commas - set off a person's age, possessive

When setting off a person's age, one uses comma before and after:

John, 18, lives in France.

Is it proper to do the same when "John" is possessive?
For example:
John's, 18, labrador is white.

Regards,

John

word usage - Is there a list and/or a rule for nouns that must be pluralized when not preceded by a definite article or adjective?

I recently came upon the following sentence:

Their job is to create advertisement.

As a native speaker of American English, this sentence sounded really odd to me, so I ran it through Google's Ngram, discovering that the phrase "create advertisement" was not found (for either American or British English) as you can see from the image below:

I've also done some searches of Google web pages and have come to the same conclusion. So, I have further concluded that "advertisement" must be pluralized when not preceded by a definite article or adjective. (If I am incorrect in this assumption, please let me know.)

I wanted to explain to those who had created the sentence above (non-native speakers, presumably), from a grammatical or usage standpoint, why it wasn't correct, but my initial searches have not yielded anything worthwhile on this topic. I always feel as if I am somehow falling short on explaining the nuances of the English language whenever I have to fall back on the line, "Well, it just doesn't sound natural to me."

I've visited web pages that list words that are only plural and others that discuss when and when not to use an article with a singular or plural noun and still others that delve into the topic of count vs. non-count nouns, but, thus far, I have not seen anything that discusses nouns that need to be plural when not preceded by a definite article or adjective. I'm assuming "advertisement" isn't the only such word and that, if there are others like it, some sort of rule about their usage has evolved.

Thank you for any insight you can provide, either through your own knowledge of the English language, good logic, and/or references to other material.

Answer

I actually think the answer is something you mentioned, count nouns vs. mass nouns.

Consider:

1. Their job is to create sand.



2. *Their job is to create sands.


3. *Their job is to create a sand.

And:

1. *Their job is to create beach.


2. Their job is to create beaches.


3. Their job is to create a beach.

"Sand" is a mass noun, meaning it doesn't generally take indefinite articles, and you don't generally pluralize it. I couldn't give the fundamental reason for this; any such explanation would probably just beg the question (e.g., in English we don't put the adjective before the noun for any logical reason; whatever reason we could give would be given in reverse order by an equally logical speaker of Spanish).

"Beach" on the other hand, is a count noun. In your example usage, it must take either an indefinite article, or be pluralized.

(Note that both words can be used with a definite article in your example, but the meaning is slightly different - it would refer to a previously defined quantity of sand, or a previously defined beach:

1. Their job is to create the sand.



2. Their job is to create the beach.)

Also, you can often use a "unit word" (which is itself a count noun) to convert a mass noun into a related count noun. For "sand" this word is "grain":

1. Their job is to create grains of sand.

For "cattle" it's "head"; for water it could be "drop"; etc.

Finally, I should mention that you can pluralize mass nouns, or use them with an indefinite article, but that generally signals an implicit shift of meaning. A plural for a mass noun X may mean something like, "different kinds of X". In the (somewhat cliched) phrase, "sands of time", for example, the idea is that time produces shifts in the world, much as the wind does to the sand(s) of different deserts you might visit.

So, the final answer to the question of why the example sentence isn't ok comes down to irreducible rules about articles and mass nouns in English.

"Only until" requires subject inversion?

Is this sentence correct?

It also may explain why only until the economics was relaxed after a difficult period, the policies to solve EVD crisis could attempt to get openly involved in the response to EVD.

Is there subject inversion because of "only until"?
How should I write it?
Thanks

etymology - Why are the possessive and object pronouns the same for feminine but not masculine?

Essentially, why is the pronoun the same in different uses for feminine but not masculine?

---

Feminine:

Possessive:

It is her car.

Accusative

I know her.

Masculine:

Possessive:

It is his car.

Accusative:

I know him.

grammar - Three of which vs three of them?

Four pits have been unearthed, (three of which/three of them) contained gold

I wasn't too sure which was which because I have heard "of which" in this type of context as well as "three of them" but I wasn't sure which was correct

I am pretty sure that it has to do with Idiomatic phrases and don't know which is correct

while this post looks like the following link, the nuance is different

Is there a well-known secular sentence that uses all three of the imperative, indicative, and subjunctive moods?

Answer

The correct sentence is:

Four pits have been unearthed, three of which contained gold.

'Of which' is correct because you need a possessive form to accurately describe the relationship between the three pits and the gold. Three of the pits contain gold, i.e., the gold is their 'possession' (in the grammatical sense).

---

Reference

Grammar.com, STANDS4 LLC, 2017. "“Whose” and “Of Which”." Accessed July 14, 2017. http://www.grammar.com/whose-and-of-which

Here is the first portion of the Grammar.com article:

When a possessive form is called for by the sentence, the word that
has to bow out and rely on which to borrow a preposition to show
possession. An example will show what I mean:

Congress passed the statute, the purpose of which was to lower taxes.

The words which and that have no possessive form. Here the of which is
showing the state of the statute possessing a purpose. We cannot say,
that’s purpose or which’s purpose. We have to use which, flip it over,
and connect it to statute by using the of which form. The word that
will not accommodate a preceding preposition.

I recommend reading the rest of the Grammar.com article (it is only three more very short paragraphs) for complete comprehension! ;-)

---

EDIT of 14 Jul 2017 @23:39 UTC

The following paragraphs were part of my original answer, but @Flater helped me see that these paragraphs were extraneous. I am leaving them here so interested readers can review the change from the correct but laborious answer to the pithy answer.

---

Extraneous Paragraphs Included in Original Answer

At first I found your question confusing, but I was not sure why. After thinking for a while about why 'this sentence sounds funny', I recognized the problem: "Four pits have been unearthed."

In common parlance, one does not need to 'unearth' a pit. By definition, earth (dirt, soil, rocks, etc.) has already been removed from a pit.

At least this is true when one uses 'pit' to mean "a natural or artificial hole or cavity in the ground."

I suspect you are using 'pit' in a less common--but perfectly valid--sense of the word, viz., a mine or a mine shaft.

Therefore, to avoid confusion, allow me to rephrase the sentence as follows.

The geologists have thoroughly explored and tested four quartz veins, three of which contain gold.

As ab2 succinctly explained in the comment section, 'of which' is correct for the sentence as you wrote it, i.e., with a comma.

'Of which' is correct because you need a possessive form to accurately describe the relationship between the three quartz veins and the gold. Three of the quartz veins contain gold, i.e., the gold is their 'possession' (in the grammatical sense).

If you wrote the sentence like the following example, the relationship between the geologists, the quartz veins, and the gold would be unclear.

The geologists have thoroughly explored and tested four quartz veins, three of them contain gold.

Do three of the geologists contain gold, perhaps in their teeth? Or do three of the quartz veins contain gold?

Yes, most readers would, after pausing to think about it, conclude that it's not three of the geologists who contain gold; it's three of the quartz veins that contain the gold.

However, effective prose does not force readers to pause, ponder, and parse meaning from a sentence. Effective prose enables readers to glide across well-crafted sentences, absorbing meaning effortlessly.

Thus, you want your reader to apprehend immediately that three of the quartz veins possess gold--and that's it.

Sources

i) "pit." American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. 2011. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company 14 Jul. 2017 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pit

ii) California Gold Quartz Veins

grammar - Difficult construction with Past Perfect + have to

I'm a little bit confused with grammatic construction which includes Past Perfect + "have to".

The first question which appears here is: if this construction is grammatic or not?

The law changed in October 2018 and before the change the vehicle
drivers had had to have a document of liability insurance on them.

The second question: can we use the word "before"? Doesn't it interfere with the usage of Past Perfect tense here?

Also, the third question is: can we somehow blend Present Perfect with Past Perfect here (if the first part of the sentence is connected to the present and the second is connected to the past), in this very situation?

I'm almost sure that mixing Present Perfect (which is not connected to a specified moment in time) with Past Perfect (which is connected to the unspecified time before another event in time) might be ungrammatical.

But in this case, what other kind of grammatical construction we can use to say the same (when the one part of the sentence is connected to the present but second part must be connected to the past)???

Example:

The law has changed and before that change the vehicle drivers had had
to have a document of liability insurance on them.

Is dividing of the sentence a good idea (???):

The law has changed. Before that change the vehicle drivers had had
to have a document of liability insurance on them.

I apologize for silly questions and thank you in advance for your response.

Answer

The law changed in October 2018 and before the change the vehicle
drivers (1)had (2)had (3)to have a document of liability insurance on them.

This is correct and could be heard in normal speech without anyone having any difficulty with it.

First of all you must disentangle the three different meanings of "have".

1. had (the simple past of the auxiliary verb "to have")




2. had (the past participle of the verb, "to have [to]" which indicates compulsion)




3. to have (the infinitive of 'to have' meaning to possess)

The law has changed and before that change the vehicle drivers had had

to have a document of liability insurance on them.

The law has changed and since that change the vehicle drivers have had
to have a document of liability insurance on them.

EDIT - I made an error. I've corrected it. (2) is the past participle of "to have [to]"

adverbs - Is "'as' + article + adjective + noun + 'as'" grammatically correct?

1. The sentiments expressed in the tweets can be as accurate a measure as is found with traditional telephone surveys.

The sentence above is grammatically correct.
I wonder if it is still ok when I write like this,

2. The sentiments expressed in the tweets can be as an accurate measure as is found with traditional telephone surveys.

Why is it grammatical or ungrammatical?

Plus, even if the second sentence is ungrammatical, can it be accepted in ordinary conversation? Thank you!