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The Grammar Logs # 233 |
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| QUESTION |
| Terms like: walking stick, smoking jacket, punching bag...are they compound nouns, gerund pharases? Help! |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada  Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Those are compound nouns consisting of a participle and a noun. In another language, like German, they would become a single word, but they remain open compounds in English. |
| QUESTION |
In the sentence below, should I use plural or singular? Why?
More than one of the students (was / were) absent from the school yesterday. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Hong Kong Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| In an expression like this (more than one of, some of, part of,) the number of the verb will be determined by the number of the word following "of." In this case, of course, students is plural, so we want were. Authority: New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage HarperCollins: New York. 1994. Cited with permission. p. 168.
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| QUESTION |
| What's the longest sentence ever written? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Delafield, Wisconsin Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I don't know. Maybe the ending of James Joyce's Ulysses? Maybe William Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust? Or the record could belong to a revival preacher I heard once in Oklahoma, back in the late 50s. |
| QUESTION |
What are the rules for the use of the word(s) "sometime" and "some time" as to when to use one word or two words?
Example: Was that the line of work you have been in for some time/sometime? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Atlanta, Georgia Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Sometime or sometimes is usually an adverb, occasionally an adjective: "He does that sometimes", or "A Woman is a Sometime Thing" (from Showboat). Some time (two words) is simply a quantifier with the word time, which is what you want in that sentence you gave us. |
| QUESTION |
We would like to find out who has changed our English Grammar. Here is one of the rules in our English Book: Rule 8.4: When terms such as "for example," "namely," or "for instance" introduce a list of items, use semicolon before the term and a comma after it.
Example: Hotel chains are expanding their consumer markets; Namely,resorts,health spas, and and convention facilities.Also who has changed putting only one space after a period when you have finished writing a sentence. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Santa Rose, California Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
I can't help you with what your English Book says. That's a very peculiar (quite irregular) use of the semicolon and of the word namely. A colon is often used to substitute for that word, but even a colon is unnecessary -- and a semicolon is completely out of place. I would have written that sentence this way.
Hotel chains are expanding their consumer markets into (to ?) resorts, health spas, and convention facilities. As far as the spacing is concerned, actually the rule used to be to put two spaces after a period. Nowadays, with the proportional spacing available in modern word processing, one space is called for. |
| QUESTION |
The clauses in compound sentences, e.g., Bill's house is green, and Fred's house is red., are normally separated by commas. What, however, about the following: John said that Bill's house is green and Fred's house is red.Somehow, I don't think that a comma is needed, but can't figure out why. Is it, perhaps, because these clauses now form a compound predicate? Thanks for your help. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| San Francisco, California Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Well, sort of. Instead of joining two independent clauses, the and is now joining two compounded parts of a dependent clause, which is introduced by the word that. |
| QUESTION |
| Under what conditions is the "s" omitted from the present tense of regular verbs, e.g., He learns to read the book. He will "learn" to read the book. Another e.g.: He doesn't "learn" to read to read the book. My foreign students are looking for the rules---after I told them to add an "s" to ALL he, she, and it verb structures.... Is the grammatical rule spelled out anywhere? Is it omitted for all future and don'ts??? Thanks |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Mission Viejo, California Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| We don't add an -s ending to all third-person singular verbs -- only to the present tense indicative. He learns, as you point out. The "will learn" is a our future tense. In other present tense structures, we do have an -s ending -- He does learn, he is learning -- but it's part of the auxiliary. See the section on Verb Tenses. |
| QUESTION |
| How do you analyse the components of an essay? What are the various writing processess and stages ? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Boise, Idaho Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| That's a huge question. See Principles of Composition. You'll probably find a different answer to that question in every composition textbook you look at. |
| QUESTION |
| In writing about a merger of our company with another, which is the correct construction: "merger of" or "merger between"? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| San Dimas, California Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| A merger is a combination of two entities, not something that happens between them. |
| QUESTION |
| Please explain to me the difference between compound and complex sentences. Thank you. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Richland, Washington Fri, Oct 16, 1998
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| A compound sentence contains at least two independent clauses; a complex sentence contains at least one dependent clause. See clauses for help. |
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