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The Grammar Logs # 353 |
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| QUESTION |
Would one be faulted for putting a question mark at the end of the following question?:
* I would like to know, if you would be interested in a presentation or perhaps an exhibition of Sima Slonim's art work(?) or (.)...I recognize that it is passive. However, is it not worthy of a question mark? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
Unknown  Thu, Oct 7, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I don't think "faulted" is the right word, but a period is really the mark you want at the end of that sentence. It's not a question. Perhaps it is more clearly a statement if you get rid of the unnecessary comma after "know"? And the "perhaps"? If you really want a question mark there, then pose it more simply as a question: "Would you be more interested in a . . . . ?" |
| QUESTION |
| Is the construction "have/has got" correct? Example: The students have got to finish their work by the end of class today. Or, as I read yesterday in an ad for a textbook company, "---- has got it all." The expression seems redundant to me, but I can't find a rule in my grammar book which applies. Help! --Thanks. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Kingsport, Tennessee Thu, Oct 7, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| The word "got" is often redundant (and my father used to call it one of the ugliest words in the language), but it's so much a part of our language — American English, anyway — that it's hard to imagine never using it. When one's verb (the "have" or "has") is contracted, there is, in fact, a necessity for the "got." (i.e. We can say "We have it all." but we can't say "We've it all." We need to say "We've got it all." The "got," then, creeps into more formal structures [where one wouldn't normally use the contraction].) Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.
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| QUESTION |
| In your example for prepositional phrase - second sentence - "On this side there was no shade and no shade trees ... " Why is the verb not plural? The subject is plural — two items. I have read the rules and the closest is the two subjects one idea takes a singular verb but in this case the subjects don't seem to constitute one idea, to me anyway. Thank you |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Ontario, Canada Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
You've put me in the position of defending Hemingway's punctuation, which feels rather odd. If we said "There ______ a man and two women in the library," would we say "is" or "are." "Are" would be correct, but would "is" be wrong? Quirk and Greenbaum call the "There" (an expletive construction) an "existential subject":
It often determines concord, governing a singular form of the verb (especially in declarative sentences) even when the following 'notional subject' is plural.And then, in their example, they give us "There's two patients in the waiting room." as an informal version of the more formal "There are two patients in the waiting room." Authority: A University Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum. Longman Group: Essex, England. 1993. p. 419. Used with permission.
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| QUESTION |
In reference to compound words. Which of these is correct:
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Nashville, Tennessee Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| In that construction, I'd go with "pain free" (no hyphen). If you're using it as a modifier, the hyphen will come into play: "In has ads, Dr. Molars promised a pain-free experience for first-time patients." |
| QUESTION |
| I teach high school English. I have seen conflicting rules about underlining (or italicizing) well-known historical documents, such as the Magna Carta or Mayflower Compact. Some of my sources say capitalization of such proper nouns is sufficient; other sources say underlining or italicizing is also needed. What is your recommendation? Thank you. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Kilgore, Texas Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| The Chicago Manual of Style says that "Full formal or accepted titles of pacts, plans, policies, treaties, acts, laws, and similar documents or agreements. . ." are "usually capitalized and set in roman type without quotation marks." Examples that book gives include The Monroe Doctrine, Bill of Rights, Mayflower Compact, etc. Authority: Chicago Manual of Style 14th ed. U of Chicago P: Chicago. 1993. p. 262. |
| QUESTION |
In this study from the Mayo Clinic and University of Texas, Houston, 308 patients with angiographically documented CAD but no prior MI or ischemia underwent electron-beam CT scanning.Should a comma come before "but" and after ischemia? Should I view "but" as linking an independent sentence to a dependent clause, therefore use no comma. Or. See the phrase as parenthetical phrase? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Waltham, Massachusetts Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| First, there is no clause following "but." And the phrase that follows "but" is certainly not parenthetical; it's an essential part of your definition of what patients underwent this process. I don't think you want any commas in this sentence (after the ones around Houston, I mean). |
| QUESTION |
| When a sentence calls for single quotes inside double quotes, do you use _3_ quotation marks together, or is the first set considered redundant.....(The English department, Carson Graham Secondary, North Vancouver, B.C.)
An example:
OR |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| r.net
origin: Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I don't think it's redundant. Another option might be to set apart these two peculiar words by using italics. But if you put "quaffle" in single-quotes, I think you've got to treat "quiffle" in the same way. |
| QUESTION |
I have an argument about proper form. I think I'm right. I say the correct placement of the adverb likely is the first sentence. My lawyer client and others say it's the second. Which do you support.
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Seattle, Washington Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Adverbs are notorious slippery creatures and can pop up in odd places in a sentence. I wouldn't say that your lawyer client is wrong, but I would certainly prefer that we bury the adverb in the middle of the verb string that it's modifying: "We will likely be finished. . ." |
| QUESTION |
What part of speech would the word 'which' be in this sentence?
"The molecules go in every which direction" |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Rosario, Argentina Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
It doesn't happen very often, I suppose, but "which" can modify things in an adjectival way. It's an adjective in that sentence, modifying "direction." Merriam-Webster's goes to unusual lengths to explain how "which" can function this way:
used as a function word to introduce a nonrestrictive relative clause and to modify a noun in that clause and to refer together with that noun to a word or word group in a preceding clause or to an entire preceding clause or sentence or longer unit of discourse |
| QUESTION |
Please help me punctuate the following:
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Manassas, Virginia Fri, Oct 8, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| The curriculum and the coaching director definitely belong to the girls, so for those two I'd go with the plural possessive, "Girls'." With "Girls Baseball," though, I think you enter an area in which the word "girls" can act as an attributive noun (i.e., a noun that takes on modifying capabilities as "road" does in "road race," say). It can always remain a question whether we want to join a Writers' Group or a Writers Group — depending on whether you want to define the group as made up of writers or as a group belonging to writers. I think the plural will suffice nicely here: "Girls Baseball." |
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