terminology - Why use BCE/CE instead of BC/AD?

When I was a kid, I was always taught to refer to years using BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini / year of our Lord). However, I somewhat regularly hear people referring to years as in the CE (Common Era) or BCE (Before the Common Era).

Why do people use the latter terminology? For one thing, I find it confusing. It doesn't help that BCE is similar to BC. But moreover, there is only one letter of difference between the two terms, whereas with BC and AD, the terms are clearly different and I find it easier to distinguish! Were BCE/CE established earlier than BC/AD?

Answer

BCE/CE usually refers to the Common Era (the years are the same as AD/BC). That is, BC is usually understood to mean "Before the Common Era" and CE to mean "Common Era," though it is possible to reinterpret the abbreviations as "Christian Era."

The simplest reason for using BCE/CE as opposed to AD/BC is to avoid reference to Christianity and, in particular, to avoid naming Christ as Lord (BC/AD: Before Christ/In the year of our Lord). Wikipedia, Anno Domini article:

For example, Cunningham and Starr (1998) write that "B.C.E./C.E. …do not presuppose faith in Christ and hence are more appropriate for interfaith dialog than the conventional B.C./A.D."

If there is a standardization or shift occurring, it's likely toward BCE/CE, at least in the United States. Common Era notation is used in many schools and academic settings.

grammatical case - Whom should I say is calling?

Note, originally my question was "should I ask" instead of what I meant, which is "should I say". Sorry for the confusion.

If I do an internet search about:

Whom should/shall I say is calling.

I invariably get blogs and articles saying that this is incorrect, and probably a form of hypercorrection.

This question follows from a previous question based on an Oxford Living Dictionaries article about whom and who.

In the article it claims that in both:

• ✗ He is demanding £5,000 from the elderly woman whom has ruined his life.
  and
  


• ✗ Mr Reynolds is highly critical of journalists, whom just use labels to describe him.

the use of whom is wrong, and it should be who. This seems to be agreed to by the users that contributed to the previous question I linked.

However the Oxford Living Dictionaries also claims that the following two are incorrect:

• ✗ He is demanding £5,000 from the elderly woman whom he claims has ruined his life.




• ✗ Mr Reynolds is highly critical of journalists, whom he says just use labels to describe him.

However on these two examples the majority seemed to say that objection to using whom in the last two is an old prescriptivist objection, and to quote an answerer:

According to many respected grammarians, the article is incorrect ...

So:

• He is the person whom won the race.(Wrong)
  


• He is the person whom I say won the race.(Acceptable?)
  

In the second example whom appears to be both subject and object, however more particularly "whom" is the subject of "won the race", but the object of the whole clause seems "I say won the race". At least that's what I understood from the point.

If this is acceptable, then in the case of "Whom should I say is calling?" Doesn't the following apply:

• Whom is calling?(Wrong)
  


• Whom should I say is calling?(Acceptable?)
  

If we turn these questions into statements I think we get:

• He is calling.
  


• He is the person whom I should say is calling.
  or
  


• He is whom I should say is calling.
  

Is this analagous to the other cases, and therefore saying "Whom should I say is calling?" is not incorrect?

I'm not sure what the answer is, but every every single result I saw about "Whom should/shall I say is calling?" have all said that it's incorrect and that it should be "Who", mainly because the "Who" is doing the calling and therefore the subject.

Who/whom shall I say is calling?

He is calling.

Who shall I say is calling?
englishessaywritingtips.com

Correct: Whom did you speak to earlier?
Correct: A man, whom I
have never seen before, was asking about you.
Incorrect: Whom

should I say is calling?
grammarly.com

On this usingenglish.com forum thread an English teacher calls it an instance of hypercorrection.
usingenglish.com

On this Quora question all the top answers say it should be "who".

In this sentence, "he" is the correct choice, so you would choose "who" for the question.
Quora question

I take it given all this information my instinct is wrong about this?

pronouns - Who vs whom in "Who is the right person to turn to?

Take the sentence:

Who is the right person to turn to?

I'm not sure whether who or whom should be used in this position.

word choice - I would like to use your discretion

At work the other day, I was making something and wanted a senior person's opinion on my creation for Steve.
I said "Hey Steve, can you take a look at my hat, I'd like your discretion."
He said I should've said "...I'd like your opinion."

Now, because it was Steve's job to make the hat, and I was assisting him. I think perhaps I should've said something along the lines of use your discretion. Or may I use your discretion. Something like that. As in, it's his decision whether or not the hat is good enough, gauged through his professional opinion.

This has been eating away at me for days!

Answer

You say in your first sentence that you wanted Steve's opinion, which means that you wanted his judgment on the quality of the hat. But it seems from subsequent sentences that you wanted more than Steve's opinion; you wanted Steve's decision on whether the quality of the work was sufficient, i.e., you wanted his dispositive opinion of your work.

In this context, discretion is the freedom to exercise authority, and the only person who can exercise said authority is the person who holds it. Thus requesting someone else's discretion or using someone else's discretion is inapt. Now, by the very nature of freedom of action, someone with discretionary power may choose to exercise it or refrain from doing so, and you may recognize that fact by saying something like

I understand and expect that you will exercise your discretion to pass judgment on the quality of this hat.

But since you're reporting to Steve, a senior person whose responsibility it is to pass judgment, you hardly need to acknowledge the obvious fact of Steve's discretion. All you need to say is

Is this hat good enough?

grammatical number - "Is" versus "are"

I have a super silly question. I've been living abroad too long and teaching low level ESL has done the BYElingual thing to me.

This sentence "Reading comic books is bad." should the "is" be "are" or is that sentence correct? I know plural nouns (books) get plural are, but is the "is" in this case connected to reading? This sentence is from a textbook I'm teaching and it sounds a bit odd to me.

I have a similar confusion with "What is/are Jack and Sally's favourite subject?" I know these sentences are super basic, and I've searched online but couldn't get a specific answer. This is what I think: Jack and Sally become they, therefore "what ARE their favourite subject?" Correct?

grammar - Answering a singular question with a plural answer

If somebody asks a question in the singular, how do we give a plural answer? Here's an example, with three different possible ways to answer. (The part of the answer that has the plural sense is marked in bold):

Q: What's the most important thing to you?

A1: The most important thing to me is my friends.

A2: The most important thing to me are my friends.

A3: The most important things to me are my friends.

I am a native speaker of British English. I prefer A1. An American told me she preferred A2. I suspect that a formal prescriptivist would recommend A3.

Is there any rhyme or reason to this? What should I recommend to a student learning English?

Answer

These are cleft sentences where there is a separation the grammatical and the logical subject, and both A1 and A2 make sense.

In A1 the verb agrees with the grammatical subject: The most important thing to me (singular).

In A2 the verb agrees with the logical subject: my friends (plural).

The odd one out is A3

"The most important thing to me" as in A1 and A2 implies a single item or a single set of items.

"The most important things to me" on the other hand implies a list of (sets of) items, but "my fiends" is not a list.

grammatical number - What is the correct plural of "mantis"?

This question is related to the plural of "octopus" (yet another ancient Greek loanword animal):

What is the plural of "mantis"?

Oxford Dictionaries suggests "mantis" or "mantises".

Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com suggest "mantises" or "mantes".

This page from the Iowa State University Entomology Department suggests "mantids" (emphasis mine).

Praying mantids (preferred plural form of mantis) have never been
numerous in Iowa and historically they were only common in the far
southeastern corner of the state.

Personally, I use a mixture of "mantises" and "mantes" and find the usage of "mantids" strange, but what is the most etymologically correct / most recommended plural for the animal?

grammaticality - Сonstruction "Do you mind"

Your room mate asks: “Do you mind if I smoke?”.
But, you HATE smoking. What would you say? “Yes” or “No” ?

I think correct answer is "Yes".
My answered correctly?

Answer

I would say

"Yes, I am allergic to smoking. So please do it while I am out of here."

Or

"No, not at all."

punctuation - How to punctuate a quoted question within a question?

How would I punctuate the bold portion?

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Wait," I replied, "did you just ask me Who are you?"

I would use the following:

"Wait," I replied, "did you just ask me, 'Who are you'?"

• Comma before the quote




• Quoted with single quotation marks (instead of italics, which I'd consider another option)




• Closing quotation mark before the question mark





• Only one question mark (for my question, not the quoted one)

Is this correct?

Answer

Here's the correct version:

"Wait," I replied, "did you just ask me, 'Who are you?' "

Some things to notice:
1. The statement being quoted is a question, so you need the question mark in the embedded quotation marks. You don't need a second question mark. A sentence can have only one end punctuation mark.
2. The comma before the embedded quotation, which follows standard format for introducing a quotation.
3. The space between the single and double quotation marks at the end.

If I were to revise this, I would write this:
"Wait," I said. "Did you just ask me who I am?"

grammaticality - What is the proper grammatical sentence structure for this Subject, Verb, Object?

A card game has a card with the following text:

Each other player destroys his or her minion with the least power (owner chooses in case of ties).

Am I correct in believing that the Subject, Verb, and Object are as follows?

• The Subject: Each other player




• The Verb: destroys




• The Object: his or her minion

This might give the impression that the player is destroying the minion, when the rules text is supposed to imply that the card the rules text is on is performing the destruction.

What is the proper way to word the sentence, if you want to make it clear that the card with the quoted rules text above is destroying in the card, not any of the players?

(I.e. Would this be better, "Destroy each other player's minion with the least power (owner choses in case of ties)." With no subject, is it clearer that the card is performing the destruction?)

Other examples from the game:

• Each other player discards two cards at random.




• Destroy the lowest-power minion on each base with a higher-power minion.




• You may destroy a minion of power 3 or less on this base.

grammar - Present perfect and reported speech

I would like to understand the following (because Google returns suspiciously low number of records for this form):

A: I saw him there.
B (joins the conversation): Hey, have you seen John lately?
C: He has just said he had seen him there.

Is it OK to use present perfect and then reported speech shifted back (from past simple to past perfect)?

Answer

Present Perfect is OK with just (it points at the latest moment), but then you don't need Past Perfect: Past Simple is enough here to put the reported event before the event 'he has (said)'.

grammar - “Who are you staying with” or “Whom are you staying with?”

Which one is correct?

Who are you staying with

or

Whom are you staying with?

Answer

There are not many words in English that clearly tell us nominative or objective case. The pairs he/him and she/her are in the nominative / objective case, and may be used to tell us the answer to your question.

First, one could switch the question around and make it a statement.

You are staying with who/whom.

Then swap in he/him for the who/whom.

You are staying with ?he / him.

(EDIT: The ? notation used on this forum and https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/ indicates questionable usage. A stronger form would be to use *he to indicate that the usage of he is incorrect.)

I suspect it sounds better to most ears to say "You are staying with him," because we use "him" (objective case) with a preposition.

Then swap back the who / whom.

You are staying with ?who / whom.

And then finally back to your original question.

With whom are you staying? or Whom are you staying with?

Grammatically, you need a whom in your question.

But as you can see in the linked question What’s the rule for using “who” and “whom” correctly?, whom may have a stilted or formal feel.

So I'd soften the answer a bit, and say that if you were answering on an English test, use the grammatically correct whom. But if you were asking someone in an everyday situation, use the less formal who.

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.

questions - Response to "Would you not do it?"

If posed with the subject question, given that I will not do the action in question, then what is the correct answer

No, I will not do it.

or

Yes, I will not do it.

#1 sounds better to me, but #2 is more logical. #1 sounds somewhat paradoxical in context of the question.

Answer

I would use the first one as "No" asserts negativity. The following Wikipedia post could be helpful here:

According to Grimes, the answer
"yes" asserts a positive answer and
the answer "no" asserts a negative
answer, irrespective of the form of

the question. But in fact simple "Yes"
or "No" word sentence answers to
yes-no questions can be ambiguous in
English. For example, a "Yes" response
to the question "You don't beat your
wife?" could mean either "Yes, I don't
beat my wife." or "Yes, I do beat my
wife." depending from whether the
respondent is replying with the
truth-value of the situation, or is

replying to the polarity used in the
question. This ambiguity does not
exist in languages that employ echo
answers. In the Welsh language, for
example, the response "ydw" ("I am")
has no such ambiguity when replying to
a question.

orthography - “Programming” versus “programing”: which is preferred?

I was surprised that my spell checker did not complain for programing with one m, so I Googled it, and found on free dictionaries that both forms were acceptable.

• Which one is more common? Does it depend on the geographical location? My perception is that the spelling two m’s seems to dominate.



• Is this part of a more general word formation rule, or mostly an exception?

Is there a term for a sentence with no (or implied) subject? If so, what?

Take this from Nick Cave's song 'Higgs Boson Blues':

She curses the queue at the Zulu. And moves on to Amazonia.

Is there a term for a sentence without a subject, or where the subject is implied from the previous sentence, like

And moves on to Amazonia.

This Quora (https://www.quora.com/In-formal-English-is-it-grammatically-correct-to-use-sentences-without-subjects-as-in-Went-home-late-Ate-biscuits) suggested that imperatives and exclamations often omit the subject, but the above sentence doesn't seem to fit as either of those, as it isn't an direction (like an imperative) or really exclaiming anything.

Is there a term for a sentence that has no subject, or implies the subject from the previous sentence?

Answer

"Sentence fragment", "dependent clause", and "phrase" apply, here. What you have there is improper punctuation of a single sentence.

A "clause" is a section that has subject, verb, and whatever objects are required. A "phrase" is any chunk that holds a distinct meaning as a group. A "sentence fragment" is a clump of words masquerading as a sentence but that can't actually fulfill the requirements. A "dependent clause" requires another clause to function.

Your example's first part can stand alone, but the second part is a "dependent clause" since it 'borrows' the subject of the former to function.

(In this case, the reason the dependent clause appears to be a sentence is that it has been punctuated the way it has. Thus, this isn't a grammatical error but typographical.)

grammar - Habitual activities within a limited period of time

It is a well known fact that habitual activities are expressed by the Present Simple.

I go to the movies once a month. (it is a very simple and clear example)

But I have come across tricky contexts where I am not sure what guidelines to use to make the right choice. Here are two examples taken from two grammar books.

1) ... "I can't stand people who never stop apologizing all the time" - she told me. And besides I know he is deceiving poor Helen. He is seeing Betty Wills from the overseas department. And plenty of other interesting things are currently going on. For instance, every week we are experiencing more and more problems with theft. "

The book says that every week we are experiencing is correct. So, we have the Present Continuous here. Another text from a different book.

2) "I am having a great time here in England. My college term doesn't start until next month, so I am taking the opportunity to earn some money. I am staying with my English friend Robbie. His parents own a software business. In the evenings I drive into London with Robbie to go clubbing. I am making a lot of new friends. On weekdays I help Robbie's dad."

The book says that In the evenings I drive and On weekdays I help Robbie's are correct.

My question is: Why is it correct to use the Present Continuous in the first example and the Present Simple in the second? To me they have a lot in common. They happen within a limited period of time. It seems to me that the authors of the first book don't see "experiencing" as a habitual action while the authors of the second book see drive and help as habitual actions.

Would it be possible to use the Present Simple in the first example and the Present Continuous in the second and why not if not?

hyphenation - To make a noun to describe everything that is known well, would it be 'the well-known'?

For example, would there be a hyphen in the following sentence: "What exasperated him most was the well-known"? Or would it be: "What exasperated him most was the well known"? I know there may better/different ways to express the same sentiment ... But I'm interested in this particular usage. Does the hyphen belong there?

Thanks!

punctuation - Essential or nonessential sentence element?

He looked at the skies fully saturated with blue paint.

or

He looked at the skies, fully saturated with blue paint.

Is "fully saturated with blue paint" here an essential or nonessential element of the sentence and should it be separated by a comma?

Edit: removed the before blue paint as recommended by chasly from UK.

meaning - The horribility of English language

Pretty much every adjective that ends in the suffix -able or -ible gives rise to a related noun:

• corruptible becomes corruptibility


• mutable becomes mutability


• respectable becomes respectability


• irritable becomes irritability


• gullible becomes gullibility

There are only two exceptions, as far as I'm aware: we have horrible and terrible, but no horribility or terribility. Now why would that be?

These words seem to have another strange aspect to them. If something is irritable then it is not able to irritate but inclined to be irritated. If I am respectable then I'm not able to respect, but inclined to be respected. The -able ending does not generally denote ability.

But horrible doesn't mean inclined to be horrified; it really does mean able to horrify. And terrible doesn't mean inclined to be terrified; it means able to terrify. In other words, these two exceptions to the rule about cognate nouns also seem to be exceptions with respect to what type of property they describe.

Are these two oddities related somehow?

Answer

I have to agree with Papa Poule that the question arises from a false analysis: horrible and terrible are not -able/-ible words in quite the sense you describe, and the corresponding noun derivation doesn't apply.

Off the top of my head, I'd say ostensible might be placed in this group, and there may well be others. Conceivably the distinction could come from being words adapted from existing Latin constructions (horribilis etc), rather than constructed later from English elements (so the verb in question is horreo rather than horrify, etc). Although that's just a guess, so almost certainly wrong...

grammar - past tense confusion

I am a native English speaker. A Chinese roommate of mine who is an international student studying English asked me the following question:

The man who swam in the ocean drowned because he ....... to swim.

A. Hasn't learned
B. hadn't learned

C. wasn't learning
D. didn't learn

I am leaning towards either A or D, but she says it is B because the guy died and it's double past or something which I have no idea.

What is the correct answer?

gerunds - Object pronouns+verbs+ing

As non native speaker of English , I'm having trouble making sense of a structure pertaining to object pronouns.

Likelihood of me doing this....

Your plan involves me attempting to prepare plans necessary for you.

Chances of me getting into that school is high.

What is it that establishes the connection between object pronouns and verbs in gerund form in terms of both grammar and meaning? In my language , expressions corresponding to the expressions in bold above are constituted with "my" instead of "me". That is the reason why I'm having trouble making sense of it.

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 - ...the probability of flipping exactly one head[s] and three tails

I've encountered the following math question:

Four fair coins are tossed at the same time. What is the possibility that the four coins will come up with only one head and three tails.

Besides wanting to change "possibility" to "probability," and "only" to "exactly," I wonder about the word head. In coin-flipping, we typically use this word in the plural (and I understand there's a post about the history of "heads or tails"). But always?

My gut tells me to keep it plural. However, a bit of digging turned up examples for both singular and plural used in this type of context.

For example, Statistics: A Guide to the Use of Statistical Methods in the Physical Sciences contains the following:

For one head and three tails, the probability is the same as one tail and three heads.

It still sounds awkward to me, as do other usages in the same book, such as:

The probability of the first coin giving a head is ½.

I'd definitely avoid that phrasing, particularly for the college crowd.

In any case, head or heads in the listed contexts?

grammaticality - Omitting "by" after "impressed"

Which is correct?

You may be impressed how often the technique is being used in
industry.

You may be impressed by how often the technique is being used in
industry.

The first one is what I get used to saying in daily life. It may turn out I've been wrong for ages. I immediately noticed there might be something grammatically wrong when I wrote it. I couldn't help but add the preposition by to make the sentence correct. Is it just a matter of style?

Answer

No, by shouldn't be omitted after impressed.

In writing, people generally use by, with, or that after impressed

I'm impressed by his skill
"President Obama Is Not Impressed With Your Right To Modify His Photos"
I'm impressed that it's selling so well this soon.

A sentence like "I'm impressed how tall he is" doesn't sound like idiomatic native-speaker English to my ear, but I'm sure that people say and write it. A good copy editor will change it to "impressed by how tall" or, perhaps, "impressed with how tall", or "impressed that he's so tall".

Google Ngrams shows that

1 impressed by

and

2 impressed with

are most frequently found in books,

3 impressed that

is rarely found in books, and

4 impressed how

is never found in books. This doesn't mean that people don't say it, however: people will say anything, regardless of whether it's right or wrong.

Perhaps choosing between by and with is merely a matter of style. You'll have to decide based on context and the specific sentence whether one is better than the other. Give us some choices and we'll see what everyone else thinks -- maybe.

punctuation - How to punctuate an embedded quoted question within a declarative sentence?

I'm having a devil of a time trying to determine how to punctuate an embedded quoted question within a declarative sentence. A comma is used to introduce the quote, but things get hairy at the end of the quote.

When Ms. Peremptory asked, "Are you ever going to be ready?" I was unable to respond.

Is this situation best handled with no closing comma? Placement in any of the possible spaces between the closing "y" in "ready" and the subject of the sentence produces visually confounding -- though possibly grammatically correct -- results.

Regarding whether to add a preposition in infinitive phrase served as attributive

The two sentences I encountered when I read grammar book are as follows:

1. I had no place to live in.



2. A good place to eat is the Sichuan restaurant around the corner.

Regarding the 1st sentence, the grammar book says the infinitive phrase to live in serves as attributive to modify place. The sentence can be changed into: I had no place in which I can live. And there must be a preposition in to form the phrase to live in the place.

Thus, if the rule of the grammar book is right, there should be a preposition at right after eat and the sentence will be A good place to eat at is the Sichuan restaurant around the corner for the 2nd one, which makes up the
phrase A good place at which we can eat.

So, what do I want to know now is which one is right or both of them are correct?

Do you ever use 'is' in a past tense narrative?

It's a story written in the past tense, but once I named the characters I found myself saying 'is' instead of 'was' and couldn't decide if it was right or wrong.

IS:

Mom loved our movie nights and made sure there was one at least once a week. Her name is Sarah Marsh. My last name is Bertrum. Bertrum was my mom's maiden name, but after she married Brice's father, Weston Marsh, seven years ago, she changed it.

WAS:

Mom loved our movie nights and made sure there was one at least once a week. Her name was Sarah Marsh. My last name was Bertrum. Bertrum was my mom's maiden name, but after she married Brice's father, Weston Marsh, seven years ago, she changed it.

'Was' just looked so bizarre to me, but is it the correct choice in this case?

grammar - starting a sentence with 'when reading ...'

Is it possible and good English to start a sentence with 'When reading...'?

Exactly it's about the following one:

When reading your offer it seemed to me as if this position is made for me.

bg,
Johannes

P.S.: If you have any other things to say about this sentence, I'm always open for corrections and tips.

Answer

It does sound a little funny. Something more along these lines might be better:

• While I was reading your offer, it seemed as though this position were made for me.


• As I was reading your offer, it seemed like this position had been made for me.


• As I read your offer, it occurred to me that this position seemed made for me.

grammar - "You have nothing to do" - "Yes I do" / "Yes I don't"

If someone says "You have nothing to do", what is the proper answer to say "what you just said is true":

• You have nothing to do.


• Yes, I do.

Or

• You have nothing to do.


• Yes, I don't

Answer

In English, if you respond to a negative question, like "You don't ...", with a simple "yes", it's ambiguous if you mean, "yes you are correct, I do not", or "you are incorrect, I do". People normally use more words to clearly state what they mean.

In your example, one might answer, "You are correct" or "That's right" to indicate that he does, in fact, have nothing to do. Or if he does have something to do, he'd say, "No, I do have things to do" or something of that sort.

We don't say, "Yes, I don't". Whatever one can say about the grammar of that sentence, it would be considered twisted wording.

word choice - When to use "we" and "us" — specific SAT example

I am confused about the usage of the words 'we' and 'us'. I am using a Princeton Review 11 SAT tests 2011 edition, practice test 7, section 6, number 29 (just in case anyone actually had that book).

This question was a "find the incorrect word or phrase in the following section" question. For those of you who don't know, this kind of question gives you a sentence. Four different phrases or words are underlined in that sentence and labeled A, B, C, and D respectively. The objective is to find the phrase that is incorrectly used. The particular question I need help with says:

As finalists, Mark and I were both shocked by the decision; it seemed to us that the winner of the contest was far less talented than we.

A: both shocked
B: it seemed
C: far less
D: we
E: No error

So of course, everything seemed right till I got to that last word. My thinking was to use 'us' instead of 'we'. However, the answer in the back of the book says the answer is:

E. There is no error in the sentence as written. The we in (D) may sound strange, but the subject pronoun is correct here.

Can someone please explain this to me? Why am I wrong in saying that the word us should have been used instead?

Answer

This is one of those messy situations the exam writers should know better than to dump you into.

Very rigorous judges have long held that constructions of the type "X is better than Y" (substitute your own comparative for 'better') should be parsed as elliptical reductions of "X is better than Y is", and therefore require Y to be realized in the nominative case, if that's distinct from the objective (which is only the case with the pronouns "I", "he", "she", "we" and "they". That's the "rule" which the exam requires you to follow.

Unhappily for those rigorous judges, the "rule" is not, and never has been, followed in the language-as-she-is-actually-spoken. In ordinary speech virtually everybody has virtually always said "She's better than me", "He's better than her, "I'm better than him", "We're better than them", and "They're better than us". That's the "rule" recognized by most descriptive linguists; and many people who offer advice on how to say stuff promote that rule.

So there's a fundamental disagreement between two schools of prescriptive grammarians: which "rule" should you follow?

This will probably sort itself out on the "me/him/her/us/them" side by the time you retire. But right now you're stuck in the middle.

The "I/he/she/we/they" rule is a bad one. But you're applying for admission to a discourse community which very largely observes it; so choke down your annoyance and follow their rules until you have enough seniority to follow your own rules.

Just wait for them to die and you'll be fine.

Hyphenation of "prerequisite"

I'm proofreading my thesis, and found that TeX in its infinite wisdom had decided to hyphenate prerequisite as pre-req-ui-site. I've replaced it with pre-re-qui-si-te, but I'm a bit unsure what the proper hyphenation is and couldn't find any good sources. Anyone know what's the correct hyphenation?

Answer

According to Merriam-Webster, TeX is right. You should (almost) always trust Knuth's brainchild!

grammar - "Employee list" or "employees list"

I know we can use list of employees, but I'd like to know which is preferred or more correct: employee list or employees list?

Noun1 + Noun2 take/s a plural verb?

I recently attended a grammar class, where the trainer explained:

A singular noun and a singular noun take a plural verb.

However, I feel it should have been

A singular noun and a singular noun takes a plural verb.

because the two singular nouns together take the verb, and they cannot be considered two different elements. Is my understanding correct?

Answer

I don't think your intuition is correct in this case. As you yourself said, " the two singular nouns together take the verb". Note that you used the plural verb "take" in this context. "A singular noun and a singular noun" refers to two nouns, and even if they are considered to form a single unit, it's still a grammatically plural construction. Plural agreement is definitely possible, as is typically the case for "compound subjects" consisting of two singular noun phrases joined by "and". (I don't know whether I would say that the use of a plural verb is mandatory in this sentence—your suggestion of "A singular noun and a singular noun takes a plural verb" doesn't sound terribly bad to me—but plural agreement is definitely not prohibited in this context).

Should we use past tense in "Lugo admitted he is the father"?

In this sentence, should the is be a was?

On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

Answer

On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

Boofus McGoofus got this right. I am just going to expand on his answer. The heuristic rule taught to ESL learners is that the past tense should be used for indirect quotations, as in

Lugo: "I admit I am the father of a child conceived with V.C."

Indirect quotation form:

On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

But, this rule doesn't have to be applied in the case that the situation is still true, so is can be used. However, in a sentence like

On April 13, 1801, Lugo admitted he was the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

"is" would be a little strange because both Lugo and his child are long since gone. So basically the heuristic rule can be broken in the case that the quoted fact is still true.

headline case - Title Capitalization Doubt: "If" or "if?"

Suppose I'm going to write an article/essay with the following title:

"What To Do If You Believe Space Aliens Shot JFK"

Does the word "if" get capitalized, like above, or not?

Answer

The word if is typically capitalized in titles.

According to Wikipedia:

In English, the first word and the last word of titles should be capitalized. In addition, all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions should be capitalized. Articles and coordinating conjunctions are not capitalized, while sources disagree on the capitalization of prepositions.

"If" is a subordinate (also, subordinating) conjunction and as such should be capitalized.

grammar - To use "to" or not to?

You like to read books.

You like reading books.

The second second sentence seems to be better than the first. Why is that?

Now consider the following two sentences.

He likes to read books.

He likes reading books.

Here they seem to be equivalent and nothing seems wrong with either of them. Neither seems better than the other?

Why does the use of "to" in the first set seem less natural?

grammar - "You have nothing to do" - "Yes I do" / "Yes I don't"

If someone says "You have nothing to do", what is the proper answer to say "what you just said is true":

• You have nothing to do.


• Yes, I do.

Or

• You have nothing to do.


• Yes, I don't

Answer

In English, if you respond to a negative question, like "You don't ...", with a simple "yes", it's ambiguous if you mean, "yes you are correct, I do not", or "you are incorrect, I do". People normally use more words to clearly state what they mean.

In your example, one might answer, "You are correct" or "That's right" to indicate that he does, in fact, have nothing to do. Or if he does have something to do, he'd say, "No, I do have things to do" or something of that sort.

We don't say, "Yes, I don't". Whatever one can say about the grammar of that sentence, it would be considered twisted wording.

grammar - Future Conditional Subjunctive?

I assume that "future conditional subjunctive" is not really a term. But that's pretty much what I'm asking about.

I often find myself addressing the scenario where (x) one thing "A" may happen in the future, and (y) if "A" happens, "B" will result. Often, this occurs while I'm arguing that "A" should not be allowed to happen.

I would like to write:

"If A happens, then B will result."

My colleague insists that, because we don't want A to happen, we must write:

"If A were to happen, then B would result." (Sometimes he will try, "were A to happen, . . . ")

I think both "were to happen" and "would result" are incorrect. And "were to happen" seems unnecessarily awkward.

Similarly, I'd write: "If you don't stop A, then B will happen." Colleague would write "If you don't stop A, then B would happen."

And, finally, when generally discussing what A would cause, I would just write "A will cause x, y and z." Colleague would write "A would cause x, y and z."

Colleague's reasoning is that because we do not want A to happen or B to result, we need to use the "subjunctive." Otherwise, if we use the indicative, we are somehow conceding that A will, in fact happen.

My thought is that we want to make an unambiguous statement that A will result in B. We don't want to introduce any doubt that A will not result in B.

And, I've read that there is no future subjunctive in English.

Is there a correct answer?

sentence - Is it correctly say " "My family watchES television there every night" or " "My family watch television there every night"

I find that sentence in a video on youtube, and I'd like to now what is the correct, please, help me. I would be grateful for your help. I'm trying to learn English and understand special the part about grammar.

Sincerely,

Vinícius Corrêa
Student from Brazil

grammar - ending a sentence with a preposition 'of'

I know many questions have been asked for ending a sentence with a preposition in this community. However none of that seems to be providing the answer which I am looking for in this scenario. Please consider following sentence.

Traditionally celebrities have been considered as one of the very few people who enjoy really luxurious lifestyles where many of us can only dream of.

Is it grammatically correct to end the sentence with the proposition 'of' ? or should I have used something like 'about'.

Pls consider that my English is not that great and I feel little awkward about this sentence I wrote. But unfortunately I can not find a reason. Have I made any other grammatical mistake ?

Answer

I think that, technically, you should say

Traditionally celebrities have been considered as one of the very few people who enjoy really luxurious lifestyles of which many of us can only dream.

To be honest though, people don't speak like that anymore. I would, however, write like that, particularly in a relatively formal setting, such as an essay, paper or publication.

meaning - Can you omit "which was" in this sentence?

For example:

"The song, which was released in 1982, has since become a hit."

"The song, released in 1982, has since become a hit."

Do these two sentences mean the same thing, and are they both grammatically correct?

proper nouns - Store names & possessive

Observation: It seems that it's common to turn a store name into a possessive, for example a store named "Palisade" gets transformed to possessive in speech like, "Hey how about going to Palisade's for breakfast?" Another example is Chutneys Grille in Seattle. Many (most?) store names do not get this treatment. It seems most common if the store name is:

• Abstract: "I saw a great concert at BOOT's last night."


• A person's name, or what looks like a person's name: "I got this at JC Penney's"



• Totally unknown word: "I get my hair cut at Foofum's"


• [UPDATE] Is it ungrammatical to do this?

My assumption is that it's a short form of saying "BOOT's performance venue" (nonsensical though?), "JC Penney's shop", or "Foofum's salon".

Questions:

1. Is this common, or is it just my home town or something? Or my imagination?



2. Why must we do this instead of simply calling the store by its rightful name? To me "I saw a concert last night at BOOT." is no less clear, and no more difficult to say.

---

Inspired by a previous question

Answer

The fact is, we can do this by calling a store by its rightful name.

I got this at The Gap.

I got this at Sears.

I got this at Kohl's. [Kohl's is the store's real name.]

I got my snow thrower at Lowe's. [Lowe's is the store's real name.]

I got this book at Barnes & Noble, because it was cheaper than Brentano's was selling it for. [Yeah, I know Brentano's sold out, but that was their real name.]

Sometimes people feel they have to add a possessive to a store's name, but they really don't. People who say JC Penney's just don't know what the store's name really is. They may even think Sears is Sears' or Sear's.

punctuation - How to correctly use double quotation marks at the end of a sentence?

Group A:

1. This is so-called "Moon Cake." // The period is inside the double quatation marks




2. This is so-called "Moon Cake". // The period is outside the double quatation marks

I know the former is more standard-conforming in most publications; however, I think the latter is more intuitive and meaningful. Because the period is used to stop the whole sentence, rather than stop the phrase itself. I think the former is counter-intuitive, although the usage is standard-conforming.

Please consider another two sentences:

Group B:

1. She said: "I don't know."





2. She said: "I don't know".

It is obvious that the former is more meaningful than the latter, because the period is used to stop the whole sentence, and the double quatation marks are used as a quatation. This time, it is standard-conforming and intuitive.

What's your opinion?

Answer

You can use either, they're both correct, just choose one and stick to it. As long as your style is consistent, both versions are fine. This is one of the differences between American and British punctuation styles.

Americans tend to place punctuation within the quotation marks while the British tend to place it outside them. For example:

• British style

  
  
  

  
  

  "Yes," she said, "I would love some tea."

  
  




• American style

  
  
  
  

  
  

  "Yes", she said, "I would love some tea".

  
  

It is largely a personal choice though and different style guides have different opinions. For some more information on this and other differences between BrE and Ame punctuation styles see the links below:

grammatical number - Verb - agreement dilemma - 'first-two days'

I am having some trouble coming up with a natural-sounding expression whilst still ensuring conformity to the rule of Subject-verb agreement. At the centre of my concern is the phrase "first-two days" when strictly used with a dummy subject:

1) It was a tough first-two days. (Not in agreement in number)

2) It was a tough first-two-day. (Unsure about the appropriateness of a hyphenated compound word)

3) They were tough first-two days. (Grammatically sound but slightly jarring when spoken)

For the reasons in the brackets, none of the three is particularly desirable to me. But then again, my reasoning could be mistaken, so please shed some light on this.

Answer

The key is that "two days" is a measure and measures are treated as singular.

That is why your option 1 works as the subject, verb, and predicate are in agreement. However I do not believe it needs a hyphen

---

X was Y, or X were Y ?

Can a singular be a plural? Not often. X and Y are either both singular or both plural.

John was a champion, not John were champions.

If we choose "It" we must choose "was"

---

Next ... do we need an "a"?

If you chose a singular subject "it" you're going to compare it to something singular.

• It was a X : if X is a noun,


• It was X : if X is an adjective

---

Why can "two days" be singular?

Well a "dozen" is a singular... it is a unit.

but, you might say "Two heads" are better than one.
.... there "two x" is plural if X are thing(s), not a distance or measurement.

"Two days" as used in the predicate is singular because "two days" is a measure (measuring a span of time). That lets "two days" agree with "it".

~ a ~ measure.. Measures are treated as singular nouns so you would us an "a". Other examples:

4 hours is a long time to wait

The height difference between Mary and Jan ~is~ (not are) two inches.

Tommy is two heads taller than Lisa (haha, if you use 'heads' as a measure it changes things from the plural "two head" used as a subject!)

"tough" and "first" are simply adjectives referring to the span "it/two days".

With that explanation option 1) , the way we commonly hear it, is indeed grammatically sound - however the hyphen is not needed as "two days" is the measure, and 'first' is an adjective modifying the measure.

It was a tough first two days

~

Option 3) of yours does also work.
It refers to "days" as individual time periods !

A plural "they" , the plural conjugated "to be" as "were" and "two days" here meaning two individual days.

They were tough first-two days.

That would mean something ever so slightly different.. ~each~ day was tough.
Also, it may emphasize that the "day" as in the part of the day when the sun was up, were the tough parts rather than the 24 hour meaning.

The "first-two" as an adjective feels awkward in this plural and I'd be open for more input on the use of the hyphen. Without a compound adjective this 3rd choice isn't awkward at all:

"They were tough first days." isn't awkward.

word choice - Does a pedestrian walk 'in' the road, or 'on' the road (both are correct, but which is right?)

Having a bit of a debate about this with some foreign colleagues of mine.

I've always used the phrase 'I'm walking in the road', they think that you should say 'I'm walking on the road'..

I'm not 100% sure why I use the word 'in', but there must be a reason for it!

So... which is right?

grammar - In my house, "there were" or "there was" many toys

Which of the following is correct and why:

1) In my house, there were many toys.

2) In my house, there was many toys.

An answer with an explanation would be greatly appreciated.

differences - "receptacle" vs. "outlet" in AmEng

What's the difference between receptacle and outlet to cal the device in a wall you put a plug into in order to provide electricity for a lamp, television, etc.?

(also receptacle, socket) (both North American English) (British English power point) a device in a wall that you put a plug into in order to connect electrical equipment to the power supply of a building

OLD

US : a device in a wall into which an electric cord can be plugged in order to provide electricity for a lamp, television, etc.

electrical outlets; a wall outlet

— called also socket, (British) point, (British) power point

MWLD

• receptacle

US : a device into which an electric cord can be plugged in order to provide electricity for a lamp, television, etc.
an electrical receptacle [=outlet]

MWLD

Answer

NEC 2008

Outlet:

A point on the wiring system at which current is taken to supply utilization equipment.

Receptacle:

A receptacle is a contact device installed at the outlet for the connection of an attachment plug. A single receptacle is a single contact device with no other contact device on the same yoke.

–flashcardmachine.com

An outlet is a location. A receptacle is an object.

hyphenation - Correct use of endash in range of minutes

I am currently working as a web developer, and will occasionally be asked to update a website. A "client" just send me an update containing this text:

A 15-30-minute waiting-period is required after each injection is given.

Notice the use of 2 hyphens, which I am sure is not the correct style to use. I have been taught to use en dashes to separate ranges of values, such as 15–30, and also to add word spaces if I feel the en dash runs into the words on either side. However, I also vaguely think I was taught to put a hyphen between a phrase like this: "… going on a 30-minute walk."

If I follow both of these "rules", I will end up with a sentence that looks like this:

A 15–30-minute waiting-period is required after each injection is given.

As you can see, this only differs from the original because of the en dash between 15 and 30. However, I still think that looks weird. I think that it ideally would look like this:

A 15–30 minute waiting period is required after each injection is given.

Note: I also removed the hyphen between waiting and period, as I don't think that should be there either.

Questions

Question 1:
What is the proper way of rendering the first part of the sentence? Is it an en dash between the numbers and then no hyphen between the last number and the word minute?

Question 2:
Should the words waiting and period have a hyphen between them?

The reason that this question doesn't answer my question specifically is that while I know the differences between hyphens and dashes, the way the sentence is composed lends itself to confusion. Having an en dash in the word before a hyphen seems rather strange.

Thanks!

Answer

You are right on both counts and I like your version of the sentence the best. There is no need for "30-minute" but it is acceptable and "15- to 30-minutes" is a fine suggestion by @FumbleFingers. I used thepunctuationguide.com as my reference.

pronouns - "...will divide the people (who/whom) most need to be brought together"

With a two-party system, our nation will divide the people (who/whom)
most need to be brought together.

Do I use who or whom for this sentence? I think that "people" is the direct object and warrants the use of "whom", but I want to make sure I'm right.

Are there idioms specific to one English dialect?

Let's get into a little conversation about the differences between American English, British English and regional dialects. Some words are specific to certain dialects (lass is Scottish, the lads is British, etc.). Some words take different meaning (theatre vs. cinema to mean “movie theatre”). Pronunciation is obviously different, and spelling can be (neighbour/or, gray/grey, etc.).

What I wonder is this: are there some specifically British (or American, or whatever) idioms. I don't see why there shouldn't be, but I can't think of a single one right now. So, can you come forward with such idioms with the following constraints:

• the individual words do not markedly belong to one dialect


• it does not refer to a specific cultural element: geographic place, local dish, …

It would be fun to have some from a wide variety of English dialects, to broaden the perspective.

---

Edit: to clarify, an idiom in this question has the meaning of “a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words”

grammar - Subject versus object in a sentence: how are they determined?

For example, if I tell

“I'm write-only”

am I perceived as subject (who is writing) or as an object (who is written)?

Related question:

Answer

You should be careful to distinguish between syntactical labels and semantic labels. Subject and object are syntactic terms: they mostly say something about the form of the sentence, the way it is ordered. Agent and patient are semantic terms: they apply to meaning only.

(Note that the word "I" is one of the few words in English that can only be used as subject (or subject complement). You can't say "the dog beats I": if "I" is object, it should be "me".)

I beat the dog.

The agent of a sentence is the person or thing that acts upon some other thing. The patient is the person or thing that is acted upon. "I" is the person that acts, so that "I" is the agent. "The dog" is the patient.

The subject of the sentence can be found by answering the question: who is it that "beat"? - It is I who beat the dog. Therefore "I" is also the subject. You need to always take the full predicate, that is all the verbs in the clause, in your question to determine the subject.

The dog was beaten by me.

Who is the person that acts? - Me. Therefore "me" is the agent.
Who is it that "was beaten"? - The dog. Therefore "the dog" is the subject. As you see, in passive constructions the subject is usually the patient (or recipient: there are more than just two semantic roles).

[Edited:]
In your example "I am write only", the subject is "I", as Red showed. But I think you want to know whether "I" is the agent or patient of "write" in your sentence. That depends on the meaning of the sentence, which is not clear without context. Since "write-only" is mostly used with computer memory, I will assume that you mean "I" to be analogous to this memory. The sentence to be analysed would then be "this memory is write only".

We could then ask this question: "when someone writes data to a disk, who is it that acts, and who is it that is acted upon?". It is evident that "someone" is the agent, and "a disk" is the thing that is acted upon: therefore the disk is the patient. It follows that in "this memory is write only", the memory is the patient in the context of writing data; the adjective "write-only" must therefore accompany its patient. This means that "I" in your sentence is most probably patient.

grammatical number - Does "including" change the plural?

When the phrase "including something" is used, will the plural changed?
For example:
Everyone is required to wear shoes.
Everyone, including the staff, is/are required to wear shoes.

verb agreement - "Me who is" or "me who am"?

Generally the verb following

who agrees with the subject or object that precedes the who. This makes sense and is expected. When the subject or object that the who refers to is singular, the verb is singular; when the subject or object is plural the verb is plural

Such does not seem to be the case, though, when me precedes the who. We instead treat me, in this instance, as a singular non-first-person subject: "It seems to me, who never knows anything, ...", "She kisses me, who has wanted her kiss for so long", etc. These examples are awkward but replace the italicized verbs with first person present form (know, have) and it gets even more awkward.

To make sure this isn't just a personal grammatical tic and to not rely on my ear only, I went to Google Ngrams:

I searched with the verb to be because it is the most easily distinguished by person; with other verbs it would be difficult to differentiate first person singular and first person plural mes—as in, whether the me is a part of a group or not.

It appears that people have said both rather equally since the mid-1800s—though even before that there wasn't consensus—and then the non-agreeing took off in the 1970s. (I am well aware there might be another explanation of this graph and these patterns, but I haven't identified one.)

Why does "me who" take a non-first-person singular verb form (aka an -s)?

Answer

As you said, the examples listed with "me who is" sound bad to me. I'm not sure I would characterize them as acceptable, or say that sentences like "It seems to me, who never knows anything..." have exactly "taken off". But there does seem to be a real shift upward, and an even clearer shift relative to "me, who am..."-type sentences.

Compared to sentences with "he who is", or even "him who is", we see that neither of the first-person options is used much:

Note also that structures with an objective-case pronoun before "who" seem to be less favored in general. (And speakers sometimes use subjective-case pronouns before "who" even when the matrix clause doesn't call for this, as in phrases like "Let he who...")

A few alternate structures I can think of that might be showing up here for "me who is":

Use of "me" as a noun:

I found a few examples of the kind of usage I'm thinking of from Google Books.

• 
  
  

  We must be careful, however, not to fall into the trap of thinking
  that it is “me” who is saying “Ah ha.” (Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation, by Ayya Khema)

  
  




• 
  

  I'm still imagining a central me who is doing this. (Zen and the Art of Consciousness, by Susan Blackmore)

  
  




• 
  

  intend to allow myself to imagine what it is like to “be” the me who is in the new space (Creating Fulfillment, Finding Passion: A Law of Attraction Retreat, by Matthew D. Matthias)

  
  

I can't imagine "who am" was ever acceptable in sentences of this type in modern English, so if use of "me" as a noun has increased, this would bias the chart. And it does seem like this usage has increased (although interestingly, it doesn't appear to have increased much more quickly than the usage of nominal "I": "the me who is" vs. "the I who is").

We could filter this out from the Ngram Viewer to some degree by subtracting examples of "the me who is" and "_ADJ_ me who is". (The latter actually doesn't work since you can't use part-of-speech in 4-grams, so I substituted "_ADJ_ me who" as an approximation.) But these seem to have a fairly small contribution to the prevalence of "me who is":

Cases where the "who" is actually attached to another noun phrase:

I don't believe the Ngram viewer has any way of determining pronoun reference, so I think the above structures would all show up for "me who is". Unfortunately, I don't know how to estimate their prevalence.

Interestingly, I found one case where Ngram only has "me who is" and no "me who am", but it is still less prevalent than the variant with "I who am". It is the "it-cleft" structure "it is _ who _":

The cleft structure seems to me to be a special case since it's likely speakers' judgments are influenced by the presence of the pronoun "it".

But even if we subtract "the me who is" and "it is me who is" from the Ngram viewer, it still shows an increase for "me who is" (and a drop in "me who am"):

I would guess that this does reflect a shift in how speakers handle sentences of the "It seems to me, who never knows anything..." type. As BillJ says, it seems likely that this is influenced by the behavior of noun phrases followed by "who", which normally take third-person agreement even if the noun phrase is co-referential with a first person pronoun (e.g. "I am the one who is...")

grammar - Which prepositions should I use after "do your best"?

I always have been having problems how to understand which preposition to use. Of course there are examples, in which the preposition is obvious. For me the problem occurs when "Do your best in/on/at x." means "Deal with x as effectively as you can.". Which grammar rules or methods should I use for this case?

Examples of phrases I have this problem with include the following:

• I'll do my best on the TOEFL preparation so I'll get a higher score on the exam.


• I'll do my best on the test tomorrow.



• Do your best in achieving this goal.


• Do your best in the planning of our weekend.


• Do your best in filling out the form.

The following phrases were changed according to suggestions by Robusto, so now they don't have this problem:

• I see these questions for the first time so I haven't prepared for them. Should I just do my best to guess the right answers?


• You will have only 15 seconds to prepare so do your best to use them effectively.

Should I ever write or say "I will do my best at x", when I use it in the meaning "I will cope/deal with x (as good as I will be able to)"?

Answer

That's a "trick" question because it is not about what follows "best", but simply about "should you use 'in' or 'on'?".

The double-trick is that in some case, you could (with a slight variation of context) use 'for'!

I'll do my best for the TOEFL preparation so I'll get higher score on the exam.

Anyway, if we stick to the initial choice 'in' or 'on', the final trick is in some case, both could be used, like the two first examples ("on" maybe being more commonly used in the US)

I find (personal rule)

• "in" standing for "during" or "within" (or other similar meanings)


• "on" standing for "about" or "referenced by" (or other similar meanings)

Meaning I don't find your examples "wrong".

modal verbs - Conditionals in the future

My colleague and I have a hot discussion about which is correct.

My version is:

If you don't fix the bug I will send you a patch.

and his one is:

I would send you a patch if you don't fix the problem.

Discussion context is: there is a bug in a project. I will send a patch in case that it will not be fixed this evening.

I've written mine following academic definitions of "future conditionals" and my colleague's version looks unnatural for me. So who is right? If neither - what would be a correct sentence?

Answer

Yours is the correct option, but not because of clause order. The main difference is that you use if ... then I will, and your friend uses I would... if.

Both the following are correct:

If you don't fix the bug I will send you a patch.

I will send you a patch if you don't fix the bug.

However, replacing the will with would makes either one incorrect, since the do in don't refers to an event which is likely to happen (known as First Conditional) and would refers to an event which is not likely to happen (known as Second Conditional). Since you are referring to events which are likely to happen, you should use don't and will. Otherwise you would use didn't and were.

grammaticality - Is it necessary to add "a" before the noun in this sentence?

Consider the sentence fragment:

...as Business Development Representative, I would...

If Business Development Representative describes a role occupied by a single person (for example, "as President" instead of "as a President" or "as CEO" instead of "as a CEO"), is an "a" required to precede the noun so it reads:

...as a Business Development Representative, I would...

There is just one Business Development Representative.

Answer

You should drop the article:

[1] ...as Business Development Representative, I would...

is exactly like

[2] ...as President/treasurer/secretary/chair/[...], I would...

Even though President (like treasurer, secretary, chair, etc.) is a count noun† in the singular, and such nouns normally require a determiner, examples like [1] and [2] are exceptional.

^{†Business Development Representative is not a single noun, but rather what CGEL calls a nominal. (In linguistics more broadly it would often be called an NP', pronounced "NP-bar"; see e.g. here.) However, the head of that nominal is a count noun in the singular, representative, so the whole nominal therefore normally requires a determiner. In general, in what follows, everything stated about President, treasurer etc. applies also to Business Development Representative.}

As far as why in examples like [1] and [2] we drop the article, there are two points—one about semantics, and one about syntax.

Semantically, President (treasurer, chair, etc.) refers to a 'unique role' held by a person in a particular situation. This means that the determiner should normally be dropped, provided the gramamtical function of President (and this is the syntactic point) is either that of a predicative complement or of a predicative oblique. In [2], President functions as a the latter, a complement of the preposition as, where the whose as phrase functions as a marked predicative complement.

In particular, a bare role NP cannot function as a subject or an object. You cannot say *Treasurer has resigned or *She questioned treasurer; you'd need some determiners, e.g. Our treasurer has resigned and She questioned the treasurer.

Discussion

Here is the relevant section from Collins COBUILD English Guides: Articles (pp. 51-52):

6.14 Special roles

Some nouns can refer to a special, unique role held by a person in a particular situation (for example, a government or business). When they are used like this, you can leave out the definite article.

...when he was President.
It was nearly 40 years before she became Queen.
...Mr John Hume, leader of the Social and Democratic Labour Party.

It would be unnatural to leave in the definite article and say 'when he was the President' or 'she became the Queen', although you can leave it in when the noun is followed by 'of'. Some words commonly used in this way are:

author                  chairman             king                          queen
best man             chairperson         leader                       secretary
boss                      director                manager                  treasurer
captain                 goalkeeper          president
centre forward    head                     prime minister

The context is very important. In a gang, one person can be 'leader'; in a football team, one person can be 'captain', 'centre forward', or 'goalkeeper'; at a wedding one person can be 'best man'; in a country one person can be 'king', 'queen', 'president', or 'prime minister'. Many other nouns can be used in this way in a particular context.

Note that when you are talking about a person rather than describing someone's role you need an article.

The President had issued a sympathetic reply.
The Queen then abandoned the project.

In

...as President I would...

we have a singular count noun, President, appearing without a determinative. This is a highly exceptional situiation, which is subject to some syntactical constraints.
CGEL analzyes President in [1] as bare role NP (noun phrase). Here is a relevant passage (p. 328):

Also included in the category of NP are bare role NPs such as president, deputy leader of the party—bare in the sense that they do not contain a determiner. These qualify as NPs by virtue of occurring as the predicative complements of verbs like be, become, appoint, elect, but singular NPs of this kind are exceptional in that they cannot occur as subjects or objects, where a determiner such as the definite article the is required:

[8]   i  I'd like to be president.                                        [predicative complement]
       ii  I'd like to meet *president/the president.                                     [object]

In more detail (p. 253):

The crucial syntactic property of PC [predicative complement] is that it can have the form either of an AdjP [adjective phrase] or of a bare role NP (a count singular with no determiner, such as President of the Republic, treasurer, etc.). Usually it can have the form of an ordinary NP [noun phrase] too, but what distinguishes PC from O [object] is the admissibility of an AdjP or bare role NP.

[5]            PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT                                   OBJECT
             i  a.  He seemed a nice guy/nice.           b.  He met a nice guy/*nice.
            ii  a.  I consider it bad advice/bad.         b.  I gave her bad advice/*bad.
          iii  a.  She remained treasurer.                   b.  *She questioned treasurer.
           iv  a.  They appointed him secretary.       b.  *They promised him secretary.

Examples [i-ii] illustrate the possibility of replacing an ordinary NP by an AdjP (adjective phrase) in the case of PC, and the impossibility of doing so with O. Examples [iii-iv] show bare role NPs functioning as PC and the ungrammaticality that results from putting them in O function: the NPs in [iiib/ivb] need determiners (e.g. She questioned the treasurer; They promised him a secretary).

The ability of AdjPs to function as PC but not O reflects the fact that a PC characteristically expresses a property, while O (like S [subject]) characteristically refers to someone or something: AdjPs denote properties but are not used referentially. Similarly, the restriction on bare role NPs reflects the fact that they too cannot be used referentially; note in this connection that they are equally excluded from subject function: *Treasurer has resigned.

On p. 255, CGEL points out that a bare role NP can function as predicative obliques, which is exactly how it functions in [1] and [2].

■ Predicative obliques

Predicative elements may occur as complement of a preposition instead of being related directly to the verb. Much the most common preposition is as:

[9]                    INTRANSITIVE                                          TRANSITIVE
          i  a.  That counts as excellent.    b.  I regard her as indispensable.                  [AdjP]
         ii  a.  She served as treasurer.    b.  They chose her as secretary.         [bare role NP]

Again the predicand is S [subject] in the intransitive, and normally O [object] in the transitive.³⁰ The complements of as we analyse as predicative obliques, and the as phrases themselves (as excellent, etc.) as marked predicative complements.

^{30The verb strike is exceptional in having S as predicand in a transitive construction: compare I regard him as a
liability (normal, O as predicand) and He strikes me as a liability (exceptional, S as predicand). The behaviour of strike here correlates with its exceptional alignment of semantic roles and syntactic functions. Like regard it belongs to the field of cognition, yet it aligns experiencer and stimulus with O and S respectively, instead of the usual S and O (cf. §2.3), and this exceptional alignment in turn reflects the fact that the sense involved here is a secondary one relative to that of He struck me on the chin.}