grammar - "Has started" versus "will have started"

Which one of the following sentences is grammatically better?

I hope she has started doing that by then.
I hope she will have started doing that by then.

Now, if I make it indirect, it will probably be:

My hope is that she will have started doing that by then

...Which makes me think the second one might not be correct.

Also, is there any difference between American and British English usage?

Answer

The use of the future perfect tense ("will have started") is the more correct construction there; you are talking about a time in the future, before which time something should have occurred; but that thing has not occurred as of the moment at which you are speaking.

However, if you were to use the first construction, you would still be understood perfectly well.

meaning in context - Why do Americans use 'them' in awkward sentence?

So, I am not a native English speaker. I am from India and some of the sentences that I hear from certain movies leaves me dumbfounded. So, the other day I was watching Suicide Squad and I heard Will Smith say "So, you one of them deaf hoes?". Now, what the hell does that suppose to mean? Let me get one thing clear, I know the meaning of hoe(cough).

grammar - When to add "the", "a" or when not to add "the" or "a"?

What's the difference (or correct way of saying it) between the followings:

1. "Review plan" vs "Review a plan" vs "Review the plan"?




2. "Agree on plan" vs "Agree on a plan" vs "Agree on the plan"




3. "Implementation of the plans" vs "Implementation of plans? vs "Implementation of plan"?

I suppose it boils down to when do you add "the" or "a" or not add it at all?

Answer

This isn't an academic answer, but a practical one based on the English language as it is used.

Review plan - this could be a name for an existing plan designed to review something. The name of the plan is 'Review Plan'. Or, it is shorthand or note form (perhaps in a 'To Do' list)

Review a plan - referring to a plan (any plan) being reviewed

Agree on plan - shorthand, note form (wouldn't be spoken). The correct usage in normal speech or writing is one of the other two (both are equally correct)

Implementation of the plans - the correct usage in formal writing or normal speech. The other two are both note form or shorthand.

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?"

orthography - When did possessive *it's* fall out of favor?

Here are two parts of the US Constitution that would today be treated as having spelling errors:

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts
or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely
necessary for executing it's inspection Laws. (Art. I, Sec. 10, Cl. 2)

...no State, without it's Consent, shall be deprived of it's equal
Suffrage in the Senate. (Art. V)

When did prescriptive grammar specifically begin to target the preposed possessive pronoun it's as a bad spelling, and recommend exclusively its?

See related question on SE.

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.

grammar - "Lots of X(s)" vs "many X"

Clunky title, sorry.

An example: "Lots of pizza" sounds right, as does "many pizzas." "Lots of pizzas" does not sound right (in my dialect; I think it's fine in others), nor does "many pizza." "Lots of tortillas sounds right," as does "many tortillas." "Lot of tortilla" does not sound right, nor does "many tortilla."

Why do some words stick with the singular plural when following "lots of," and why is it strictly followed (to my knowledge) that all words are pluralized following "many"?

Answer

Many means more than one or two and hence always precedes plural countable nouns:

I have many friends. - She has read many books.

So many help, many money, many pizza and many tortilla are all ungrammatical.

On the other hand, lots of can mean both a large amount of and a large number of. In the first case it is followed by a singular noun, and in the second case by a plural noun:

• I need lots of help. - She has lots of money.




• I have lots of friends. - She reads lots of books.

(Note, however, that lots of, particularly when followed by a singular noun, is considered very informal.)

The complication is that many nouns, particularly food nouns such as pizza, may either be conceived of as referring to the entity/food itself or to separate instances of that entity/food. In the first case the singular noun is used, and in the second case the plural noun.

So, I eat lots of pizza has an emphasis on the total amount of pizza eaten, whereas I eat lots of pizzas places greater emphasis on the number of individual pizzas.

As for tortillas, I can only speculate that lots of tortilla does not sound right because a tortilla is conceived solely as an individual item. So, I eat lots of tortilla sounds as odd as saying I eat lots of grape. Maybe someone has a better idea.