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The Grammar Logs # 355 |
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| QUESTION |
While writing a test procedure, I included the following paragraph:
A second test workstation in close proximity to the primary test workstation is required. The closer this test workstation to the primary test workstation, the better.My co-workers said the second sentence in the paragraph should be written: The closer this test workstation is to the primary test workstation, the better.Does the sentence require the word "is" after "test workstation," or is it correct without it? Thanks in advance! |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
Rochester, New York  Thu, Oct 14, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I suppose that in formal text your colleagues are right — but they're being real sticklers for form. Your version of that sentence — within the context of your paragraph — seems like a perfectly acceptable stylistic fragment. |
| QUESTION |
I am considering this sentence:
"Seeing as the market for shrink-wrapped applications is getting saturated, not to mention threatened, by application service providers, Microsoft needs to expand into more substantial 'enterprise-level' applications."Is it grammatically wrong to use "seeing as" because Microsoft is not actually doing the seeing? Or is "seeing as" a more figurative expression? One improvement would be to change "Seeing as" to "Because." But I'm still wondering how incorrect the original sentence stands. Thanks! |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Palo Alto, California Thu, Oct 14, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| "Seeing as" is an idiomatic expression, but it's a legitimate subordinating conjunction. Frankly, I'd prefer other subordinating conjunctions there — "because," as you suggest, or "Inasmuch as" or "insofar as" would work a bit better than "seeing as," it seems to me. The reader has a long way to go before meeting up with the subject in that sentence; you might consider breaking the thoughts into two units. |
| QUESTION |
| Hello, A friend recently corrected my sentence "All I can worry about is myself," saying that the sentence should read "All I can worry about is me." I contend that, because "myself" refers back to "I", a reflexive pronoun is appropriate. My friend believes that, since "myself" refers back to the phrase "all I can worry about", the reflexive pronoun is inappropriate. We realize that generally after forms of "to be", the subjective case of a pronoun is usually correct, but "All I can worry about is I" just seems wrong to both of us. Any comments? Thanks for your time. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| San Diego, California Thu, Oct 14, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I vote for "myself." In a simpler construction, we would say "I'm worried about myself," not "I'm worried about me." I think it gets down to the root of the word, actually: It is my self that I am worried about. And my self is not quite the same thing as me. (I think I just entered a philosophical realm I shouldn't be in.) Forget about the "I," or you'll end up saying things like "Woe is I." |
| QUESTION |
In the following sentence should the verb after the word "together" be plural or singular?
"What brings mankind together are/is hope, love, and faith."Thank you. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Seoul, Korea Fri, Oct 15, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
The subject is "what brings mankind together," and that subject is singular — even though you then have a plural predicate. You could avoid the problem by reversing the sentence and eliminating the dependent clause: "Hope, love, and faith bring mankind together."(Except I would use "people" instead of "mankind," I think.) |
| QUESTION |
These variations are responsible for incorrect procedure codes being reported for beneficiaries.Question: Is the above sentence gramatically correct? I've been told that "variations" can't be "responsible." Since the sentence states that variations are responsible for... I feel the sentence is correct. Thank you. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania Mon, Oct 18, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| My Merriam-Webster's says that responsible can mean "being the cause or explanation for." The sentence has other problems, though, especially the rather convoluted passive construction at the end: it's rather unclear who is reporting what in this sentence. |
| QUESTION |
| What is an Oxford Comma? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Valley Forge, Pennsylvania Mon, Oct 18, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| An Oxford comma — more commonly called a serial comma — is the last comma inserted in a series (three or more things). You may have learned that you don't have to insert the last comma in a series such as "My favorite breakfast foods are meuslix, yogurt on toast, and bran muffins." I assume it's called the Oxford comma because the Oxford University publishing house would never fail to put the comma after "toast." Burchfield says "The "Oxford comma' is frequently, but in my view unwisely, omitted by many other publishers." Of course, look who publishes Burchfield's book: 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 |
| How do you spell past tense/participle of 'rota'? I have checked dictionaries etc and find no reference to it as a verb but surely it is in use everywhere English speakers have to be put in duty lists. |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Somewhere, UK Tue, Oct 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| My Merriam-Webster's lists this word rota as a noun only, meaning a list or roll of persons, especially a fixed rotation of persons. I had never heard of the word before. I don't think it's possible, then, to rota people — you can only put them (or their names) in a rota. Given our inclination to transform nouns to verbs and vice versa, however, it probably won't be long before it becomes a verb. First, though, it might have to cross the Atlantic; I don't think anyone (other than crossword puzzle fanatics and Scrabble aficionados) uses the word in the U.S. (military types, maybe?). Perhaps the Oxford English Dictionary has other uses for this word, but I don't happen to have access to the OED. |
| QUESTION |
In diagramming the following sentence, I placed "from Boston" under
"books." My previous teachers have drilled into my head that modifiers are generally placed closest to the words they modify--with a few special exceptions, of course:
I will order some books from Boston... (compound sentence with second clause omitted.Does "from Boston" have to modify "will order"? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Waycross, Georgia Tue, Oct 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| If you had said "about Boston," I would say that the prepositional phrase definitely modifies the word "books." However, this prepositional phrase, "from Boston," tells us more about the action of ordering than it does about the object "books." In a sentence like "I ordered him from the room," for instance, the phrase "from the room" indicates a sense of direction that modifies the action of the sentence. In terms of sentence order, you're right: modifiers generally want to be as close as possible to the words they modify. In this sentence, however, we could add yet another adverbial modifier, and it will end up in the same terminal position: "I will order some books from Boston right away." I hope this answer helps more than it confuses. |
| QUESTION |
| Is it correct to write it took a while or it took awhile? I want a rule that tells me when to use awhile. I know it means for a while, but is there a better rule? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| San Diego, California Tue, Oct 19, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| I think that most dictionaries nowadays pass over the distinction, saying that "awhile" means "for a while," and that's the end of it. Burchfield, however, maintains that it would be better if writers did not write the words as one when "there is no unification of sense, and while is purely a noun." On the other hand, he points out that the tendency to write the expression as one word is assisted by the fact that "in many contexts awhile could easily be replaced by for a while without loss of sense or rhythm." Recommended practice, according to Burchfield, is to use "a while" when you can. Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. (under "awhile") Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.
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| QUESTION |
| Is "staff" singular or plural? Can I say "the panel is served by a staff as secretary"? Should I say "the panel is served by a member of staff as secretary"? |
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Hong Kong Wed, Oct 20, 1999
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| In that particular sentence, I would say "a member of the staff." But yes, staff can be plural or singular — singular when it's regarded as a unit, a group of people acting as one; plural when it's regarded as a group of individuals acting or being acted upon as individuals. So "The staff acts as if nothing had happened." But "The staff were given their assignments." |
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