jeffrey Moore, Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain (1999) uses both expressions in the same sentence:

Milena was looking me in he eye. I looked away, towards my mood ring: black. Should I cut my losses, quit while I'm behind, admit I haven't the faintest idea of what I'm talking about?

nouns - Grocery or Goods

Grocery - items of food sold in a grocery store (Google). But suppose I bought a few cleaning items along with the food stuff can the collection still be called grocery? Or maybe goods ?

negation - Negative form of "satisfy", correct usage of "such", difference between "quick" and "fast"

I just did an English test on the Internet because I have an entry exam tomorrow and I wanted to recap. I got 91% right, but I wanted to find out why I made these mistakes and what the correct way to answer the questions is.

1. First exercise I got wrong said: "Choose the negative form of the words in:satisfy – (= feel that something is not as good as it should be)". I chose "unsatisfy", even though it sounded wrong, and I got it wrong. It obviously is dissatisfy, but could you let me know why it is that way? and how to make the difference?




2. Second one was: "Which of the following is not correct: He was ..., he could do 10 km and not even sweat!". I chose "such a fit runner" and the rest of the answers were "so fit", "so a fit runner" and "such fit runner". Now when I think of it, "fit runner" sounds rather awkward. Is "so fit" the actual answer? If I were to answer with "such", would I still use an "a", like in the example?




3. The last question was "Which of the following is not correct: The train was ..., it went from Tokyo to Osaca in two and a half hours!". The possible answers were "such fast", "such a quick one", "so quick" and, the one I answered, "so fast". I got it wrong. A train is fast. Why would the answer be different?

Thank you very much in advance for helping me out!

word choice - "User accounts" or "users account"

Is it correct to say user accounts or users account when referring to the accounts any user has on a site like this one?

In general, in the case of a noun that is used as adjective for the noun that follows, is it better to use or ?

Answer

is the way to go.

it's/his/her vs. their in singular

An expression below embarrasses me. Why not "it's" but "their" litter?

a cat can use their litter box.

in the context we are talking about a few cats, but in this, specific, example we speak about one cat.

meaning - What does 'beyond' mean in the following?

I know, beyond just means outside a limit or further away. E.g. when I say something is beyond compare, it means it cannot be compared to anything.

But in the following, I'm not sure if I understand what does each of these phrases really mean

• Beyond good


• Beyond bad


• Beyond evil

If something is beyond good, is it bad?
If something is beyond bad, is it evil?
If something is beyond evil, is it good or bad?

Answer

In all of these cases, beyond is used as

b : in a degree or amount surpassing Ex. beautiful beyond measure

So in this example, you could instead say beyond beautiful to indicate that it is more beautiful than beautiful, which is the way the sentiment is constructed in each of your examples.

If something is beyond good, is it bad?

No, it's better than good. Might even be great.

If something is beyond bad, is it evil?  

It might be, but we can really only say for sure that it is badder than bad.

If something is beyond evil, is it good or bad?  

For most, evil is definitely bad. This something is more evil than just plain evil.

possessives - ACME technology or ACME's technology

EDIT 2: The nuance difference may be subtle, maybe even subliminal to most people, but still important to me. I don't think there's one right answer to this question (but maybe there is), as any answer is subjective, so I'm interested in any opinion from anyone.

Let's assume we have a company ACME that has some technology used in some product. To your ears, what would be the difference between saying

• "The benefit of using ACME technology to accelerate the development of [...]"

and

• "The benefit of using ACME's technology to accelerate the development of [...]"?

The former sounds to me as if the technology was developed by ACME, regardless of who owns it. The latter makes it sound like ACME owns the technology (patents etc.), but didn't make it themselves. At the same time, saying "our technology" should be analogous to the second variant (assuming you work for ACME), but it doesn't feel quite the same.

EDIT: I ran a few searches on Ngram, substituting ACME for various well-known industry names, and the two forms seem to run hand in hand, occurring with about the same frequency. I still don't think the two are entirely interchangeable.

questions - Grammaticality of "Is it today that..."

I would like to know if it is grammatically correct to ask the question, "Is it today that you are going to town?" My concern is specifically the "Is it" part.

grammatical number - What’s the correct plural possessive of “kids”?

I know that children’s books is correct, but for some reason I want to say kids books, even though I know that it’s a plural possessive noun ending in an s.

A quick search on the web turns up Barnes & Noble, who have a web page title that reads “Children's Books, Kids Books”.

Is the major bookseller wrong here? Or is there some exception I don’t remember?

More simply, is it kids books or kids’ books — and why?

Answer

Part of my answer to the question posted here was:

According to ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’, the removal of
the apostrophe from 'plural nouns in phrases which express affiliation
. . . is widespread in the English-speaking world' and has the
imprimatur of the American Associated Press stylebook and the
Australian government Style Manual. As the Cambridge Guide says, ‘the

time spent worrying about whether it should really be driver’s licence
or drivers’ licence would be better used elsewhere.'

Nothing is lost by writing kids books rather than kids’ books. However, the Cambridge Guide does point out 'that there are special cases which seem anomalous without the apostrophe s', and one of them is childrens, 'because that is not a regular form of the word . . . Thus context is the final arbiter as to whether apostrophes are needed, as always.'

grammaticality - Clarity in sentence usage regarding subject and predicate

Allen's friend bought a bag for his girlfriend on her birthday.
The next time he meets her, she has the same bag with her.
He compliments the bag and asks her, "where did you buy the bag from?"

For some reason, when I read the sentence above it seems like Allen and not his friend met the friend's girlfriend.

What's actually being said - "Allen's friend being as absent-minded as he is, forgot that he bought the bag as a gift for her."

Would you say the first paragraph is correct grammatically and doesn't imply what I am deriving from it?