| QUESTION |
Neither of the following sentences is really well
constructed grammatically, but I am wondering which is less incorrect—and why.
- "Certified teachers (like me) believe that merit pay is a bad idea."
- "Certified teachers (like I) believe that merit pay is a bad idea."
I subscribe to the concept that in formal writing, "like" used in this manner signifies
exclusion from the group, rather than inclusion in the group. (E.g., Horses, like people,
find apples to be tasty treats.) Is "like I" appropriate as an elliptical clause in this construction?
Thank you.
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
Centennial, Colorado  Sun, Apr 1, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| Since you want an answer that addresses levels of correctness, "like me" would be more correct. According to Burchfield, there is a long history of good writers using "like" as a conjunction (as in "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should"), but it's never been regarded as good form. Most careful writers would use "as" in the cigarette ad. In your sentence, the word "like" is acting as a preposition and "me" is the object of that preposition. It is not introducing a clause of any kind.
|
| QUESTION |
Question regarding comma placement:
Which is correct when used in a sentence?
- The Columbus, Ohio, Police Department . . .
- The Columbus, Ohio Police Department . . .
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Clarksburg, West Virginia Sun, Apr 1, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| We need the comma both before and after "Ohio." The name of the state is nearly always treated as a parenthetical element (and set off with commas) unless it becomes possessive or compounded: "Columbus, Ohio's Police Department" or "the Columbus, Ohio-initiated project."
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| QUESTION |
How do you rewrite this sentence?
I like small, intimate restaurants, and large, noisy truck stops are nice.
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Orlando, Florida Sun, Apr 1, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
To preserve a sense of parallel form, how about I like small, intimate restaurants and large, noisy truckstops.
or break it up a bit more, as in
I like small, intimate restaurants, but large, noisy truckstops are also nice.
|
| QUESTION |
- He differs from me in many aspects.
- He differs from me in many respects.
Are both "aspects" and "respects" correct usage in this example? If both are
correct, is there any difference in usage rules?
Thank you.
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Lukasville, Ohio Mon, Apr 2, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| You want "respects." "Aspects" can refer to different countenances that a face portrays, or the different ways in which something or a person can appear. Consider a painting, for example: you can regard it from one aspect (viewpoint) or another. Or you could consider the various aspects (faces) of a mountainside or a diamond. "Respect" can refer to the relation or reference to a particular thing or person, and it can also mean, simply, "detail" or "particular," which is what you mean here.
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| QUESTION |
Hello, I love your site! However, I believe I have a small correction for you...on the page on Pronouns, you
say, 'If one were to write, for instance, "A student must see his counselor before the end of the semester..."' Is this not an improper use of the
subjunctive mood? The action in the predicate is not contrary to fact
and therefore should be stated in the indicative mood...right? Please
help...I find the subjunctive mood to be one of the most commonly
misused bits of English grammar that come across my desk. People
tend to
use it for conditional situations rather than those that are contrary
to fact.
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Unknown Mon, Apr 2, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
My colleague Evelyn Farbman bails me out on this one. . . .
"If one were to write. . ." means that there's more doubt about
the writing than there would be in "If one writes. . . " The
subjunctive provides space for that doubt. The phrase
"contrary to fact" is a bit misleading when expressing
conditions for future actions, since the fact hasn't happened
yet. (It works better with past actions: "If he had written, she
would have answered. " He didn't write and she didn't
answer, so it's clearly contrary to fact.)
The future doesn't have any facts yet, but subjunctives have a
life in that world of still-possible-but-not-certain events,
and that's why they show up in polite situations where we
don't want to be demanding: "I request that he come. . . " And
in legal documents where it's important not to assume that
something has been settled prematurely: "Be it resolved that
the governor appoint a committee to. . . ." Mostly in English
we get away with using modals to express these shades of
distance, so we've lost the keen ear for subjunctive verbs that
French and Spanish speakers have. But the residual feeling of
distance, uncertainty, respect, etc. —all that remains, alive
and well. "If one were to write. . . " is one place where it
resonates.
|
| QUESTION |
I have a problem in arranging this small paragraph:
Radar is used in ships to enable them to sail safely, to control the speed of cars and to
guide planes across the world.
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Somewhere, Egypt Wed, Apr 4, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
Indeed. The parallel form of the infinitives is connecting all these actions to the ships, so the sentence has ships trying to control the speed of cars and to guide planes. How about something like
Radar enables ships to reach their ports, planes to find their landing strips, and police to catch the speeding motorist.
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| QUESTION |
I believe that in the following sentences the accusative
case is correctly used.
- Let it be me.
- I took John to be him.
- Whom do you suppose him to be?
The guide is that the verb "to be" always takes the same case after it as before it. Many "experts" in usage seem unaware of this application. Is the accusative case correct here?
- I want to be him.
- I tried to be him.
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Mill Valley, California Wed, Apr 4, 2001
|
| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| In your third example, I don't think "him" is following the verb "to be." Generally, though, you're right. As Burchfield says, "The verb to be can usefully be regarded as a part of speech linking elements that are in the same case. In nouns and some pronouns, the cases before and aft are normally indistinguishable." The possibility of a nominative being linked to an objective, he notes, is infiltrating standard English, especially in short sentences such as "It's me" and "That is him." I think that's what's happening in your final examples. "I tried to be he" sounds very strained and formal to me.
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.
|
| QUESTION |
In the following sentence, is 'her' or 'to her' the indirect
object?
She gave the book to her.
It seems a silly question now that I've written it down, but one of the grammar books
I've read seems to imply that 'her' wouldn't even be an indirect object unless it
*immediately* follows the verb. This isn't so, is it?
|
| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Toronto, Ontario, Canada Wed, Apr 4, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
| That depends on your definition of indirect object. If your definition doesn't include the possibility of an indirect object coming after the direct object, where it will be the object of a preposition, then the answer is no. Kolln (see below), however, would describe "her" in your sentence as an indirect object simply put in a "different slot," after the direct object, as the object of a preposition (but still the indirect object).
Authority: Understanding English Grammar by Martha Kolln. 4rth Edition. MacMillan Publishing Company: New York. 1994. p. 27
On the other hand, Quirk and Greenbaum describe your sentence as an entirely different structure —SVOA, in which an adverbial construction (the prepositional phrase) follows the object instead of an indirect object which would precede the direct object — SVOO.
Authority: A Grammar of Contemporary English by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. Longman Group: London. 1978. p. 347.
Take your pick. . . .
|
| QUESTION |
In the sentence below:
The weekends are what make our city great.
Should it be make or makes and why?
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| SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE |
| Durham, North Carolina Wed, Apr 4, 2001
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| GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE |
That looks like it ought to be a very simple question, with a very simple answer. But there is a wide variety of opinion about the nature of the verb that should follow "what" when it's used as a relative pronoun. It's almost always singular, and if you turned your sentence around you would have a singular verb: What makes our city great are the weekends. (And some writers would insist that the sentence verb there should be is; others would say the verb should be are because of the principle of attraction to the plural complement, weekends.) But it is possible for make to require a plural verb. Burchfield gives this example: "I have few books and what there are do not help me." I think your sentence is similar. I'd go with "are." Of course, you could avoid the problem by abandoning the cleft-sentence pattern for something simpler: "The weekends make our city great."
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. p. 839 (under "what").
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