The
Grammar
Logs
# 173

QUESTION
I would like ask when to use the plural form of a noun after using the word 'No', and the difference between using singular and plural forms of a noun. For example, 'I have no chance.' and 'I have no chances.'
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Hong Kong Monday, July 27, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
I think this usually comes down to whether you're using a count noun or a non-count noun. "We would say "I have no car," if we didn't own a car, although the plural is possible, say, if someone asked, "Do you own two cars?" The example you give us, though, is using "chance" as a non-count noun. "I have no chance" means that, in the abstract, the probability of your success is practially nonexistent. "I have no chances" would mean that you have no opportunities, which is quite different. I hope this response didn't confuse you more than you were before!

QUESTION
Please give me all the structures of compound nouns and compound adjectives. Thanks.
(and examples also)
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Monday, July 27, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
There is a whole section on Compound Words, both nouns and modifiers. Please take a look at that section, and if you still have questions, get back to us.

QUESTION
I am in the process of writing two policy booklets and I am trying to make my wording and phraseology consistent. Throughout both of these booklets is a phrase similar to "If you have a question . . . you should contact your supervisor or Human Resource representative." This phrase changes slightly with content to "Anyone who has questions . . . should contact their supervisor" and "Employees should notify the Human Resources representative". Throughout these booklets when referring to notifying Human Resources "the" "their" and "your" have all been used. Is this inconsistent and/or grammatical incorrect?

Also, I have been told these phrases should all read either you/your or the/their for consistency. Is this correct?

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Chicago, Illinois Monday, July 27, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
I'll vote for consistency -- in something like a policy manual, especially. Personally, I'd prefer something like "Employees should notify their Human Resources representative. . ." (The HR rep might be a bit too vague.) Someone will object to the pronoun singular/plural problem you'll have "Anyone (singular) who has questions should contact their (plural) supervisors." Is it clear who the Human Resources representative is supposed to be? If so, it's probably an easy matter to create a consistent phrasing for this sentence. You don't want consistency to be the hobgoblin eating up your mind, but there's no reason to allow for ambiguity here, either.

QUESTION
I am writing a technical paper and would like to refer a model developed by 3 people. Should I say "Jones, Smith, and Murphy's model" or "Jones, et al's model"? I noticed you say in a bibliography, for 4 or more authors of a paper, you should use et al, but in general, what should you do in the text of the paper?

Thanks a lot!

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Unknown Monday, July 27, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
Within the text of your paper, you should use all the authors' names the first time. Subsequently, use only the first author's name followed by et al. (Not underlined and a period after "al".) The first time this is cited in subsequent paragraphs, though, you should also include the year the study (model?) was created: Jones et al. (1964) shows that such and such and so and so.

Authority: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Assocation American Psychological Association. 4th ed. American Psychological Association: New York. 1994. p. 168.
QUESTION
I would like to know if there is an explanation for the difference between a gerund and the present progressive form of the verb in an example like the following:
"She is singing" and "She is interesting".
I know that the first is a verb and the second an adjective, but technically, is there a way to explain the difference, since both have the verb "to be" before them? Thank you!
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Cordoba, Argentina Monday, July 27, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
I think you mean, is there a difference between the participle form (adjective) and a present progressive. A gerund is a noun, as in "This horrible singing is hurting my ears." If you know that one is acting as an adjective (the participle) and one is acting as part of the verb, then you already know the technical (and only) difference between them.

QUESTION
I came across a sentence like this: "The person asking for the change is responsible for the details of that change."

I wonder if it should say: The person who asks for the change, etc.

Both may be correct. Is there a preference for one version over the other? Thanks so much for your help!

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Portland, Oregon Monday, July 27, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
No, it's going to depend on your own ear for what sounds better; they're both correct.

QUESTION
Should I hyphenate '24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week' or leave it unhyphenated '24 hours a day, seven days a week'? Thanks for the quick response.
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Orem, Utah Monday, July 27, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
You can leave the hyphens out of those expressions. You would use hyphens, though, in something like 24-hour-a-day service.

QUESTION
I work on the copy desk in the sports department at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and am continually bugged by our writers using the work "likely" where I believe the word "probably" is correct. Just tonight one writer wrote "The Brewers likely will return Martinez to Louisville...." I believe this to be wrong. If the writer wants to use "likely," then the proper usage would be "The Brewers are likely to return Martinez to Louisville..." Otherwise, the sentence should read "The Brewers probably will return Martinez to Louisville..." Would you please advise me as to whether I am correct in believing that the way our writers are using "likely" is incorrect. If, on the other hand, you think the word likely is just as correct as probably, then I will stay silent here. But if you advise me that I'm correct on this, I'd sure like to get memos out to all of our editors and writers. Thank you.
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Tuesday, July 28, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
The dictionary is not helpful on this because it lists "probably" as a synonym. However, every book on usage I have (that bothers to address the issue) says that the word likely is wedded, always, to an infinitive and that likely to means probably will. As such, it seems impossible to use it adverbially without a linking verb: "The Brewers are likely to trade, etc." (It can also be an adjective, of course: "The likely end of this likely candidate's story.") It also seems quite improbable that something meaning probably will should be used in a sentence such as "The Brewers likely will . . ."

I wouldn't use likely in a structure in which I could not substitute the word apt, and I certainly would not write "The Brewers apt will return Martinez to Louisville." (The word apt means something like "having a tendency to," but structurally apt and likely are virtually interchangeable. [Authority for this: The Little, Brown Handbook by H. Ramsay Fowler and Jane E. Aaron, & Kay Limburg. 6th ed. HarperCollins: New York. 1995. By permission of Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.])

The Oxford American Dictionary, incidentally, has an interesting usage note on likely:

The use of likely as an adverb without very, most, or more (for example in the rain will likely die out) is incorrect.
[E-Mail Icon]That's the only place I've seen that opinion offered, but it seems to suggest that "The rain will very likely die out" (not wedded to an infinitive) would be acceptable. I will place an e-mail icon here in case someone else would like to offer an opinion.

QUESTION
Before I ask the question, I would like to tell you why I have this question in my mind. I am a middle school English teacher. One day one of my students asked me why all the words beginning with the letter q have the letter u as the second letter of the word. I couldn't answer her question at that moment. I guess that it is because of the difficulty in pronouncing.
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Pusan, South Korea Tuesday, July 28, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
The short answer to your middle school scholar is that I don't know why, in English, q is always followed by u. Perhaps an even better question is why we need the letter q at all when kw would seem to do the job quite nicely, as in kwiet, kwite, and kwickly.

QUESTION
Is the following sentence correct?
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
By taking the definitions of "make" and "acquaintance" separately, I have failed to see how this sentence makes sense.

Thanks for your help.

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Hong Kong Tuesday, July 28, 1998
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
It's rather a stuffy idiom, isn't it? I don't know where this comes from, and it seems that "It's a pleasure to meet you," would suffice nicely. With bits of conversational idiom like this, applying strict definitions in an effort to render some sense out of them just doesn't work very well.

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