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The Grammar Logs # 311 |
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| QUESTION |
Is the following sentence correct?
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
Somewhere, Colorado  Fri, Apr 16, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| That second sentence is a definite improvement. The pronoun "her" of the first clause is begging for a subject to connect to, and "Armani" isn't it. |
| QUESTION |
Given the sentence:
The word boreal means relating to trees.what is the part of speech for the word "boreal"? What is its function in the sentence? If boreal is the subject, what is the function of the word "word"? It seems to me as if it is similar to a object complement, but in the subject position. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Greenup, Illinois Fri, Apr 16, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I think boreal in this sentence is an appositive. An appositive is a reidentification, a re-naming, of a preceding word. (Don't you mean arboreal?) |
| QUESTION |
| 'How about' and 'What about' are used to suggest something. I wonder what differences they make. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Seoul, Korea Sat, Apr 17, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| To some extent, at least, they're interchangeable: "Where should we go on vacation?" "How about Hawaii?" "What about Japan?" "Who should be the next academic dean?" "What about Tsong Lee?" "How about Wynnefred?" The phrase "how about" can be used to express amazement about something—"How about those Huskies?"—in a way that doesn't work so well with "what about." When you're asking if someone knows something about something, you can ask "What about the university?" (stressing the word about) in a way that wouldn't work with "How about. . . ." But "How about" would work if you were offering a choice in things: "Here are three jackets you might buy. How about the grey one?" There are probably other differences, but I'm not an instructor in ESL, and those are the folks who know the answers to such questions. |
| QUESTION |
| She will direct the band this evening. "Evening' is an adverb. "This" is a demonstrative pronoun that functions as a noun or adjective. Is "this" an adj or an adv? After all, by definition an adjective cannot modify an adv. Help! |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Carlinville, Illinois Sat, Apr 17, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| "Evening" is not really an adverb; it's a noun, which is modified, as you point out, by the adjectival "this." Taken together, however, "this evening" functions as an adverbial phrase, which tells us when she will direct the band. |
| QUESTION |
| Why do you state that English verbs have a future tense even though in reality they are not marked for future? tense? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Monterey, California Sat, Apr 17, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| If your definition of a tense is a marked (or inflected) verb form that carries with the notion of time (like the present tense he walks or the past tense he walked), you're right: English has no future tense verb (i.e., it has no ending that expresses the future tense). Still we have various verb and helping verb combinations that express the time of the future: "He will walk," "He is going to walk," etc. The oddest thing of all is that we can use the present tense forms to express the future: "It's already noon, but this afternoon he is walking to Detroit." So you need to define tense before you can say that English has no future tense. But you're certainly right about the marked endings—which is one more thing that makes English rather difficult for new English learners. |
| QUESTION |
Do I say,
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Massapequa, New York Sat, Apr 17, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Those are two of our Notorious Confusables. They're easy to confuse because time passed is in the past. The word past can be a preposition ("We walked past a large window.") and an adjective ("They forgave his past wrongdoings.") and a noun ("She lives in the past.") and an adverb ("We were standing there when he ran past."). The word passed, however, is only the past tense and past participle form of pass: "She passes the basketball beautifully." "Passed over by her supervisor, Turveydrop decided to seek employment elsewhere." I hope that helps—if it doesn't convince you never to use either word again. |
| QUESTION |
| A wonderful site! Thank you. A question: Which of these two book titles would be correct?
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Atlanta, Georgia Sun, Apr 18, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| When the compound "decision making" appears as a pre-noun modifier, we want to use a hyphen: "Her decision-making skills were remarkable." When they stand on their own, as a noun (gerund) and its modifier, as they do in your book's title, we don't need a hyphen: "She was very good at decision making." or "Decision making was obviously one of her strengths." Authority: Chicago Manual of Style 14th ed. U of Chicago P: Chicago. 1993. p. 222. |
| QUESTION |
When using the word "proceeds" in reference to an insurance settlement, which verb form is proper - singular or plural?
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Detroit, Michigan Mon, Apr 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| The word "proceeds" is always plural, so we'd want to say "the proceeds determined for this claim are. . . ." Authority for this note: WWWebster Dictionary, the World Wide Web edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Used with permission. |
| QUESTION |
| Is it acceptable slang to use It's Me in place of It's I in the context of identifying oneself in a directory or listing of names? If so, can you provide a suitable source or reference? Thanks very much for your help. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| White Plains, New York Mon, Apr 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| It's not exactly slang. Some very good writers argue that the rule dictating that we write "It is I" is not particularly convincing. Why can't we write "It is me," after all? Who says that subject form has to be connected (by linking verbs) only to subject forms and not object forms. And finally, what lover, long bereft of his beloved, would finally find her and say to himself, "At last! It is she!"? Authority: New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage HarperCollins: New York. 1994. p. 131. Cited with permission.
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| QUESTION |
| I know titles of novels go in italics, but what about novellas? I assume it would also go in italics, but they are rarely published alone. What do you think? The specific one I am writing about is Chopin's The Awakening. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Atlanta, Georgia Mon, Apr 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Yes, novellas are often published along with other material, but so are plays. They are certainly long enough to be published by themselves (and were often intended to be published that way by the author). Italicize or underline titles like The Awakening, Metamorphosis, Heart of Darkness, etc. |
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