Would you use him or he in the following sentence?
It is fun to be him/he.
A teacher told me that you use the object form after the infinitive of to be. Is this true?
I am a native English speaker, but I am trying to figure out what the SAT wants me to think people should speak like.
Please, forgive me if this has already been asked. I did a quick search and found nothing specifically regarding Canadians, but a kind redirection would be helpful if this is a repeat.
I understand the British/American differences regarding collective nouns. I also know how Canadians officially view collective nouns, which is the same as the British way. However, I would like to know how most Canadians actually use them on a day-to-day basis.
Canadians, how would you write these sentences?
-Alice's family ____ to vacation in Seattle this summer. (plan/plans)
-The band _____ been tuning their instruments for five hours. (has/have)
Canadians, would with the last sentence you say has if all of the band members have been tuning their instruments together, and have if they're tuning them individually?
What about sports?
-England ___ playing well today. (is/are)
Do most Canadians make these distinctions in common speech? What about formal writing? I am moving to Alberta, Canada and I want to make sure I fit in as much as possible. I've already looked up the spelling differences btw.
Also, any good websites where I can confirm whether Canadians say the following:
I'm going to hospital (or to the hospital). I read online that both are used.
I love playing sport (or sports).
I hate studying maths (or math).
Thanks!
Most discussions I have read on the issue of Latin plurals in English only address words ending in -us, -um, -x and the feminine nouns ending in -a. I would like to know how to make the English plural of Latin masculine nouns ending in -o, such as "folio". I am tempted to say and write "folia" as the plural of "folio", and similarly "bifolia" as the plural of "bifolio" etc, although my Oxford Advanced Learner's only quotes "folios". I am sure I have read both versions of this plural in academic print before. What would you advise?
Which sounds better?
There is water and butter in my fridge.
There are water and butter in my fridge.
I think it should be: is.
But what if we said:
How much flour and butter is needed to make a pizza?
How much flour and butter are needed to make a pizza?
In that case, I think the plural verb: are, is the correct choice, which means (I think) there is a contradiction between both sentences.
I have this sentence, and I'm not sure which preposition is best to use with social media.
Teens take videos and post them through social media.
Should it be--
through social media?
to social media?
on social media?
or rewrite: on social media sites?
Thanks.
Answer
For your particular example, I would suggest to. I think they are all legit, though. It's the Wild West for social media language standards right now. However, I think there are some useful shades of meaning. A politician might get his message out through social media. This is about getting a message out. A teen would say they posted a picture to Facebook. So to for a specific post. through for a broader usage.
I've always held on to the definition that Causative Verbs express how the Noun before the Verb influences the execution of an action.
Similarly, the Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English defines them as:
"Causative Verbs... indicate that some person or thing helps to bring
about a new state of affairs."
I know that the verbs have, get, make, and let are the four prototypical Causatives. But then I got to thinking that let doesn't really “make” anything happen. And I just bunch let up with the other three (also allow) because of their similar structures and because it's more convenient to teach them as a group.
When learners and teachers expand the definition beyond the four most common Causatives, in both active and passive-like structures, the lines can get blurry. There are many long lists on the Net (one listed as many as 90 and called them “mostly Causatives”). I guess the problem is the definition of what's Causative to begin with. There are also those people who would identify Causatives by certain patterns that the words follow.
In any case, for this particular question, I’d settle for one verb that I’ve seen making the rounds on Causative lists: Is want a causative verb or not? And for me to make a sharper delineation of what's causative, I’d have to ask why.
Answer
Want is not causative.
A Causative verb can be paraphrased as "cause S to be true", where S is some proposition that might refer to
These are, respectively, paraphrases for the causative transitive verbs explode, trip, and kill. All causative verbs are transitive, and there often exist intransitive inchoative verbs with the same shape (it exploded, he tripped); but not always (he died, but not *he killed -- at least not in the
same sense as he died).
Wanting, of course, causes nothing to happen by itself, though it can serve as a motivation. As Barrie says, it's a mental state verb, very close to the deontic sense of the modal verb will (in German the modal verb wollen straightforwardly means 'to want').
In conversing with non-native English speakers online, I saw someone type:
Do you know who ****I’m*** ?
This is obviously wrong to a native English speaker, but I don’t know why. Is there a rule that tells when contractions are not allowed?
Here are some more similar examples where the contraction doesn’t work (with the expansion of the contraction in parentheses following each):
Can you tell who **I’m* by my voice alone? (I am)
Please, tell me who **he’s/she’s/they’re*. (he is/she is/they are)
If you want to go to the movie, **we’ll.* (we will)
Will you have some? Yes, **I’ll.* (I will)
I won’t have any, but tell me if **you’ll*. (you will)
I didn’t have the same thing for supper as **you’d.* (you had)
Would you like to go? Sure **I’d.* (I would)