The Grammar Logs
#513

Maybe it's more logic than grammar, but what rule says a phrase modifies both its antecedents in the following example? "An insurer must report affiliate agreements, or modifications to affiliate agreements, which involve reinsurance premium in excess of $1,000." I understand this to mean "An insurer must report (1) affiliate agreements which involve reinsurance premium in excess of $1,000 and (2) modifications to affiliate agreements which involve reinsurance premium in excess of $1,000," not "An insurer must report (1) affiliate agreements which involve reinsurance premium in excess of $1,000 and (2) modifications to such agreements."

It is a badly written sentence in which the reader must guess at the writer's intent; it's almost impossible to tell whether the "which" clause refers to the the modified agreements or not. The pair of commas setting off the phrase after "or" confuses everything. The use of the word "such" (as you suggest in your second interpretation) might clear things up. A second sentence about "modifications to such affiliate agreements" would be even better.

What is the proper verb tense for enable/s in the following:

...offers a menu of programs that enable agencies to more effectively serve their clients.

What is the doing the enabling here, the "menu" or the "programs"? I vote for the plural "programs," so I would use "enable." And I might change the ending of the sentence to "to serve their clients more effectively."

It drives me crazy to hear politicians, news anchors, and others use the word "woman" as an adjective—Example: woman governor, woman golfer. . . Shouldn't it be "female" governor, golfer, etc.? Aren't they really trying to designate gender? I thought the word "woman" was a noun?

Burchfield notes that "if the need arises to indicate the sex of an occupational or agent noun, woman, lady, or girl are sometimes used as prefixed modifiers. Then he adds that "the whole question of gender distinctions in occupational and related names is sensitive, verging on explosive. . . . Ours is an uneasy age linguistically."

Although I don't have a copy of his book, Lapsing into a Comma, on hand, it seems to me that I recall Bill Walsh making the same useful distinction that you do.

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. (under "feminine designations")

Which of the following is correct and why?

• I am planning to research, develop, and implement a new program.
• I am planning to research, to develop, and to implement a new program.

Sometimes, for the purposes of sentence rhythm, you will hear the "to" particle repeated in a series of infinitives, but it certainly isn't necessary. The "to" can be suspended, as it were, and be understood for subsequent verbs. Your first version is better.

Would you consider the following phrases redundant: "emerging trends" "anticipated ramifications"?

It doesn't seem so to me. A trend can be a rather ancient thing, whereas the modifier "emerging" suggests that it is something relatively recent or at least recently noticed. An anticipated ramification would be a branching out or consequence that hasn't happened yet, but is expected. In either meaning (branching or consequence), I don't think the phrase is redundant. You need to try these phrases in context, and if you can get along without the modifiers, if they are not adding anything useful, drop them.

Is there any wrong if I just say

'This will be improved over the period.'

Do I strictly need to mention the period of time?

If it is clear within the context of the sentence what "the period" means, you could get away with this sentence. But then you might want to refer more specifically to "this period," say, and being more specific wouldn't hurt, would it? You might also consider using a more active sentence, saying who or what will improve "this."

When can I not use "the" – Understanding customer's needs or Understanding the customer's needs? Is there a simple rule for this?

The rules for using an article or zero article are in our section on determiners. I would use "the" in that phrase. Or change the singular to plural and say "Understand customers' needs." The rules for using articles (or not) are, unfortunately, rather complex and there are so many exceptions that it's a miracle anyone learning English as a Second Language ever gets it right.

I'm having a discussion with a co-worker over a sentence that I made. The sentence reads as follows:

I will be more than welcomed to assist you.

I know that I could have said "I will be more than happy to assist you," but I wanted to say it the other way. Now we are having an argument over this, and I told her that I could use it that way, but she still insists that it's not the proper way of saying it, and I say that it can be said the way I said it. Can someone correct me?

"Happy" would be a huge improvement. And "welcomed," sorry to say, just doesn't make any sense there. Who is going to welcome you because you helped someone? When someone thanks you for something, you say "You're welcome"; you don't say "I'm welcome/welcomed." "Happy" is enough; "more than happy" gets a bit giddy, doesn't it?

Is it correct to say "accompanied by" or "accompanied with?" I recently saw a menu that said something like "chicken accompanied with vegetables."

According to Theodore Bernstein, we say "accompanied with [things]" and "accompanied by [people]." So "with vegetables" would be appropriate — if it weren't for this image I have of a chicken being escorted onto a train by a group of hospitable vegetables.

In the following sentence shoud the phrase be "as does all failure" or "as do all failure" and, of course, why?

Neither scenario argues for an internet-type bust: houses have intrinsic value (you can live in them and it costs real money to replace them) while stocks based on dreams turned to nightmares have no intrinsic value and, as does all failure, cost nothing to replace.

Thank you

In this context, "failure" is being used as a notion, a theme, an idea, and is not countable, so it wants a singular verb, "does." If we reversed this inversion (caused by "as"), we would have something like "all failure does [cost nothing]." If you replaced "all failure" with "all failures," you would have another story and need a plural verb. The "cost," of course, is agreeing in number with the plural "stocks." I'm not sure I follow the logic of the statement, but the grammar of it is unexceptionable. (I've owned my share of stocks based on dreams turned to nightmares so I should study this further.)

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