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The Grammar Logs # 197 |
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| QUESTION |
| Using affect/effect as an adjective. Please resolve the internal argument. The question is regarding a sentence about defective products. Which of the following is correct?
Thank You |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
Camarillo, California  Friday, September 4, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I don't think you can use "effected" as a modifying participle that way. You want "affected." The only verb form of "effect" is when you're talking about change: "We effected a change in the college's policy." What was wrong with the word "defective"? |
| QUESTION |
Can you explain me about the questions:
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Wellington, New Zealand Saturday, September 5, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| The first one is correct, and you're right, "How many are boxes there?" doesn't sound right (because it isn't). We have regarded the structure or pattern of question-building as an ESL matter, and we haven't dealt with it in the Guide. We have begun, however, to develop material on other such matters -- such as the sections on verb tenses and the use of articles and quantifiers -- and the issue of questions seems like a good subject for us to work on in the future. The pattern of Question word - Verb - Subject works for most questions: "Who are you? Where is the toolbox?" And sometimes it's only the auxiliary that ends up before the subject: "How much does he owe you? Where did she go?" But it appears this is not the only pattern for Q-word questions: "How much money does he give to charity? How many students work in the Learning Center." "Which ladder did he borrow?" Actually what's happening here is that questions formed with a Q-word ("how," "who," "why," "how much," "where," etc.) can begin with the Q-word (as you've pointed out), but then the Q-word can modify the object of the main clause and that object will appear before the verb. (In inverted form, we see how this works: "He did borrow which ladder? He does give how much money to charity?") I recommend Quirk and Greenbaum's book for further investigation into questions: A University Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum. Longman Group: Essex, England. 1993. Pages 191-200. Cited with permission.
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| QUESTION |
| My question concerns the following sentence: "We have completed our review of the document and our comments are as follows." Is the sentence correct without a comma separating the independent clauses? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Alexandria, Virginia Saturday, September 5, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| When two independent clauses are relatively brief and nicely balanced (such as the clauses in this sentence), it is permissible to omit the comma that normally accompanies the coordinating conjunction between two independent clauses. Is that clause going to be terminated by a colon, by the way? |
| QUESTION |
| I would like to know if 'Sep.' is an acceptable form of abbreviation for 'September', or if the only acceptable abbreviation remains 'Sept.' I thought that with the advent of the computer age, we had gone to standard three-letter abbreviations for all the months of the year, along with the two-letter state abbreviations and three-letter abbreviations for the days of the week. Am I wrong? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
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Dayton, Virginia Saturday, September 5, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| The U.S. military has adopted the universal style of writing dates (in terms of order -- day, month, year), along with a three-letter abbreviation of all the months (with no period after the abbreviation), which means that my birthday falls on 21 Dec 98 (army style) and 21 DEC 98 (navy style). Can't these people agree on anything? That probably means that the rest of the government will soon tag along and then the rest of us. With such good company, surely no one could ever say that the three-letter appreviation is wrong. Authority: Chicago Manual of Style 14th ed. U of Chicago P: Chicago. 1993. p. 305.
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| QUESTION |
| Can you provide me with some idiomatic phrases please. I think that 'the more the merrier' is one. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Colchester, Essex, England Sunday, September 6, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
I'll provide a short list, but you must promise not to use them.
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| QUESTION |
The word century ... should it be capitalized within a sentence -- and/or is it acceptable?
As our Century comes to a close ...Thanks |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Cold Spring, New York Sunday, September 6, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| No, there's no reason to capitalize that word. |
| QUESTION |
| Can you tell me where do we use will and where do we use would? And can and could? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Montreal, Quebec, Canada Sunday, September 6, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Check out the section on Auxiliary Verbs and be sure to click on the hyperlink for modal auxiliaries. If you still have questions, please write back. |
| QUESTION |
Is the following newspaper headline grammatically correct? It reads as follows: Hypocrisy taints women's groups' image.It's the phrase 'women's groups' image' that looks strange. Thanks for your help and comment on this. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Somewhere, Maine Monday, September 7, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| If we assume that more than one women's group can have one image, it's grammatically correct. But you're right about its looking odd; it sounds even worse. It's the kind of mess we get into sometimes in headlines. In normal text, it would probably read something like "Hypocrisy taints the image of women's groups." Any time you double up on possessives like that, you're asking for trouble. |
| QUESTION |
| Hi, I would like to know the correct word to use in the example below: The Eiffel Tower was lighted up. or The Eiffel Tower was lit up.Thank you |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Clark, New Jersey Monday, September 7, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| One of my dictionaries lists "lit" as the preferred variant of the past tense of "to light"; another one lists "lighted." My conclusion: go with the word that sounds better to you, but be consistent. Personally, I prefer "lit." |
| QUESTION |
| How do you write a Bibliography on a book or on an internet address? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Northport, Alabama Tuesday, September 8, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| See the Guide to Writing Research Papers. |
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