grammar - "an (among other things) schizophrenic" or "a (among other things) schizophrenic"?

I'm lost on whether I should use "a" or "an" in the part of the sentence: "an (among other things) schizophrenic". How does the part in the brackets affect the rest here?

dashes - Student t-distribution: why the dash

In statistics, the t-distribution is important. It is an approximation to the normal distribution. Of course we don't say "normal-distribution" (with the dash).

Well then, what exactly is the grammatical justification for calling it

t-distribution

as opposed to just

t distribution

?

Or to put it another way, is there a good name for the practice of using a dash in this kind of context?

Answer

A hyphen — not a dash — commonly joins an initial single letter/digit to form a compound word. Left to its own devices, general usage will capitalize:

A-side, B-side, T-shirt, A-shirt, O-level, X-ray

Otherwise, various commercial or scientific fields set their own conventions. There is no particular reason why, for instance, it's t-distribution but T-cell beyond the tendency in mathematics not to capitalize letters except in special circumstances. In other words, it’s E = mc² by community agreement and convention.

Many e-words such as e-commerce, e-learning, and especially e-mail are dropping their hyphens. I've also seen B movie both ways.

word choice - She/he to refer a user

Programmer here. I am confused with the usage of the term "She/he" when referring a prementioned and undefined user. Below is a sentence found from MSDN magazine:

"When the user decides to create a new customer, she must fill in the data entry form in Figure 2."

I myself use the term "She/he" is this context, since without mentioning both can be regarded as gender discrimination, and placing 'she' before 'he' is respecting the ladies.

So, can I just use 'She' in this context, that will save some typing.

Answer

Most people, until recently, preferred the use of masculine pronoun. But with the rise of female writers, feminist literatures, and feminist movements, the trend has changed dramatically, with many writers inclined toward the use of feminine gender.

That said, the use of he/she is a bit awkward and is better avoided. From the other two, it doesn't matter which one to choose as long as you are consistent.

grammatical number - Adjective pluralization

1. A 16-year-old girl.



2. She is 16 years old.

I've read somewhere that the reason the year in the first example is singular is that it functions as an adjective, and adjectives can't be plural.

Looking at the second example, doesn't the years also function as an adjective? If so, why is it in plural form?

Answer

A 16-year-old girl:
1) "16" and "year" are linked by the hyphen to create a single term ("16-year") that modifies "old."
2) "16-year" and "old" are linked by the hyphen to create a single term ("16-year-old") that modifies "girl."

She is 16 years old:
1) "old" is a predicate adjective for "girl." (as in "She is old.") As a single-word adjective for "she," it is not joined with a hyphen to the previous adjective, "years."
2) "years" modifies "old," and "16" modifies "year. "16" and "years" are not acting as a single adjective for "old," so they, too, do not need a hyphen.

The easy way:
If the adjective string serves as a single modifier before the noun, it needs a hyphen (or hyphens, as in this case). If it is after the noun, it doesn't need a hyphen (or hyphens).

This is the same as "3-day weekend" and "The weekend has 3 days." In the first case, "3" and "day" are linked to create a single term that modifies "weekend." In the second case, "days" is the object of "has," and "3" is a modifier for "days."

grammaticality - Is “Write something also on. . . .” ok?

In the following sentence, is the usage of also considered grammatically correct, or is there something wrong with it?

Write something also on an alternative approach to this problem;
explain the pros and cons of that alternative.

The sentence doesn't feel right, but I thought I would seek the input of the well-informed before jumping to conclusions.

I would like to make it known that I am not the one responsible for this sentence, nor will the person responsible ever know of this inquiry — it is purely for the sake of self-satisfaction.

Answer

It’s not flat-out “wrong”, but this doesn’t sound anything as good:

• Write something also on an alternative approach to this problem.

As any of these:

1. Also write something on an alternative approach to this problem.




2. Write something on an alternative approach to this problem as well.




3. Write something on an alternative approach to this problem, too.

The first is probably the best of those.

compound possessives - "Sally's and Mike's bikes" or "Sally and Mike's bikes"?

The title really says it all. When there are two subjects in the possessive, what do we do?

If "Sally's and Mike's bikes" is correct, isn't this ambiguous? (As the phrase could either be referring to the bikes that are owned by both Sally and Mike, or to one bike that is owned by Sally and one that is owned by Mike.) Furthermore, doesn't the sentence "My mother's and father's marriage seems awkward, clunky, and badly thought out" seem awkward, clunky, and badly thought out?

If "Sally and Mike's bikes" is correct, isn't this also ambiguous? (As the phrase could refer to either the bikes that are owned by both Sally, and Mike, or to Sally and the bike that is owned by Mike.) And the sentence "Joe Biden and the President's daughters get along famously," as much as some slash political fanfiction authors may protest, seems far more likely to be saying that Joe gets along with Sasha and Malia than that Joe and Barack have secretly eloped and have had multiple children, who get along with each other well. But if this sentence is incorrect, how would you refer to these clandestine daughters? ("Joe Biden's and the President's daughters" seems to refer to two different sets of daughters.)

Finally, does this get even more complicated when you add pronouns into the mix? ("My and her house" is a repulsive sentence. How can we rephrase it without losing information? (Which "Our house" would certainly do.)

grammar - Can an adverb be a noun?

I have seen this post for the answer to my question, but this is not much help in case of the question I am going to ask.

Here is an example sentence -

The new design of Twitter profile is more of a Facebook profile than never before.

than here is a preposition, there is no doubt about that. But before after than acts like a noun. But from dictionary entry against before doesn't say it's a noun.

So what is the explanation?

Answer

'[T]han here is a preposition, there is no doubt about that.' [OP]

and

'A noun is the only part of speech possible after a preposition'

and

In the accepted phrase 'better than ever before', 'ever' cannot be a noun.

So we have a contradiction. The only question to address really is how many of the above assertions are not true?

If we look at

'It is better than [it] ever [was before]

we find a construction which presents no problems. Here, 'than' is a conjunction; there is no doubt about that. 'Ever' is an adverb.

But in the ellipted version, 'than' is now an ex-conjunction and 'ever' is an ex-adverb. In other words, forcing traditional analyses on elliptical structures will lead to extra-grammatical analyses (ie 'the rules' will be broken).