grammar - The class is/are all working on a project together

The class is/are all working on a project together.

I am curious to know whether I can use both is and are in this sentence - with a small difference in meaning.

syntactic analysis - sentence construction

I am writing an assignment, and I need to say, "6", "year","old", and "girl". I wrote 6 year old girl, but I keep getting a blue underline suggesting it is grammatically incorrect. How should I be writing this, and why?

ordinals - How can I ask a question with the answer "I'm eating the fourth apple"?

Assume that there are 5 apples must be eaten by Jack. When you want to know about how many of the apples are eaten, you may ask Jack, 'how many apples have you eaten?'; But how can I ask the question to make Jack answers, 'I'm eating the fourth apple'?

Difference between family name, name at birth and first names?

I'm filling an English document and I'm being asked to complete my family name, then my name at birth and then my first names. Does anyone know the difference between these 3 concepts? My guess is that my family name is my last name, my name at birth is my complete name at birth, and my first names are everything but my surname. Is that correct?

Answer

Here's the common usage of those terms but for a specific form check with whoever is asking for the form to be filled out.

Family name is the part of the name you share with your family, often called "last name" or "surname" in English (though that's less accurate since some cultures put the family name first).

Name at birth would be your full-name on your birth certificate (usually the same unless you've changed your name).

First Name is your given name (strange to see a form that mixes "first name" and "family name") if it says first names (plural) it might include all other names other than your family name (eg middle names).

grammar - There's three things: is it correct?

I found this phrase:

So what is it about habits that makes something like biting your

fingernails so hard to stop, while making something like running a
couple half marathons per week possible? There’s three things to know
about why habits develop whether you want them to or not.

Is that correct (in formal English/grammar)? Should not we write There are three things ... instead?

Answer

The combination of there's with a plural noun is common in informal English. This is particularly the case in spoken language, in which there's rolls off the tongue more easily than there are.

The usage should be avoided in formal English, however. And note that is not permissible to use the uncontracted form:

*There is three things to know about ... .

Here is an extract from the Cambridge Dictionary's page on There is, there's and there are:

In speaking and in some informal writing, we use there’s even when it
refers to more than one. This use could be considered incorrect in

formal writing or in an examination:

• There’s three other people who are still to come.




• There’s lots of cars in the car park.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/there-is-there-s-and-there-are

grammaticality - Placement of the word "also"

Earlier today on another site in the network, a user posted a question like this:

Is there a better way to use [x]?

There was a lot more to it, but the very first comment addressed this question directly and explicitly:

Why do you want to use [x] and not [y]? Also have you considered using [z]?

I took this latter sentence as:

You should consider using [z] instead of [x].

And proceeded to explain why [z] is not a valid alternative to [x].

The commenter vehemently insists that it should be clear and obvious that by starting the sentence with "also," I should know that they actually meant:

You should consider using [z] in addition to [x].

Can someone please explain from an English and grammar standpoint why having "also" at the beginning of the sentence - with or without a comma - does not associate with the thoughts in that sentence the way he/she thinks that it does?

Answer

"Also" when used in the beginning of a phrase is usually used to introduce a new point. (In any case "also" usually refers to the previous clause)

"Also, have you considered using [z]?" - here "also" is just used to introduce a new topic and the meaning is equivalent to "Why do you want to use [x] and not [y]? Have you considered using [z]?" Whether 'z' was meant to be used in addition or as a replacement to 'x', or to 'y', is unspecified.

Alternatives:

"Have you also considered using [z]?" = you should consider using [z] - again, whether [z] is an addition or a replacement and to what, [x] or [y], is not known.

"Have you considered also using [z]?" = you should consider using [z] as well as [y] or [x] - whether [z] is an addition to [x] or [y] is still unknown but in this case it is not a replacement

The question of whether [z] would be in addition/replacement to [x] or [y] might be obvious from context but not from the grammar:

"Why do you want to drink water and not tea? Also, have you considered drinking coffee?" - is coffee in addition or as a replacement? And to what, tea or water?

grammatical number - Referring to a plural noun as singular

Their mistakes is what saved Snowden because otherwise he would be in prison now.

Source: The Putin Interviews by Oliver Stone

imho 'is' refers to the noun 'what' that is from the right side of the verb 'to be' that is quite unusual for me. Why does this verb take a form regardless of the noun that precedes it? Is it possible to use 'are' in this case?

ps

I've seen the similar topic - Referring to a plural noun as singular?
But it didn't help me to understand the usage

Answer

Your source is wrong.

Their mistakes are what saved Snowden

From https://books.google.com/books?id=4BMkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT59&lpg=PT59#v=onepage&q&f=false

Question on what role this infinitive plays in the sentence?

I am going to study.

Does "to study" act as an adverb, a direct object, or something else? My gut feeling says adverb. Thanks for your help.

grammar - What is the grammatic function of the expression "being polluted"

first poster here.

I need help with the following sentence, written by my Vietnamese student.

He wrote "The forest being polluted is the consequence of our actions."
Now I'm not looking to rephrase the sentence in any way, I just want to understand what the function of being polluted is.

It's not an adjective, although it is part of the noun group. It's no gerund as it's not a noun and I've already been through my grammar book, to no avail.

grammar - some of his most characteristic work or some of his most characteristic works?

I am a Korean English teacher. I am teaching about Monet.
But I have encountered a grammatically strange expression like the following first sentence.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1551703/Cataracts-the-key-to-Monets-blurry-style.html
Monet suffered from cataracts for much of his later life.
During that time, he produced some of his most characteristic work.

During that time, he produced some of his most characteristic works.

I think that in the sentence, the word “work” must be changed into “works.”
Am I wrong or is the original incorrect?
Could you please explain which is correct or incorrect?

pronouns - Can I use word "Thou", "Thee", "Thy" and "Thine" like following

Firstly I have researched about those words, This answer really help me understand their meanings.

So I believe that those words are singular form of You, you, your and yours respectively.

Furthermore, "Thou" is a subject form while "thee" is the object form. so could someone tell me if I can use them as following.

Who are thou? instead of Who are you?
I have come to see thee. instead of I have come to see you.
What are thy future dreams? instead of What are your future dreams?
I believe this pen is thine. instead of I believe this pen is yours.

Thanks.

Answer

In a comment, Janus Bahs Jacquet wrote:

Thou requires a specific form of the verb, which always ends in -((e)s)t (e.g., thou art, thou wert, thou canst, thou thinkest, etc.), so the first sentence is not grammatical. The rest are fine. Since they are so archaic, however, you should be aware that it’s frequently not just a matter of substituting one word for another – in order for it to seem natural, you’d have to emulate other grammatical features of older English as well, such as different vocabulary and inversion instead of do-support in questions (“Camest thou yestereve?” instead of “Did you come last night?”).

differences - "to church" and "to the church"

What is the reason for using "to" and "to the" before the word "church" in different parts of this passage?

On Sundays, we always went to church. After breakfast, the carriage took Ambrose and me to the church in the village. All the servants came to church too. On Sunday evenings, we had an early dinner. Usually, some of our neighbours would eat with us.

(My Cousin Rachel, Daphne Du Maurie)

Answer

By saying to church one means church the institution. By saying to the church one means church the building.

On Sundays, we always went to church.

Here, it doesn't matter which church we went to, geographically. What is important is that we attended the Christian House of God.

After breakfast, the carriage took Ambrose and me to the church in the village

Here, a specific building rather than the institution in general is meant, hence the definite article.

It is the same difference as between to school and to the school.

grammar - When it is appropriate to use "-ing" in a dependent clause?

I tend to use sentences like these ones in my writings:

"Bob kicked the boy, injuring his left knee."

"Congress passed the brand new tariff act, increasing the prices of
imported goods."

What is the specific rule for using these types of of dependent clauses (..., "verbing")? I do not know when their usage is incorrect. I feel like I use them whenever it "feels right," but I do not know when it is actually grammatically correct to use them.

Also, does the "increasing" in the second sentence refer to "Congress" or the "act"? If it is the act, then do all cases of "-ing" in the start dependent clause refer to the noun right before it?

grammatical number - "feed aggregator" instead of "feeds aggregator"

I find it odd that the common expression (see Wikipedia for example) is "feed aggregator" rather than "feeds aggregator". I would find the plural more meaningful with the concept of aggregating :). Does this happen in other English expressions? Why?

grammaticality - Difference between "understood that to be" and "understood that as"

If both sentences below are grammatically correct, are there any differences between them?

(1) I understood that as your question.

(2) I understood that to be your question.

Answer

The difference I see between the two statements is when the question was asked. The word 'that' references something which recently and previously occurred. I am assuming this statement is in response to someone else's question. In your first option, 'as' indicates/hints the question has been asked before the current conversation. The person expected an answer by now and in inquiring why they have not gotten their answer. In the second option, 'to be' indicates the question has just been asked and you have not had the expected time to answer.

I have made several assumptions here. The surrounding conversation would help to clarify your question, thus enabling better answers.

formality - Addressing a person with "man"

Is there any issue to address or call a person (a gentleman, of course) with man? I think the word man has a strange meaning. Which is the best way to address? Is hello enough?

Answer

"Man" is used in informal contexts. If you are talking to a friend or a new acquaintance you could address them as "man," but it is not fitting for a formal/professional environment.

word choice - "Help rule out" vs. "help to rule out"

Duplicate of:
What is the correct way to use infinitive after the verb “help”: with or without “to”?
“Could help avoid” vs. “could help to avoid”
“Helping you do something” or “Helping you to do something”?
Infinitive without “to”?
Is it correct to say “John helps you talk with people”?

My sentence fragment possibilities are

• ... can help rule out false alarms


• ... can help to rule out false alarms

I feel like both are technically correct, and that the latter sounds somewhat more formal while the former may be a little more clear. I often come upon the general issue of when to use "to [verb]" or just "[verb]" — is there a general rule? Is only one of them actually correct?

(Even if someone can explain how to describe the difference between these cases would be appreciated, i.e. "infinitive vs. ____" )

Answer

Either an unmarked infinitive (an infinitive without a to complementizer), or a marked infinitive with to will work. Here. Since the matrix verb is help.

But that's only true with help.

Every English verb is has its own rules for what kinds of Object Complement clauses it permits, requires, or forbids. See here for Subject and here for Object Complement examples.

As I used to tell my grammar classes, verbs have more fun.

grammatical number - Is a music band a singular or a collective entity, grammatically speaking?

Duplicate:
Is the usage of “are” correct when referring to a team/group/band?

What is correct to say?

Korn* is a great band

OR

Korn* are a great band.

(* You can replace your favourite band's name here)

Of course everybody there is no doubt about the following sentences:

The Beatles are a great band

Led Zeppelin is a great band

But with certain kinds of names, the situation becomes difficult.

Metallica are a great band

OR

Metallica is a great band

Is there any consensus on this matter?

orthography - Is writing the pronoun "i" in lowercase a feature of Indian English?

The Rule

The personal pronoun “I” is always capitalized in English, regardless of its position in a sentence. This is an orthographic convention that every native speaker should know.

Whenever I have seen anyone breaking this ‘rule’ online, irrespective of their nationality, I've tended to make the following assumptions:

1. a typo


2. fatigue (pressing that shift key can be so exhausting)


3. ignorance

For ignorance I don't mean stupidity, I mean that the writer (of any nationality) either chooses to ‘ignore’ the rule, or he is ignorant of its existence. This can be caused by a person's first language (or mother tongue) interference. For example, the italian personal pronoun, io, is only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence, and coincidentally, the lowercase letter is also adopted for the words italiana and italiano.

So it was quite an eye-opener to read the following, posted on EL&U nearly three years ago.

But i read a fantastic article some years back that convinced me to write a small "i" instead of a capital one, and to make the y capital in "You" to show more respect to the person, and attach a modesty to oneself.
_{jeega (Sep 5 '12)}

I'm not 100% certain, but I believe jeega is Indian, and it's indisputable that many Indian speakers who are learning English have a tendency to write the subject pronoun “I” in lowercase.

Questions

1. How established is this praxis among Indian English speakers?


2. Is writing i a means of circumventing the perceived limitations of the English language?


3. Can anyone confirm this practice, and/or provide a link to the aforementioned article?


4. Because English is continuously evolving and it has become, for better or for worse, the 21st century lingua franca, I wouldn't be surprised if I was written i in two generation times. Are there any studies on this eventuality?

---

Related:

grammar - What is the future tense of "would have been"?

The following sentence is grammatically correct:

Today would have been Freddie Mercury's 68th birthday.

If Freddie Mercury were still alive, this sentence would be correct too:

September 5, 2015, will be Freddie Mercury's 69th birthday.

But Freddie Mercury is now dead, and thus, to correctly describe his 69th birthday, it would be necessary to use a "would have been" formation. However, in this case, the formation would be applied to an event in the future.

How would one get the future tense of a naturally past-tense modal verb?

Answer

According to English Grammar Online 4U, would can be used in a future tense as a Conditional I Progressive tense.

The conditional I progressive puts emphasis on the course of an action that might take place.

The phrasing might blurs the line, as in your example, September 5, 2015 almost certainly will take place and it is a documented fact that Freddie Mercury was born on that day in 1946. Let us focus on the conditional part of the tense instead. In a broader definition, would can be used in a tense that EnglishPage.com calls Past/Present/Future Unreal Conditional + Continuous.

FORM
If-clause: [were + present participle] + Result: [would be + present participle]

USE
Future Unreal Conditional + Continuous can be used like the Future Continuous in imaginary situations to emphasize interruptions or parallel actions in the future.

NOTICE The future form looks the same as the present form. The future is indicated with words such as "tomorrow," "next week" or "in a couple of days."

Breaking this down further, the Future (Real) Continuous tense is what you correctly identify as the will be usage, if he were alive. Unreal modifies this tense to work in the case where Mr. Fahrenheit is deceased (which is the current reality). The two key components to identifying this as the Future Unreal tense are:

1. Using a future date. You chose to name the exact date of September 5th, 2015, thus to identify it as a future date we need the additional context of the current date. If you instead started your example with Next year..., this would match the examples from EnglishPage.com exactly.


2. The implicit conditional. The phrasing you're mentioning is common enough that a native english speaker will understand that you're referring to a deceased person. Therefore, your sentence ends with an implied ... if he were still alive.

Putting this all together, the correct phrasing for identifying a future birthday for a deceased person is

September 5, 2015 would be Freddie Mercury's 69th birthday.

The form is reversed from the examples above, but it is a valid construction.

Subject (future date) + would be + present participle (birthday) + if clause (implied: if he were still alive).

As Tim points out, though, tenses are loosely enforced in English and many native speakers would correctly parse would have been correctly.

terminology - What is another word for 'pronoun' within this problem domain?

An excerpt from the the song "99 Bottles of Beer" would be the following two verses:

2 bottles of beer on the wall, 2 bottles of beer. Take one down

and pass it around, 1 bottle of beer on the wall.

1 bottle of beer on the wall, 1 bottle of beer. Take it down and
pass it around, no more bottles of beer on the wall.

As you can see from the words in bold, one difference between these verses is the word "one" and "it". These words are pronouns representing the thing that is being taken down.

I'm trying to come up with a term that generalizes this concept. One options would be to simply use the term "pronoun". In other words, the "pronoun" for the first example verse is "one" and the "pronoun" for the second example verse is "it".

However, I am wondering if anyone can come up with a term to generalize "it" and "one" that is more related to the domain of the "99 Bottles of Beer" song.

As an example, the second word in each verse is another difference between the two example verses. We have "bottle" and "bottles". In this case, we can generalize these terms to represent the "container" for the beginning of that verse.

The "container" for the beginning of first example verse is "bottles", and the "container" for the beginning of the second example verse is "bottle". The concept of a "container" is related to the problem domain. It would be less descriptive to generalize this difference as a "unit". It's still correct, but it seems less related to the "99 Bottles of Beer Song". It's too general.

I feel that "pronoun" is similar to "unit". It's too abstract. Is there a word that can be used instead of "pronoun" that is more closely related to the song? Similar to the way "container" is more closely related than "unit"?

single word requests - Low-variance time set or Low-varying time set

I have a time set like: {5 seconds, 5.1 seconds, 4.9 seconds ....} -> the time values do not change much (has low variance).

Can I define it as: Low-variance time set or Low-varying time set?

I mean, is it grammatically correct? If not how to say it in one word?

Another question: can I say it as Low-value time set (I want to say that it contains small time numbers).

Please help (not good in english). Thanks in advance.

Answer

I think the proposed "Low-varying" term would feel unnatural for a native speaker.

"Low" is generally only used with noun forms, e.g. "low variance" or "low probability". With a word like "varying", you would usually attach an adverb, e.g. "minimally-varying", "slightly-varying", or "mildly-varying", just to name a few.

We might also choose to say something a little more verbose, e.g. "a set of times with low variance".

"Low-value time set" is somewhat more natural, though I think again a native speaker would choose something more verbose, e.g. "a set of low-value times" or "a set of times with low values".

Being concise is a good goal, as it is considerate of your reader's time, but it can cost them time when there's no brief-but-easily-understood term available. Sometimes it's better to expand a little.

phrases - How do you differentiate between "in order to", "so as to", "so that" and "to"?

When we use the phrases so as to, in order to, and so that, we simply mean with the aim or
purpose of doing something. The first two phrases are always followed by an infinitive to.

Will I not be altering the meaning of the sentence, if I put both phrases in order to/so as to in one sentence, and also the phrase so that separately in another sentence? As in:

1. We took off our shoes so as to/in order to avoid scratching the newly finished floors.




2. We took off our shoes so that we can avoid scratching the newly finished floors.

Explicitly asking, which one of these phrases are informal and which one, not?

And is it okay to simply put the to-infinitive in written exams?

3. We took off our shoes to avoid scratching the newly finished floors.

Answer

Laboring under the distressingly common misapprehension that longer phrases
are inherently “more formal” than shorter ones, many novice writers,
especially budding technical writers rather than polished writers of
professional essays and fiction, will reflexively gravitate towards ever
longer and more sententious wordings.

At which point their copyeditors, should they be so lucky as to have such,
will equally reflexively rewrite those “wordy” constructions into simpler
ones. For example:

1. so as to ᴠᴇʀʙ > to ᴠᴇʀʙ


2. in order to ᴠᴇʀʙ > to ᴠᴇʀʙ


3. so that > so

Note that this example of yours:

We took off our shoes so that we *can avoid scratching the newly finished floors.

Has mismatched tenses: took is past tense but can is present tense. A happier sequence of tenses there would instead be the matched version shown here:

We took off our shoes so that we could avoid scratching the newly finished floors.

But as you suspect, there’s no reason to use so heavy a wording when a lighter one will do just fine:

• We took off our shoes to avoid scratching the newly finished floors.


• We took our shoes off to avoid scratching the newly finished floors.

syntactic analysis - Is there a grammatical term for two "conditional" subordinate clauses being combined with "and"?

First off, sorry if my question is confusing. Or just plain wrong for what I am actually asking. But I am confused. I'm trying to figure out why there are no commas in two specific sentences. I don't think these sentences are wrong, but I want to understand why they are right. I am looking for a rule, but I lack the terminology to search for a rule.

Here are the sentences:

Because the topic covers several issues and because I was already working on one of the sub-topics for another article, I thought I’d answer the question in an article rather than in the comment section.

and

I’m going to focus on adverbial clauses since they’re usually the ones that cause the most problems and because the example in the reader’s question uses an adverbial clause.

They are both taken from this article: http://theeditorsblog.net/2014/07/30/commas-with-subordinate-clauses-a-readers-question/

The parts that, for some reason or other, confound me are in bold. Both are subordinate/dependent clauses, and both begin with a subordinate conjunction. At least, I believe that is the case.
But what do they turn into when the construction is done like the above? A "compound subordinate clause"? And why would there be a small voice in my head, asking me why there is no comma before the "and" in the bold parts of my quotes?

Additionally, would the same grammatical "state" (yes, I am obviously lacking terminology, I apologize) still apply if, in the first quote, the subordinate conjunction was not repeated? As in:

Because the topic covers several issues and I was already working on one of the sub-topics for another article, I thought I’d answer the question in an article rather than in the comment section.

And again I feel like there should be a comma here between "issues" and "and".

Someone please help me out here.

Thank you.

determiners - “These days are over” vs. “those days are over”

Consider a context like the following:

There was a time when the United Kingdom and France were the world's foremost political powers, heading empires that spanned every continent. These two nations were at the forefront of the arts and technology. Th_se days are over. Now the United States and China share most of the economic influence, with Europe coming at best third when it manages to speak with a single voice.

Should it be these days, those days, or can either work? Do these and those give different impressions?

On the one hand, the days in question are in the distant past, which calls for “those”. It does seem a bit jarring to use “these days” to refer to the distant past, given that “these days” on its own means ”nowadays“. On the other hand, the days in question are the ones that have been mentioned just previously, which tends to call for this/these. They're also the first referent of two, making them the “this” and the present the “that”. Using “those days” is a bit jarring because it seems on the surface to refer to an unspecified or underspecified period on the past, rather than to the specific period that has just been mentioned. On the gripping hand, maybe it's just one of these cases where either this or that will do.

(Obligatory this is not a dictionary lookup request: I'm well aware of the differences between this/these and that/those, as well as the meaning of expressions such “these days” and “in those days”. My question is specifically about this case which does not involve a set expression and where there are arguments for both. I'm generally comfortable with choosing by feel but I originally wrote a paragraph like the one above with “th1se”, someone told me it should be “th2se” instead, and I'm now doubting.)

Answer

These days will soon be over (a future ending) is when you'd use these. You are still living through the days, but not for much longer. They will then become those days, separated from you by a distance of time.

(With a spatial separation, those can once again become these. With a separation in time, that is fundamentally impossible. This fact of finality colours all use of these days or those days. Not sure if that is necessary to say, but the implication may not be there in some other language I don't know of with different structure.)

grammar - Tense/construction of verb following 'looked at'

For example, in a sentence like 'he looked at his enemy....(use the verb fall)', would one say falling or fall? I feel like if the sentence was watched, it would be fall, but now for this construction I am not sure. Is there a rule or something that dictates this?

Sentence with two clauses linked by "that"

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

To my mind, the sentence has 2 problems:

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




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

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

Answer

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

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

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

programming - How do you describe only the name of the directory in computer science?

In computer science, I found the word "directory name" seems to describe path of the directory. (because when you use dirname command in linux you get path)

Then what word(s) do you use to describe only the name of the directory?

For example, if there is directories as follow,

"C:\folder1\filename.xml"

"folder1" is what I want to describe, not "C:\folder1"

Answer

There are two complimentary commands for parsing a pathname:

Path             Dirname       Basename
one/two/three    one/two       three
/a/b/c           /a/b          c
./x/y/           ./x           y

The dirname and basename commands were given their names early in UNIX history, so don't rely on their having any consistent naming convention.

Assuming that three and c are files and not directories, generally, one would say:

• File paths: ./one/two/three, /a/b/c


• File names: three and c


• Directory names: two, b, and x


• Directory paths: one/two, /a/b, and .

The Directory names and paths could also be given a trailing / to make it more obvious that they aren't files.

So in your non-UNIX (C:\folder1\filename.xml) example, filename.xml would be the filename and folder1 would be the directory name.

E.g. "filename.xml is a file in the folder1 directory."

word choice - "conversation-partner" and "conversation-mate"

Is it appropriate to say that the person I'm having a conversation with is my

conversation-partner, or do I have to say conversational partner? And if "conversation-partner" is Ok, what about conversation-mate?

I will give a concrete situation: Let's say I have a radio program, and I say: "Today we are going to talk about Physics. My conversation-mate is John Doe". So in this situation, which expression is better?

Last note: This question is not a duplicate. There is no question about "converation-mate". Also, I don't want to use less common words like "interlocutor" or "conversant".

Answer

"Let's say I have a radio program, and I say: 'Today we are going to talk about Physics. My conversation-mate is John Doe'" is acceptable usage, as is "conversation partner" or simply "guest," as suggested by StoneyB. Go with what feels natural to you.

expressions - I can't understand this sentence. It's from a video game Baldur's Gate

I don't speak English well. Please understand my bad grammar.
I'm not a native English speaker.

Recently I am playing a video game Baldur's Gate in English.

And I found this from the game.

Dreppin: "Nice day, ain't it? Too bad Nessa here ain't enjoyin' it though, her bein' sick 'n all. I need to get her one of them potions of antidote off Hull."

I understood almost everything what the charater said to me.

But still I don't know why the character used "her being sick and all."

Nessa = female cow

She's sick now. I understand.

But why her being sick? not she is sick or she has been sick or she is being sick.

Why there is no verb in the sentence?
Also how can the character starts the sentence with her, not she?

I mean, we use her usually her ring, her bag as a pronoun. like this.
But the character said "her being sick and all."

< it doesn't seem to make sense. Because it's a video game, so just because of that is it ok?

And what does meaning of "and all" ?

her being sick and all. means the female cow is sick now and what?

I don't get what and all means in this sentence.

So please explain the meaning of these things

• meaning of and all


• why her being sick and all / why there is no verb in the sentence


• why her being sick / why the sentence starts with her, not she

Those are my questions. Please help me.

Punctuation in complex sentence with repetition (implied) of the same verb

There is a kind of complex sentences where the first subsentence has the same verb as in the second one. So logicaly the verb could be ommited in the second one. What would be the correct punctuation in this case. Here is the original sentence:

The first one contains the score the second one contains the name.

And the sentence without second verb:

The first one contains the score the second one the name.

(All punctuation marks are ommited)

Answer

The first version is like this:

The first one contains the score; the second one contains the name.

For the second version there are two possibilities:

The first one contains the score, the second one the name.

The first one contains the score; the second one, the name.

This kind of construction has two names: zeugma (ZOYG-muh) and syllepsis (sill-EPP-siss). The two have overlapping and shifting definitions depending on whom you talk to. For me a zeugma is a case like you've proposed, and a syllepsis is a case in which the verb is used differently each time, e.g. "Dost sometimes Counsel take – and sometimes Tea" (Pope, The Rape of the Lock). But if you ask other people they might say it's the other way around, or that both are zeugmas, or that zeugma and syllepsis mean the same thing. Most commonly, though, at least the kind of case you're talking about is called a zeugma.

verb agreement - "Most of what" and "is" or "are"

I've gotten into an argument about whether
"Most of what I've read is books"
or
"Most of what I've read are books"
is correct.

I think it should be "is" because "most of" refers to "what I've read" which is singular but my friend insists it should be "are" because "most of" refers to "books" which is plural.

Answer

Maybe you can simply change the construction: Books are what I've most read, or, I've read more books than anything else, or, I've read mostly books. In your example, books ARE what you have read most, so I would agree that in diagrammatic reasoning most of what you've read ARE books. Of all of the various materials I've read, most ARE books. Therefore, because MOST refers to books, and BOOKS is a plural noun, I'm sorry to say that your friend is correct.

grammatical number - Do I write "zero millimeter" or "zero millimeters"?

Possible Duplicates:
Correct plural form of a zero quantified noun
There are no comments / There is no comment.

In the sentence "There is 0 mm of attached gingiva," is the proper word "is" or "are" when asking about the millimeters?

pronunciation - Should it be 'an' or 'a' in front of an abbreviation?

I am using abbreviations for well-known phrases: e.g., "Nash equilibrium" becomes NE and "neural networks" becomes NN. Should I use "an NN" or "a NN"? Does it matter whether a reader "unfolds" the abbreviation or not when reading? That is, I think it is often the case that NE is read "Nash equilibrium", then it seems appropriate to use "a NE".

questions - Problem with numerals

Is it correct to turn the sentence "He'll be her sixth husband" into a question like this:Which successive/consecutive husband will he be?
Best wishes,

Boguslaw

meaning - adjective or comparative adjective for measurements and rates

I was going some through articles about fitness and I encountered these two sentences.

1. Lifting lighter weights often means you're able to perform more repetitions for each exercise you complete


2. Lifting light weights won't build muscle mass no matter how much you pump

So I was wondering what is the difference between using light and lighter. Because if I use light for the first sentence and lighter for the second sentence, both sentences will still make sense.

What about these sentences?

• Running at a higher/high speed is better than running at a lower/low speed.


• Running for a longer/long distance is better than running for a shorter/short distance.

Personally I would use higher and lower because it sounds better. But I don't know if there are any rules that I should follow.

meaning - usage of allure and lure

What is difference between lure and allure ? Dictionaries refer that both words convey message to attract. However I found that lure is often used to attract through false or exaggerated promises or persuasion. Is it right or not ?

For instance :

He lured both girls into his car under the guise he was a punter and then drove them several miles away.

Is it appropriate to use lure only in false promising manner and allure in contrast ?

For instance:

I am allured by the a dramatic landscape of magnificent mountains.

Is it correct ?

Or both words can be used interchangeably as there is no difference ? I can't distinguish the usage of these words. Please help me.

Answer

"To lure" is a verb: I lure someone to me.

"Allure" is a quality: I have an allure about me.

"To be allured" is to be affected by the quality "allure"

capitalization - How should Samuel Beckett's French "En attendant Godot" be capitalized in MLA?

Wikipedia capitalizes the title of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as En attendant Godot in its original French version, which is how the title of the play is originally typeset. However, according to MLA formatting (MLA Handbook, Eighth Ed.),

Whenever you use the title of a source in your writing, take the title from an authoritative location in the work, not, for example, from the cover or the top of a page. Copy the title without reproducing any unusual typography, such as special capitalization or lowercasing of all letters.

It then continues by describing which words to capitalize, concurrent with standard title case. I plan on capitalizing the title to be En Attendant Godot by the rules stated above, but I am wondering if there are any different rules for titles in languages other than English. For example, I know that Spanish titles often only capitalize the first word, but I don't know the MLA rules in Spanish, either.

Edit: I have found that the last few pages of the English version Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts gives the following:

WAITING FOR GODOT was first presented (as En Attendant Godot) at the Théâtre de Babylone, 38 Boulevard Raspail, Paris, France, during the season of 1952–3.

The only reason I still cannot fully justify that capitalizing or not capitalizing either is correct is because the play itself could have been capitalized differently than the book. I really have no idea.

Answer

This web page says that for MLA, you should cite French titles using the French capitalization (of which there are two systems). In this case, both systems give the capitalization En attendant Godot.

This example from the MLA gives an Italian title for which only the first word is capitalized.

This blog entry details the two systems in more detail.

The easiest thing might be to stick with the capitalization used in French Wikipédia. It seems to be inconsistent between the two systems, but it may just be choosing the capitalization that the author originally used.

grammar - "It's me" or "It's I"

Which of these is correct? "It's me" or "It's I".

I hear these both colloquially but need the grammatically correct statement if one is preferable over the other.

punctuation - Where should the period be put when an entire sentence is quoted at the end of a sentence?

As in the following:

A common proverb is: “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

A common proverb is: “A rolling stone gathers no moss”.

A common proverb is: “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”.

If the proverb weren't a full sentence, I would immediately put a single period after the quote, at the very end. But if it is a sentence, which period should be removed so that there is only one period? Two periods look absolutely dorky.

Answer

Like all comprehensive answers about English (or those attempting to be so), this answer begins with, “it depends”.

A quotation that is not a complete statement should never have a period within its quotation marks:

The senator, when asked why he refused to support the measure, said that the language of the bill was “confusing and verbose”.

“Confusing and verbose” is not a complete statement; the quotation is simply attributing these exact words to the senator, while summarizing his complete statement largely through omission.

By contrast, a more complete statement attributed to the senator CAN have the period inside the quotes:

The senator, when asked why he refused to support the measure, said: “The American people deserve to understand the laws their representatives in Congress are writing, and this confusing and verbose bill hinders that effort.”

Now, it is still acceptable to place the period outside the quotation marks in this case. However, if the quotation spans the entire sentence from capital letter to fullstop, and/or continues for multiple sentences and comprises a full paragraph, the quotation should enclose the final period.

grammatical number - Do I write "zero millimeter" or "zero millimeters"?

Possible Duplicates:
Correct plural form of a zero quantified noun
There are no comments / There is no comment.

In the sentence "There is 0 mm of attached gingiva," is the proper word "is" or "are" when asking about the millimeters?

Using the definite article with acronyms and initialisms

I'm wondering when to use or not to use the definite article, when using acronyms or initialisms in a sentence. Is there a rule for this, or does it depend on the context?

For example, let's look at some example sentences
DDR = detailed design review.

NASA is planning to launch the final shuttle soon (no article)
The FBI shut down this website (article)
ESA is a full partner in the ISS (no article, article)
The project was cancelled at the DDR. (article)

What confuses me is that if NASA or ESA would be written in full, the article would be necessary.

Answer

Generally the article is not used with acronyms (initials that can be pronounced as a word), whereas it is with initialisms (initials where the letters themselves are pronounced). I would actually use the article with 'ESA' in the examples you gave, and so 'NASA' (acronym) doesn't get an article, but 'FBI', 'ESA', and 'DDR' (initialisms) do.

That said, there are initialisms where one wouldn't use the article either; you can usually work it out by expanding it and seeing whether you would use the article with the full sentence. Is the initialism talking about a specific thing (use the article), or a notion in general (don't use the article)? eg.

• The CPU is overheating (The Central Processing Unit is overheating).


• DRM is bad for consumers (Digital Rights Management is bad for consumers).

Acronyms don't tend to ever get an article, however (at least I can't think of any) because once they become pronounced as a name, they are treated like proper nouns, which don't receive an article (James did this; Microsoft did that; France did this; NASA did that).

grammatical number - what is the plural of "GPS"

Do I have several GPSs, or several GPSes, or something completely different? What is the rule to remember (will be useful later when I can have a GPS2, a GPST and maybe a GPSX too).

grammaticality - "Work" (noun) is plural or singular?

I couldn't find an answer to this question by searching the archive. If it's duplicate please let me know, and I'll remove it.

I was wondeing if "work" (noun) is plural or singular? for example, I want to speak about the "previous work" (meaning previous published papers):

Is it correct to say:

I provide a high-level overview of the previous work, including "their" limitations.

Or I should say:

I provide a high-level overview of the previous work, including "its" limitations.

I also appreciate any suggestion for a more elegant way of saying that there are "niche" in the previous papers, that I'm going to highlight.

Answer

Work can be either singular or plural, and in your context, either is possible - but the pronoun must agree, in either case.

So you can either use

• I provide a high-level overview of the previous work, including its limitations.

or

• I provide a high-level overview of the previous works, including their limitations.

In the first case, you refer to the entire body of previous work, whereas in the second, you refer to multiple instances of previous works. The difference is subtle, though, and my initial point stands - I'd say that you can use either, as long as the pronoun is consistent.

syntactic analysis - Identifying the sentence structure. Is this sentence a compound sentence?

I am trying to determine the sentence structure of the sentence:

Along with every other devoted Aussie trackydack dagger, I beg the federal government to ban these abhorrent, foreign "cuffs" and bring back the loose, flaccid Aussie leg-hole we know and love.

I believe that this text is a compound sentence, whereas my Teacher believes that it is a complex sentence and the majority of my class believes that it is a compound-complex sentence.

Assistance and an explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

american english - Why can "dividing a pizza into 4" be different from "dividing 1 into 4"?

Thank you for a question and answers at Divide two into four and Divide two by four

However, can anybody explain why "dividing a pizza into 4" is different from "dividing 1 into 4"? 1 pizza and number 1 would be same one piece of object. As soon as if we add "pizza" after a or "1", It would be completely backward or flipped over. So it really does not make any sense to me. I would like to know the logic behind it. So for instance, when a teacher is explaining "1/4 as dividing 4 into 1" in math class, as soon as he add a word "pizza" as an example, it would become "dividing a pizza into 4". It would be very confusing.
I wonder why such a confusing expression / grammar was created. Who started to use such a confusing mathematical notation, assuming " mathematical notation" was created after regular expression. I want to know the history behind it.
Or maybe I should ask you this way, which expression is wrong? Both cannot be correct when sequence and positions are the same. From point of view of "into", mathematical expression seems to be wrong.But for instance, one day a mathematician started to use the expression "divide A into B" which is B/A even though general world expression was A/B when he invented the expression. Why did he do it? "Dividing A into B" made more sense to him? Most of you are brainwashed so I am pretty sure what I am saying may not make any sense to you but there must be a reason to flip over somehow. So I want to know why he flipped it over. For an example again, in C language world "=" is not equal. Equal is "==". "=" is casting a value on the right to a value on the left. So "divide A into B" had to be B/A somehow. Simply"divide A by B" was A/B but when he wanted to say "divide A ??? B" for B/A but the ??? was "into" somehow.

I still need an answer. Nobody has not answered my question yet.
I am asking you about an issue of coexistence of conflicted definition.

grammar - Does I'll replace I will?

I can say "I will go", or "I'll go", and the both mean the same thing.

However, if you ask me "Can you go?", can I respond with "I'll" instead of "I will"?

grammatical number - How do I correctly pluralize acronyms?

Possible Duplicates:
What is the correct way to pluralize an acronym?
Plural form of the acronym LASER

I was just writing an email asking a supervisor about downloading multiple dynamic-link library files. The acronym for these is DLL, and the full spelling, dynamic-link library, is never used. How would this be pluralized, because normally I would just add an s, but DLLs is difficult to understand. Sometimes I add an apostrophe to make it DLL's, but I know this isn't grammatically correct. So my question is, how do I make the acronym DLL (and acronyms in general) plural?

Answer

"DLLs" is fine. Just capitalize the acronym (it's actually an initialism which makes capitalization even more appropriate/necessary) but leave the plural letters lowercase.

grammar - Which is correct: "While studying, I ran my own business" or "While studying, I was running my own business"?

While studying, I ran my own business for almost two years.

This sounds natural to me, but my friend claims that the continuous form ("I was running") is gramatically correct. Which is it?

PS. In case it matters, this is in the context of a resume, so the idea is to sound formal.

Answer

Both are correct. The first sentence means that while doing the first action which is "studying" it was interrupted by the other action which is "running your own business" so you might no longer be doing the first action, but the second sentence means that you are doing both actions at the same time and none of them interrupted the other.

grammaticality - "You and me against the world" vs "You and I against the world"

I have heard the first sentence in a song and there are also other songs that go something like "Me against the world" and "Me against the music". Shouldn't it be "You and I against..." since the phrase "You and I" is the subject? Or is it not?

grammatical number - Is 1.0 singular or plural?

I'm working on a website that displays distance to various locations to the nearest 1/10 mile. One of the developers (a non-native speaker) asked me an interesting question: If the distance is 1.0 mile(s), is that singular or plural? Clearly, anything other that 1.0 is plural, but is it:

1.0 miles away

or

1.0 mile away

The first option sounds more correct to my ear, but the voice of my elementary school language arts tells me that the latter option is correct.

Edit: Added the word 'away' to the example. It doesn't change the question, but might provide clarity for the answer. Also, regarding numbers between 0 and 1, after more thought, I'm not sure that the answer is as clear as I originally thought. See http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57224.html.

Answer

"Singular" is intrinsically an integer measure. 1.0 doesn't qualify as an integer, so the plural is appropriate.

Dictionary.com says this:

Grammar . noting or pertaining to a member of the category of
number found in many languages that indicates that a word form
has one referent or denotes one person, place, thing, or instance,...

1.0 does not refer to a single thing, it is a dimensional measure of size. It doesn't qualify as singular.

grammatical number - Is it correct to say: These are not homework?

A teacher sent home a list of assignments with a cover letter explaining, "These are not homework."

"This is not homework," or "These pages are not homework," sound equally normal to me, but "These are not homework," just sounds weird. Is it correct grammar?

...

I don't agree that the question: 'Agreement in “[Singular Noun] Is/Are [Plural Noun]”?' describes this specific usage. In "These are not homework," the word "These" is not a singular noun. It's a plural pronoun. I suspect that some of the problem is that the missing noun is implied to the reader only by the physical presence of other documents, and not contextually from the surrounding content of the cover letter itself.

Answer

Can't a noun in plural form be complemented with a noun in singular form? Of course it can. Here are some examples:

These workers make a lot of mistakes when they work since they are
new to this job. They are not the main reason we are losing money – the state of the market is.

and:

These people are my family.

and also:

We are a team!

If the above sentences sound grammatically correct to you, there's no reason why your teacher's sentence would be any different.
The quote you provided is perfectly fine and makes the same sense:

These (things you need to do) are not (the) homework (you are
obligated to do).

grammar - To "to" or Not To "to"

I often come across sentences such as, "Our program assists, at no cost, students maintain independent living..." I believe it should be written as, "Our program assists, at no cost, students to maintain independent living..." Input? This isn't a question about the word "help" - this is specifically about the word "assist."

hyphenation - Is "UTF-8-encoded" an overuse of hypens? Does "UTF-8 encoded" require a hyphen?

After reading usage of the phrase "UTF-8 encoded" ("UTF-8-encoded) at, for example, stackoverflow.com, in Howto identify UTF-8 encoded strings, and in an excerpt

...every character can be UTF-8 encoded.

from this answer, I began to question whether writing "UTF-8-encoded" is an overuse of hyphens, but a quick read over

Confusion over the general rules governing the use of the hyphen in English

When should compound words be written as one word, with hyphens, or with spaces?

indicates to me that "UTF-8-encoded" is correct usage of hyphens.

Is "UTF-8 encoded", though, correct and not require an additional hyphen? If it it is correct, why isn't the hyphen necessary?

Answer

I think it's something of a matter of personal style, or if writing for publication, the style guide of the intended publication. The name of the coding method is "UTF-8" (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8), so the hyphen between the character "F" and the character "8" is a part of the name. But looking at the first link you provide, the hyphen is not required from case 1 because the two parts, "UTF-8" and "encoded" do not have a combined meaning that differs to any significant degree from the phrase "encoded with UTF-8". It's also not required from case 2, because as pronounced, "8" ends in a consonant, and "encoded" begins with a vowel.

On the other hand, according to your link to question 889, one could argue that there should be a hyphen, but according to that site, only in the exceptional case that the phrase precedes the noun it modifies, as in "UTF-8-encoded document". But it's not clear to me that this exception applies in the absence of the following noun, for example in the construct "The document is UTF-8 encoded." And since this last statement is functionally equivalent to "The document is encoded in UTF-8.", I don't think that the hyphen is necessary. But I don't think a hard and fast rule applies here, and I can conceive of cases where I might see the construct with a hyphen between the "f" and the "8", and between the "8" and the following word might be useful.

grammar - What is the correct verb that follows "as well as?"

Which of the following sentences (1, 2, both, neither) is acceptable?

1. He as well as they are in the wrong.


2. He as well as they is in the wrong.

Reopen note:

Two things are troublesome about this. Although some usage guides say that singular verb forms should be used here, the sentence above sounds extremely awkward with a singular verb form. Secondly, there seem to be many examples around where this "rule" prescribed by these guides isn't followed. Is as well as definitely parenthetical here?

phrases - "Assign a variable to a value" or the other way round?

I was wondering which of these phrases is/are correct:

• assign a variable to a value


• assign a value to a variable

I'd say the second is correct, but I'm not a native speaker. A quick Google search reveals thousands of results such as "assign a variable to the file content", but another search returns a lot of results for the other word order ("assign a value to HTML input field").

Which of these two phrases is correct? Or are both correct?

Answer

Assign a value to a variable is correct. Alternatively, you could say assign a variable a value.

Compare assign and give:

Give a value to a variable vs. give a variable a value

grammaticality - How can "of me doing something" be grammatically correct? What grammar rule is this?

The first book on my list has actually been recommended to me like
multiple times over the years of me doing BookTube.

I found that sentence in my English book, and the last part where it reads of me doing BookTube confuses me terribly. Shouldn't the object of a preposition be a noun or pronoun, not a verb? How can verbs be nouns?

The book translated the phrase into "while/when I am doing Booktube" and so I understand what it seems to be intended to mean here.

Could it perhaps be that there are some words omitted from the full sentence that if I knew what these unwritten words were, I would then be able to understand its syntactic structure more clearly? Did it skip writing the words "when/while I am" there? Why would the subject "I" turn into "me"? Is that still the verb's subject or did changing it that way now make it the verb's object? Why would all those words go missing? It is very confusing.

If this is actually a valid type of English syntax used by native speakers that nobody ever taught me, could you please give me some similar examples so that I can understand its exact meaning and grammatical structure?

Why aren't we taught this syntax if it is actually used in real English?

word choice - What tense should be used when looking at an old photo?

Commenting on a photo which was taken a few years back:

Question:

Is this you?

Should I reply:

Yes, this is a few years back.

or:

Yes, this was a few years back.

Which of the above is correct: is or was?

word choice - What are the differences between "can not V", "could not V", "can not have V-ed", & "could not have V-ed"?

It is too hard to understand modal verbs because different sites say different things, or maybe they say the same things but using different terms.

Here is what I think, but I am not sure I am right.

According to this site:

1-1 We use the negative "can’t or cannot" to show that something is
impossible:

That can’t be true.

You cannot be serious.

1-2 We use "couldn’t/could not" to talk about the past:

We knew it could not be true.

He was obviously joking. He could not be serious.

According to this site,

2- "can't have + Ved" expresses impossibility in the past. "can't have + Ved" is the opposite of "must have + V-ed"

She can't have stayed at home. (it is impossible that she stayed at home)

She must have stayed at home. (it is highly possible (95-99%) that she stayed at home)

The question is that:

Are (2) & (1-2) the same?

Is "She can't have stayed at home."="She couldn't stay at home"?

This site says:

3- Couldn't have + past participle means that something wasn't possible in the past, even if you had wanted to do it. This structure
is used hypothetically, to talk about things that didn't really happen
in the past.

He couldn't have passed the exam, even if he had studied harder. It's

a really, really difficult exam. (we just gave this hypothesis, 95% sure but not 100% sure)

Are (3) & (1-2) the same?

"He couldn't have passed the exam" vs "He couldn't pass the exam"?

I would think "He couldn't have passed the exam" is a hypothetical statement while "He couldn't pass the exam" is a fact in the past.

This site says

4- Couldn't have + past participle can be used in unreal
condition.

He couldn't have passed the exam if he hadn't looked at your notes

This site says:

5-1 couldn't (for general ability)

My grandfather couldn't swim.

5-2 couldn't (for specific ability)

I couldn't open the window.

The question is:

is (5-2) (inability) the same as (1-2) (impossible)?

This is what I think but I am not sure I am right!!

How do I correctly determine realis vs irrealis or indicative vs subjunctive in this sentence?

I stared at him to see if he were just a cartoon character.

or

I stared at him to see if he was just a cartoon character.

The intended meaning of the two sentences above are that due to him (his behavior) that the writer is (I am) staring at, that is, in the writer's imagination, they are imagining because of his absurd statements prior, that he is cartoonish. The writer is being sarcastic, because they know that he is not actually an animated cartoon, but rather he is just acting like one.

I'm confused about whether it should be was or were, however (I'm a native English speaker) my intuition tells me it should be was and another person is telling me that it should be the subjunctive were.

Any help gladly welcomed!

Answer

I stared at him to see if he was just a cartoon character.

The sentence above has a clause which looks like a conditional adjunct:

• if he was just a cartoon character

If this was indeed a conditional antecedent, then we could use either was or were here, assuming that the conditional was a so-called subjunctive conditional.

However, the if-string above is not part of a conditional construction in the Original Poster's sentence. It is an interrogative clause. We can apply a simple test here, which is to replace the word if with the interrogative subordinator whether. If the sentence is still grammatical and means the same thing, then we know that this is an interrogative clause and not a conditional adjunct:

I stared at him to see whether he was just a cartoon character.

The sentence above means the same thing as the Original Poster's example sentence, so we can be confident that the string involved is an interrogative clause. Because this is a straightforward interrogative clause, there is no possibility of using irrealis were here.

grammar - How to differentiate between "a clause" and "a question"?

I have been taught that when a wh-word is a subject of the question there is no need to use auxiliary before the main verb unlike the practice of subject-auxiliary inversion generally followed in making interrogatives.

So my question is how would you differentiate and tell whether it is a clause or a question. For instance, We were asked:

"Which one of us wanted coffee"?

And if I were to narrate it to someone else, I would say-

My friend asked which one of us wanted coffee.

Now the same set of words is working both as question in former and subordinate clause in the latter sentence. Since there is no alteration because of no subject auxiliary inversion how would I know whether it is a question or a clause?

punctuation - Punctuating a quoted question within a quoted statement

I'm working on a story, and I find myself faced with something of a quandary.

Specifically, I need to know the proper style for the following:

“I have thousands of them,” the commissioner answered, “but I’ll start with ‘What do you need?’.”

Is it proper form to have both the question mark and period, or should one of them be dropped?

meaning - co-living and co-evolving

Today I had a thought a problem I couldn't resolve it on my own. I just can't realize what people will think right after they hear others using the word "co-living" and "co-evolving". I mean a particular thought of any specific information that comes to mind once you may hear I say "they have co-lived and co-evolved since then", for example.

Another example I doubt if their use is truly versatile and correct,

Your and my native languages have been co-living and co-evolving for hundreds of years

Answer

Co-evolving is an established word, at least among evolutionary scientists.

Co-living is not an established word.

Cohabiting is such a well established word that it doesn't even need a hyphen, and has the meaning that you might expect from co-living.

Although we sometimes describe a language as "living", it's not clear to me that a pair of languages could "cohabit", however. Try coexisting instead.

grammaticality - Which is correct, "you and I" or "you and me"?

When the phrase is used as an object, why so many native speakers are saying "you and I" instead of "you and me"? I'm not a native speaker but I thought "you and me" is correct. Not sure if this falls into the same category, but "Just between you and me" sounds more natural than "Just between you and I".

Answer

This is an example of hypercorrection, which is when native speakers make an accidental error in their zeal to avoid a different error.

In this case, the error that's being avoided is the error of writing "you and me" in subject position, as in the following sentence:

You and me are going to the store.

This is formally incorrect, although it's very common in contemporary spoken English. Because they have been taught that this is incorrect, many people hypercorrect and change "you and me" to "you and I" in all positions. That is, they incorrectly learn the rule about when to use "you and I", and so produce sentences like the following:

You and I are going to the store. [Correct]

He'll come to the store with you and I. [Incorrect]

word choice - is it 0 degree or 0 degrees outside?

This is in relation to the question "It's “1 degrees” or is it “1 degree” outside?". I have heard many people say that it is zero degrees outside. Is this correct, or is it 0 degree? The latter simply doesn't sound right.

numbers - Why are decimals read as fractions by some cultures?

I find it very strange that the top results on Google for "how to read decimal" give me a very strange way to read them - as fractions.

I have learnt to read the digits individually and it makes a lot of sense. There is no fumbling with which "-ths" the fractional part is, and there's no confusion for the listener. The ESE QA here and here also agree with me.

However, I find that the system of reading decimals as fractions is being widely taught and accepted.

The top result here has an example: What is the numerical value of "two hundred thousandths"? Three students gave the answers as follows:

• Student 1: 200,000.


• Student 2: 0.200


• Student 3: 0.00002

Apparently only Student 2 is right. The explanation given is that the individual answers when converted to words would be:

• Student 1: two hundred thousand


• Student 2: two hundred thousandths


• Student 3: two hundred-thousandths

And that Student 3 is wrong because the question did not contain a hyphen.

But here's what I don't understand: How do you state the hyphen when actually speaking the number out loud? Do you say "two hundred hyphen thousandths", or do you simply say "t-w-o hundredthousandths" (saying the second word as compressed as possible)?

According to other sources like this video, even the question is wrong, as the "correct" answer by Student 2 should actually be read as "two tenths", ignoring the insignificant zeros.

I am trying to understand how this system came to be and why it is accepted over the simpler system of reading out the digits individually after the decimal point:

• Student 1: two hundred thousand.



• Student 2: zero point two.


• Student 3: zero point zero zero zero zero two.

word choice - Is it "5–6 weeks are a lot of time" or "5–6 weeks is a lot of time"?

I was just copyediting somebody's answer on another SE site and my native English speaker Sprachgefühl told me I had to correct the grammar of one sentence:

... 5–6 weeks are a lot of time ...

by changing the are to is. But as I was doing so I started wondering why is it that in this case it seems that I have to make the verb disagree with the plural subject?

So is my feeling for English going bad or if I did the right thing, how could I explain this to somebody who's learning English for instance?

Answer

Use is because you're talking about a single period of time with a range-based duration.

There are extensive discussions of the subtleties of Collective Nouns and Mass Nouns on Wikipedia that explain from a technical perspective why some seemingly plural things are treated as singular grammatically.

grammar - Future perfect progressive tense question

I don't understand the grammar in this sentence: "By this time next summer, you will have completed your studies and found a job."
I understand that the first half is future perfect progressive but why is the verb "found"in the second half in past tense and "not will have found"?

Thanks

usage - Can "it's" be used as a question?

In my experience, people say "it's" in place of "it is," but never in the form of a question. I think the question "It's?" sounds awkward, but I'd like to know if it's grammatically correct. Is it?

This question was inspired by this image on Merriam-Webster's website:

Answer

You can only contract auxiliary verbs, and never at the end of the sentence, where they would gain stress and therefore not be subject to reduction:

• He’s sleeping in today.


• I’ve got something to tell you.

However, these are not auxiliary verbs but principal ones falling at the end, and therefore may not be contracted:

• I know where he is.


• You must be wondering what I have.

The contracted forms are ungrammatical there:

• I know where *he’s.



• You must be wondering what I’ve.

punctuation - What is the difference between `-` and `--`

Is there any difference between:

-

and

-- or in some cases, a long dash

I have seen these two used lots of places but I really don't know the difference.

coordinating conjunctions - Coordinative ellipsis with not and unparellel structure

I worked and did not play.

I worked and not played. ?

For some reason, when the ellipsis is used after the simple past form of the verb with no "to be" used before it, it just sounds weird to me. Is there something wrong with it, or is it just that it is not idiomatical? Or am I the one who's wrong?

I had to control myself and not cry in front of her.

I always thought that second part has been used independently and not connected to the "had to" part, for I thought there should be additional "to" like this

I had to control myself and had to not cry.

Or at least this: I had to control myself and to not cry in front of her. (It doesn't sound very idiomatic... is it acceptable?)

Is the "to" deleted? If it is, why is that?

And also, when I was trying to find the answer for this question, it was clear that everybody was asserting only the parallel form should be allowed for the ellipsis after the coordinating conjunction. For example:

Sarah is [a CEO] and [proud of her job]. - NP + AP

Is Jim [conservative] and [a closet Republican]? - A + NP

He is a crazy man and may drink a lot. -NP+V

These (only the three sentences directly above it) are from Wikipedia, and not regarded as being incorrect. But looking up at the other websites, I find that they say that it is wrong, even though many people, including me, use it this way. They say that it should be parallel like this:

Sarah is [a CEO] and [a person proud of her job]. - NP + NP

Is it supposed to be always parallel?

Answer

For these to be correct you must be able to attach the subject to both of the phrases surrounding the coordinating conjunction individually, as you stated. There is no reason for a sentence to not be correct if it follows this rule.

• I [worked] and [did not play].


• I [worked] and [not played].

The first sentence is correct because you can split it into I worked and I did not play whereas splitting the second sentence gets you I not played which is ungrammatical, therefore the original sentence is ungrammatical.

• I had to [control myself] and [not cry in front of her].


• I had [to control myself] and [to not cry in front of her].

Both of these are technically correct, however the first is much more fluid. The second sentence is grammatical but can take on a slightly different meaning than the first sentence. Here, not crying in front of her is implicitly a separate event from controlling yourself because the to after and "resets" the function of the coordinating conjunction; the and implies a relationship between the two phrases, but inserting to breaks this.

• Sarah is [a CEO] and [proud of her job].


• Sarah is [a CEO] and [a person proud of her job].


• Sarah [is a CEO] and [is proud of her job].

These are all grammatical based on my first point. I have added a third version because this is one of the more common ways this sentence would be used. Many would say the first is too short, the second is too long, but the third is just right. Past the rule I stated, there isn't a definitive way to pick the truly correct version here. It's all user preference because they're all grammatical.

---

A little bit on parallel and unparallel structure:
Both structures are correct and can be used interchangeably. In my explanations above, I was stressing parallel structure since it is the better way to go. However, unparallel structure still works. Here is an example:

I bought a new refrigerator, dish washer, and the oven will be delivered tomorrow.

This is unparallel because the sentence can be split into two parts, I bought a new refrigerator and I bought a new dish washer, but the third part doesn't follow the I bought a new pattern. The third part grammatically fits but doesn't keep the pattern. This structure is used quite often, but it isn't the more correct way to write.

"You're a louse!" "I?" (Personal Pronouns vs Objective Personal Pronouns)

While reading Atlas Shrugged I've come across a number of conversations similar to the following:

Person 1: "You're a louse!"

Person 2: "I?"

This sounds very odd to me, but I can see how 'I?' could be short for 'I am?'.

I've looked around trying to discover if this is grammatically correct and I've learned about personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, they) and objective personal pronouns (me, you, him, her, it, us, them).

Personally, I think the conversation sounds much better like this:

Person 1: "You're a louse!"

Person 2: "Me?"

...with the reasoning that this:

Person 1: "He's a louse!"

Person 2: "Him?"

sounds much better than this:

Person 1: "He's a louse!"

Person 2: "He?"

Therefore I think the correct grammar in this scenario is the objective personal pronoun (me) rather than the personal pronoun (I). I'm not sure, though.

Can anyone give me some concrete rules about this scenario?