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The Grammar Logs # 301 |
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| QUESTION |
| What is the difference between "as if" and "as though"? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
Jamestown, Rhode Island  Fri, Mar 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
According to the dictionary, none. However, I think that "as though" suggests the allowance for other possibilities and "as if" is more along the lines of offering a single alternative.
Authority for this note: WWWebster Dictionary, the World Wide Web edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Used with permission. |
| QUESTION |
| I have difficulty with linking verbs that are also used as action verbs. I am confused because I do not know whether to use an adjective or an adverb. Example: The river runs deep. Still waters run deep. Is deep an adjective here or an adverb, and if it's an adverb should I be saying the river runs deeply, and still waters run deeply? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| St. Helens, Oregon Fri, Mar 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I don't think you're confusing linking verbs and action verbs; I think the fact that some adjectives can also act as adverbs is what's perplexing you (and many others). "Deep" is one of them. We ponder something deeply, but we say he looked deep into his soul. And the river does run deep. He spoke loud/loudly. Drive slow/slowly. And those words mean much the same. There are some circumstances in which the choice of adverb or adjective will make a difference, though: "He worked late." means that he worked into the night, beyond his normal quitting time; "He worked lately" means that he worked recently. And sometimes the adjective has no corresponding adverb with an "-ly" ending; it's simply an adverb according to context: "He drives fast." "He said it right." Fortunately, the number of confusable adjectives/adverbs is fairly limited. Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. See "unidiomatic." Authority: A University Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum. Longman Group: Essex, England. 1993. p. 138. Used with permission.
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| QUESTION |
Please go through the sentence below:
Because the number of subnets required is defined, you can calculate the custom subnet mask for the subnet.I have doubt regarding the word "is". I believe that using "is" is correct. But the word spellchecker suggests it should be "are". Could you confirm my belief? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Mumbai, India Fri, Mar 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| "The number" is always singular; "a number" is always plural. So you're absolutely right: you need to trust yourself more and your grammar checker less. (I find it interesting that I can say something about the grammar of a sentence that I don't understand at all!) |
| QUESTION |
| I have no examples to give you; however, I am confused when college instructors write 'syntax?' on my essays. I've read the dictionary definition, but remain in the dark. Can you shed some light? Thanks |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Sebastopol, California Fri, Mar 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| That's not the most useful note to put on someone's paper, is it? It probably means that something (and perhaps they're not too sure themselves what the problem might be) is not right in the grammatical relationship of the words. Perhaps it's a subject-verb agreement problem, or a pronoun-antecedent pronoun, or a verb tense problem, or -- who knows? There's no way of telling without seeing the sentence itself, but if you're not sure what they're trying to point out, you'll have to ask. |
| QUESTION |
| What is the name for words commonly used, but derived from acronyms e.g. SCUBA! Grateful for your help and assistance. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Chicago, Illinois Fri, Mar 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
I have no idea. I think they become merely words, words whose etymology is based on a long forgotten acronym. Or maybe they're still acronyms, but nobody recognizes them as such. Laser would be another good example. ![[E-Mail Icon]](../gif/email.gif){kind=small} I will leave an e-mail icon here in case someone else has a better answer.
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| QUESTION |
| Please talk about substantives and give an example or two. The definition given is "a noun or pronoun used in place of a noun." What does that MEAN?
p.s. I love your site. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Lansdowne, Pennsylvania Sat, Mar 20, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
A substantive (more often called a nominal) is something -- a word or a phrase or a clause -- that functions as a noun (which isn't the same thing as being used in place of a noun). In the following sentences, the underlined parts are substantives:
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| QUESTION |
| Can you give me some information on the use of the personal/indefinite pronoun 'one'? in British English it has a very formal stigma attached to it and seems to be frequently replaced by 'you'. Eg 'You never can tell' rather than 'One' can never tell. What is correct? How do grammarians view 'one'? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| London, UK Sun, Mar 21, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| They're both correct. The one (as opposed to you) has a reputation of being a bit stuffy, one must admit, and besides, one gets into difficulty in one's use of one because other pronouns and possessive forms become involved: one must adapt one's/his/her method, etc. Probably most grammarians agree it's a shame, but one seems to be a bit of a lost cause. Whether that's more true in the United States than it is in the United Kingdom I have no idea. |
| QUESTION |
I am wondering if it is ever acceptable to write a sentence such as the following:
Us girls would jump into the puddles.I am rewriting a story that my 80-year-old mother has written and she uses "us kids" or "us girls" a lot as the subject of her sentences. Is this ever acceptable? I don't want to lose the style of her writing or the language of that time. However, I don't want her to sound stupid. Thank you very much! |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Holmen, Wisconsin Sun, Mar 21, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| It all depends on how much editorial license you're taking with your mother's material and what the tone of her story might be. Certainly, "We girls jumped in the puddles" is the grammatically correct version, and if the text is otherwise written in standard English, I would make the correction. But if the voice of the story's narrator would say "Us girls," and it's entirely appropriate for that voice to use that level of diction, then so be it. In writing fiction, you're in your own realm. You never want to be incorrect for the sake of being incorrect, but if it serves the truth of the story in some way, do it. |
| QUESTION |
| Is the sentence "Don't let them be punished" active or passive?. Please, explain. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan Sun, Mar 21, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| No, it's not passive. The verb in that sentence is "do let" (modified by the contracted not), and the subject of that sentence is an understood "you." (The sentence is an imperative, and we often have the understood "you" as the subject in commands, orders, or suggestions.) |
| QUESTION |
| In the sentence "Any errors, adaptations, or fictional license with the facts are entirely my own" is the use of the plural verb (are) correct? Please explain the rule. Thank you. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| San Diego, California Sun, Mar 21, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| When compounding subjects with the conjunction "or," the subject closest to the verb will determine the number of the verb. In this case, the subject is "license," which is singular, so you want the singular "is." Also, is there supposed to be some kind of parallelism going on here with "errors and adaptations"? Any adaptations are entirely my own? I don't know what that means. Any "errors with the facts"? I think you can find a more reasonable sounding disclaimer in the front pages of most novels. |
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