prepositions - Why "most of them" and not "most of they"?

Why does "most of..." take an object pronoun, such as them, and not they? Do all prepositional constructs do this?

grammar - Confusing rule about subject-verb agreement

I am currently working through "The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation" by Jane Straus. In the section on subject-verb agreement the author describes a rule for sentences that begin with "there" or "here" which claims that the true subject in these sentences will follow the verb.

In the exercises, there are two sentences where I am supposed to identify the subjects and verbs as well as correct any issues. There is one sentence in particular that is confusing me. The sentence "There's lots of food left" has the subject "lots" and according to the rules given should have the verb "are" but the book states that this is incorrect. The correct verb according to the book is "is". Why is this the case when there is a plural subject?

Why is the noun "brush-off" hyphenated when the verb "to brush off" is not?

I'd like to know the reason for the punctuation of the noun "brush-off" and the verb "to brush off": they have related meanings, but "brush-off" is the result of "to brush off", essentially. But one cannot write "to brush-off" as that just looks weird, as it is used for the noun version.

So the question, is the hyphen often used like this in English to differentiate a derived noun from a verb?

Answer

The punctuation mark you're talking about is a hyphen, not a dash, but either would be out of place in phrasal verbs like brush off, where in some meanings, the phrase will divide:

Sarah can't stand Mark, so she brushed him off at the party.

The noun derived from this verb is written with a hyphen: brush-off, but often a word may become so entrenched in the language that the hyphen disappears and the two elements are joined into one compound word. Callback, for instance, is rapidly overtaking the hyphenated form call-back.

word choice - "which day is Friday" vs. "what day is Friday"

Thanks to:
"Which" vs. "what" — what's the difference and when should you use one or the other? I know that "what" can replace "which" in the examples below.
But which questions sound more more common?

• Which/what day is Friday? — It's the fifteenth.


• Which/what day is the first of November? Is it Saturday?


• Which/what month is the warmest in your city? — It's July.


• Which/what season is it now in your city? — It's summer.

Answer

For this, I have to turn to Google Ngrams:

What/Which day is

What/Which month is

What/Which year is

Based on the Ngram results, it seems clear that what is far more common today for all questions relating to dates (however, that wasn't always the case). This is also consistent with my preferred usage and experience, where I would hear what used probably 9/10 times.

grammar - "Compound nouns list" or "compound noun list"?

I couldn't help but wonder every time I saw such a noun phrase. I've seen both forms used equally often, so I guess both of them can be used interchangeably. But do I guess right?

Some examples:

Here is a frequently used compound nouns list.

Here is a frequently used compound noun list.

I usually rephrase them into something like this.

Here is a reference list of compound nouns.

Answer

All are correct.

But are the compound nouns frequently used, or is the list frequently used?

If it's important to state 'frequently', here are some possible alternatives:

If the compound nouns are frequently used:

Here is a list of frequently used compound nouns.

Here is a list of compound nouns that are frequently used.

If the list is frequently used:

Here is a list of compound nouns, that is frequently used.

Here is a frequently used list of compound nouns. (this one still slightly ambiguous)

grammaticality - Is this relative clause grammatically correct?

Is the relative clause in this sentence grammatically correct? If not, why?

The screens were there for bulletins but usually showed only mindfulness videos, which made him uneasy and avert his eyes.

1. ". . . which made him uneasy."




2. ". . . which made him avert his eyes."

Both constructions independently seem fine to me, but when conjoined something seems amiss.

grammar - Is there a difference between the usage of "this" or "that" when referring back to an idea in the previous sentence?

In the following two sentences, is there any difference in what "this" or "that" would indicate about the previous sentence? Would one of them be less accurate than the other?

We may run out of gasoline before the finish line. This would create a problem that isn't easily resolved.

We may run out of gasoline before the finish line. That would create a problem that isn't easily resolved.

I suspect that "that" is more useful when referring to distant things or uncertainties, whereas "this" is more useful when referring to direct, actual instances of something, but I may be wrong.

I would like to know the difference between these two words in any given situation instead of merely knowing the correct usage for this one example that I've provided.

Answer

This and that are demonstratives and in this context, deictic. Either may be used, depending on whether you consider yourself near the first sentence (use this) or whether you have notionally moved away from it (use that).

Demonstratives (abbreviated DEM) are words, such as this and that, used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning depending on a particular frame of its reference.
- wikipedia