The
Grammar
Logs
# 351

QUESTION
I recently took a police examination that consisted mostly of grammar questions. I had a few questions that gave me a bit of trouble.

The directions said to tell if the sentence was grammatically correct.

  1. The district attorney came for John and myself.
  2. The twelve year old boy, with a gun, robbed the store.
  3. The burglar should have not tried to climb through the window.
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Romulus, Michigan Tue, Sep 28, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
In the order of the sentences above:
  1. "For John and me." When you compound a pronoun — The district attorney came for me. — with something else ("John"), don't change its form.
  2. Drop the commas. That information is essential to the meaning of the sentence. See rules on Comma Usage.
  3. "Should not have tried." It's a matter of the adverb's placement.
So police officers have to be grammatically correct now? Good.

QUESTION
In the sentence "The dishes in the sink need to be washed as soon as possible." what part of speech (parsing-wise) is "to be washed"?
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Tokyo, Japan Tue, Sep 28, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
Quirk says this about the verb "need" and the construction that often follows it:
For one small group of verbs (deserve, need, require, and less commonly, want) the choice [between infinitive and participle] involves a difference in voice, the participle construction corresponding to a passive infinitive construction:
Your shoes need cleaning/to be cleaned.
Quirk calls this (besides a passive infinitive) a non-finite clause without a subject, the implied subject being the same as the subject in the main clause ("dishes" in this case). I hope that helps.

Authority: A University Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum. Longman Group: Essex, England. 1993. p. 359. Used with permission.
QUESTION
Am I missing the subject?
In the first paragraph of the August 24, 0000 Contract with XXX states that XXX is " ... on an exclusive basis to render services to YYY."
I do not think that I am missing the subject ... but somebody else thinks that I am. Being stubborn as I am, I have to listen to you before I conclude that I am wrong.... Thank you so much!
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Unknown Wed, Sep 29, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
I'm afraid your friend is right. I can't find the subject for the verb "states." Get rid of that initial preposition in and you'll be OK. What is now the object of a preposition cannot serve, also, as the subject of your sentence.

QUESTION
In the following sentences, what part of speech is more (noun or adverb)?
  • President Taft weighed more than 300 pounds.
  • The overdue fine was more than two thousand dollars.
Also, is two-thousand hyphenated since it forms an adjective?
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Phoenix, Arizona Thu, Sep 30, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
I will quote Quirk and Greenbaum directly:
Constructions with more. . . than and less . . . than do not necessarily introduce comparative clauses. There is a type of non-clausal comparison in which than is followed by an explicit standard or yardstick of comparison, normally a noun phrase of measure, or a noun phrase implying degree:
The books weigh more than four pounds.
Here than is best considered a preposition, and the phrase which follows it a prepositional complement.
The word more, then, plays its familiar role as intensifying adjective, followed by the prepositional complement as described by Quirk and Greenbaum. I hope this helps.

Authority: A University Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum. Longman Group: Essex, England. 1993. p. 331. Used with permission.

No, "two thousand" is not hyphenated in that sentence. See the section on Using Numbers.


QUESTION
My question is about the usage of "over" vs. "more than." Please see the following sentences and let me know which is the preferred way...using "more than" or "over," or mixing the two within the same sentence or paragraph. This is copy from a marketing brochure. Thank you!
  • "Choose Westport and you benefit from our knowledge gained from protecting lawyers for over 27 years and insuring over 25,000 law firms today."
  • "Choose Westport and you benefit from our knowledge gained from protecting lawyers for more than 27 years and insuring more than 25,000 law firms today."
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Overland Park, Kansas Thu, Sep 30, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
According to Burchfield, in England, it wouldn't make the least bit of difference. In the United States, however, there is a long-standing prejudice against using "over" before a numeral (except when talking about someone's age, as in "He's well over forty."). Frankly, I'd never thought of this distinction before.

Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. (under the article for "over"). Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.
QUESTION
I would like to know the part of speech of "please" in the following sentence. Please close the door. It is an imperative sentence with "you" understood as the subject. I know the verb is "close". I know the "door" is a direct object. BUT what is "please"? Thanks
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Springfield, Illinois Fri, Oct 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
"Please" is an adverb modifying the verb "close." It's what is known as a "function word," signifying politeness or polite affirmation. (In other words, it's doing more, conveying more, than a normal adverb — like "slowly" in "Close the door slowly.")

QUESTION
In the sentence:
"To improve response time and reduce network traffic, the applications should be small enough to fit in the memory...."
Question 1:
What is the function of the phrase before the comma? Does it have a particular name? Is it just a verbal, or some kind of clause?

Question 2: Is "to fit in the memory" working as a predicative adjective (modifying the word "small")?

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Mountain View, California Fri, Oct 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
:"To improve response time and reduce network traffic" is an infinitive phrase modifying (telling us "why") the applications should be something (thus modifying the verb, behaving like an adverb). "To fit in the memory" is also a verbal (infinitive) phrase behaving like an adverb, this time telling us for what reason the applications "should be small enough."

QUESTION
In reading "Doonesbury" I came across the following expression.
"Seven musicians for a week, background vocalists, two engineers, a programmer ... 25 bucks, easy."
I cannnot catch what 'easy' means in this sentence. Are there any other examples like this? I would much ap
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Unknown Fri, Oct 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
The cartoonist is, as always, being ironic, but I can't quite picture what's going on in the cartoon. We sometimes append "easy" at the end of a sentence to signify that the preceding assertion will be accomplished easily, "without sweat" (to throw in another idiom and cliché). The cartoonist is being ironic because you couldn't hire any one of those people for $25 an hour. Another example might be saying that in the recent stock market slide Bill Gates probably lost a billion dollars, easy. (Actually, he lost a great deal more than that, but we won't send him care packages quite yet.)

QUESTION
When are quotation marks or capital letters used in quotes, nicknames, place names, etc? We use other sources and many times find quotation marks around phrases, and other times capital letters, but we can't seem to agree on when to use what.

Example: We write "surprising Amsterdam" and "Merrie old England", Paris, the "City of Lights" with quotes. But sometimes we're not sure, when dealing with the nickname of a place, whether it should be capped or with quote marks. We found one the other day that was Wroclaw, the City of Bridges and Greenery. We don't know if it should be capitalized, quoted, or what!

Is there any way we can be consistent and keep the peace in our department? Thank you.

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Grand Rapids, Michigan Fri, Oct 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
Popularly accepted designations are often capitalized, but putting quotation marks around such designations only goes to suggest that there is something peculiar about using such designations. I doubt if "surprising" should be capitalized, but City of Lights, the Big Apple, Merrie Olde England, ought to be. And yes, Wroclaw, the City of Bridges and Greenery. But forget the quotation marks.

Authority: New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage HarperCollins: New York. 1994. Cited with permission.


QUESTION
I am very perplexed. I cannot find an answer to this capitalization question and I aced English all through school! The term "Sunday school teacher" - should the school be capped or not? Should it be as above or "Sunday School teacher?"

I cannot find the answer anywhere!!! Please help solve a dilemma and an outright argument that is going on between writers. We have a couple of people here that are ready to make a betting wager here. I will try to refrain them from doing so!

Thanks for your help!

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Silver Spring, Maryland Sat, Oct 2, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
I am somewhat surprised to discover that in Merriam-Webster's "Sunday school" is written with a small "s" for "school." I'm glad I looked it up because I would have capitalized it myself — perhaps because I spent so many hours in Sunday School school.

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