The Grammar Logs -- Number One

The
Grammar
Logs
# 1

Question Can you explain when to use among and when to use between?
Source & Date
of Question Hartford, Connecticut
15 March 1997
Grammar's
Response Think of between as betwin and that might help you think of two. Your rich uncle's money can be split between you and your sister, but as soon as more than two heirs are involved, the lawyers will have to divide the money among them.

Question I am seeking professional opinions regarding a grammar question.
Which of the following two sentences is correct and why:

Under the law, students who enroll in driver's education after April 1 are subject to several new requirements.
Under the law, students enrolling in driver's education after April 1 are subject to several new requirements.
I have been advocating an active voice when we write news releases here and would opt for sentence number two. A colleague said it sounds o.k. to her, but wonders if we are breaking some grammatical rule.
Please help!
Source & Date
of Question Lansing, Michigan
18 March 1997
Grammar's
Response Your question really has nothing to do with passive versus active. Neither statement is couched in the passive voice. In the second you choose to modify students with a participial modifier and in the first you modify students with a dependent, adjective clause. They both seem fine to me, actually, but I also prefer the second. It might not be more active, but it does seem a bit more elegant. You've used one word instead of two, and, in writing, economy is always good.
Anyway, it's a dream dilemma because in either case you're correct. What more can you ask for? I'd go with #2, but there's no rule that I know of that says it's actually better.

Question Please tell me when to use good and when to use well.

"I did good on that test."
"He is doing well."
I'm unsure of when to use who and whom.
Thank you,
Source & Date
of Question Slidell, Louisiana
24 March 1997
Grammar's
Response The adjective good always modifies a noun; the adverb well modifes a verb, adjective or other adverb.
1. He was a good teacher. 2. She spoke well. 3. The speech went well.
1. good modifies teacher 2. well modifies spoke 3. well tells how it went.
But here's the tricky part. After a linking verb, always use _good_.
1. She felt good. 2. She sounded good on the phone. 3. Her performance was good.
(Linking verbs include all forms of the verb to be -- am, is, are, was, were, have been, has been, had been, would be, will be, and so on), feel, look, sound, taste, apear, smell, and the like.
As to your question about who and whom, have you looked at that section of the Grammar Guide yet and have you taken the quiz? Maybe that'll help. The explanations which appear when you get a question wrong might be more helpful than just being told you're right. Try it, and if you still have a question, get back to us.

Question Please conjugate the verb "to drink" and give examples of its proper use.
Thank you
Source & Date
of Question Atlanta, Georgia
24 March 1997
Grammar's
Response I'll conjugate it only in the 3rd person singular, which is where we have most of the problems with verb forms:
Grammar drinks, Grammar drank (tea yesterday morning), Grammar has drunk (french vanilla coffee all her life), Grammar is drinking
Just like "think," right? thinks, thank, thunk, thinking ??? 8-)

Question Which of the following sentences is correct, or better?
A number of people are going.
A number of people is going.
The first sounds better, but the second seems more technically correct since "number" is singular. That is, one might also write, "Numbers of people are going."
Thanks to you in advance.
Source & Date
of Question Denver, Colorado
26 March 1997
Grammar's
Response I'm going out on a limb here to say that the phrase "a number of" always demands a plural verb. If the phrase were "the number of" -- altogether different story, right? The number of people [buying into the stock market] is increasing daily. But you knew that. It's also interesting that "a number of people" means some people, whereas "numbers of people" means very many. Don't be deceived by the fact that you can pluralize the word number into numbers.
I'm going nuts now trying to think of a situation in which the construction "a number of _______" could be singular. If I lose it again, it's going to be your fault.

Question OK dear Grammar:
I proofread a lot of our engineers reports and I try to get to get them to stay in one person when writing. My boss will start a paragraph with "we", then proceed to "I" then end with "she". He thinks I'm nuts for insisting on using only one person. I've been out of school a while, but I feel sure my english teacher stressed this rule.
Am I correct? Am I hallucinating? Please, shed some light on this....
Source & Date
of Question Houston, Texas
27 March 1997
Grammar's
Response You may be hallucinating about your English teacher, but you're quite right about this pronoun question. Unless there is some over-riding logic for changing the pronoun reference, it's a very good idea to remain consistent. It can become disorienting without that kind of control over perspective, and the last thing I need is another reason to become disoriented.
For instance, it would be clumsy to write:
Everybody loves this holiday season. It lifts your spirits in the middle of winter and gives us an excuse to get together with friends.
It would be better to write:
Everybody loves this holiday season. It lifts one's spirits in the middle of winter and gives one an excuse to get together with friends.
(If that one sounds stuffy to you, you could start with people, instead, and then write their spirits and gives them.)
Go to the GUIDE and see if that helps. I will add an example or two. Maybe taking that quiz on pronoun and verb-tense consistency will help, too?
Authority: Strategies for Successful Writing by James A. Reinking, James W. Hart, & Robert van der Osten. Prentice Hall: New York. 1993.

Question When using a semicolon in a list, do you put a ; or , before and/or after the word and.
Your duties as teacher are as follows:

Take attendance;
distribute graded tests, homework, and assignments;
assign new homework; and
dismiss the class.
also--
Your duties as teacher are as follows: One, take attendance; two, distribute graded tests; three, assign new homework, and; dismiss the class.
Source & Date
of Question Unknown
29 March 1997
Grammar's
Response I take it you mean the last and that appears in the list of elements (and within those elements there are some commas that cause you to use the semicolons in the first place), right? The semicolon definitely goes BEFORE the last and, and there is no reason for the comma after the last and. So I would write your sentence as follows:
Your duties as teacher are as follows: (1) take attendance; (2) distribute graded tests, homework, and assignments; (3) assign new homework; and (4) dismiss the class.
Actually, I think I would leave out the numbers. You could then write it this way:
Your duties as teacher are to take attendance; to distribute graded tests, homework, and assignments; to assign new homework; and to dismiss the class.

Question Please tell me the structure of:
"...stir to mix thoroughly" found in a cooking recipe
Is "mix thoroughly" a verbial noun postmodifying "stir" or "to mix thoroughly" a preposition noun postmodifying "stir", or something else?
Thank you for helping me as a new English grammar learner.
Source & Date
of Question Hong Kong
31 March 1997
Grammar's
Response It may not be possible to tell, out of context, how these words are working, exactly, but I'll give it a try. "Stir" is the verb of this sentence, presumably, and "to mix thoroughly" is, as you have suggested, a verbal construction, in this case an infinitive phrase that is modifying the verb (telling you why you are stirring something, I would guess).
"To mix" is the infinitive form and "thoroughly" is an adverb modifying the infinitive.
The word "to" can be a preposition, as in "he went to town," but here it's functioning as part of the infinitive form.

Question Please define the term Pluperfect.
Source & Date
of Question Lansing, Michigan
31 March 1997
Grammar's
Response The term pluperfect may have some meaning in latin that I'm not aware of. I probably knew what it meant when I was in the ninth grade, and Mr. LeBlanc would be angry to know I've forgotten, but that was a very long time ago. In English, we usually use the term past perfect instead of pluperfect. A verb in the past perfect tense conveys the idea of action that was completed (or finished, or perfected) at some time in the past. Thus, he had walked suggests that the action of walking was completed in the past (which makes it different from the simple past, he walked, and the present perfect, he has walked.)

Question My question concerns the proper use of "an" before a word beginning with the letter H as in historian instead of simply "a." I vaguely remember that this was an exception to the "an" before a word starting with a vowel rule. I cannot seem to find this exception to the rule in any common texts. Please let me know if this is correct and if so, where I may locate this rule. Thank you.
Source & Date
of Question Unknown
31 March 1997
Grammar's
Response The rule regarding the choice between "a" and "an" refers to the kind of sound that is made at the beginning of the next word. I prefer to say that if it is a vowel or vowel-like sound, choose "an."
With the word you give us as an example, "historian," I would use "a" because the "h" sound prevails. Compare this to "hour." You would say "an hour" because you don't hear the "h" in that word; instead, it begins with a vowel sound (very much like "our," in fact). It has something to do with the way we breathe with that letter "h." Try these: ____ unusual picture; ______ usual routine. (The word "usual" begins how? With a vowel sound or not?)
Authority: Student's Book of College English by David Skwire and Harvey S. Wiener. 6th ed. MacMillan: New York. 1992.

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Question	Please conjugate the verb "to drink" and give examples of its proper use. Thank you
Source & Date of Question	Atlanta, Georgia 24 March 1997
Grammar's Response	I'll conjugate it only in the 3rd person singular, which is where we have most of the problems with verb forms: Grammar drinks, Grammar drank (tea yesterday morning), Grammar has drunk (french vanilla coffee all her life), Grammar is drinking Just like "think," right? thinks, thank, thunk, thinking ??? 8-)

Question	Can you explain when to use among and when to use between?
Source & Date of Question	Hartford, Connecticut 15 March 1997
Grammar's Response	Think of between as betwin and that might help you think of two. Your rich uncle's money can be split between you and your sister, but as soon as more than two heirs are involved, the lawyers will have to divide the money among them.

Question	Please define the term Pluperfect.
Source & Date of Question	Lansing, Michigan 31 March 1997
Grammar's Response	The term pluperfect may have some meaning in latin that I'm not aware of. I probably knew what it meant when I was in the ninth grade, and Mr. LeBlanc would be angry to know I've forgotten, but that was a very long time ago. In English, we usually use the term past perfect instead of pluperfect. A verb in the past perfect tense conveys the idea of action that was completed (or finished, or perfected) at some time in the past. Thus, he had walked suggests that the action of walking was completed in the past (which makes it different from the simple past, he walked, and the present perfect, he has walked.)