The Grammar Logs
#531

I would greatly appreciate any light you can shed on this little quandary of ours. My sister and I disagree on how I should finish the following sentence.

When her land is besieged by an evil warlord who ruthlessly claims both her and her lands, she must accept the aid from the one man whose brazen kisses she can't ignore and whose sensuality speaks to her in ways none has ever before.

The clause in question is "none has ever before." I think it's fine how it is, but she feels that, stylistic and perhaps grammatically, there is something wrong with it; that perhaps something was needed between "ever" and "before" to clarify what the word "ever" was in reference to.

She suggests, "...and whose sensuality spoke to her in ways no one ever did before."

I feel that this is grammatically incorrect — especially the use of "spoke" as the entire sentence is meant to be in the present tense while the latter is in the past.

First, is my version of the sentence grammatically correct? Second, is hers?

Thank you so much!

It's bad enough we have to put up with the guy's brazen kisses, but the notion of talking sensuality is downright repugnant. And your sister is right: that's where things fall apart. To make the sentence make sense, you have to compare his sensuality to anyone else's sensuality. The "none" in your sentence is indefinite and refers to something without antecedent in the sentence. And the "no one" in your sister's sentence compares a person (no one) to the sensuality, which doesn't make sense, either. You really need to say "whose sensuality speaks to her in ways no one else's sensuality had ever spoken before." But how many times has the sensuality of other people spoken to this woman? She must have an appointment book. I would give up on the notion of talking sensuality and find some other way of making this cad sexy.

What's your take on using the verb "access" when not referring to computer data?

E.g., how would it sound to say "homeless people can 'access' shelter in several different locations"?

I used to find that usage abhorrent, but it must be wearing me down. Bernstein says "It is not difficult to figure out the meaning of the verb: to gain access to, or to obtain or plain old to get [or to find in the sentence you offer]. But who needs it?" And the American Heritage manual says that 80% of its usage panel rejects the use of "access" as a verb (outside the realm of computerese). Personally, I'm still 80% against it.

Authority: Dos, Don'ts & Maybes of English Usage by Theodore Bernstein. Gramercy Books: New York. 1999.

Authority for this note: American Heritage Book of English Usage: Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 1996.

What is proper to say:

• "The band were tuning their instruments."
Or

• "The band was tuning their instruments."
Or

• "The band was tuning its instruments."

Thank you for your help!

Normally, the band functions as a singular entity, a collective noun — or at least that's how the band director wants it to function. But the individuals within the band must individually tune their instruments. To avoid the use of a singular verb and a plural pronoun in the same clause, can't we use "the members of the band were tuning their instruments"?

At geocities.com, I find an excellent explanation of the present perfect tense. In discussing how the tense should never be used with the "finished time," it puts "today" in the unfinished time category. Therefore, "Today, I have instructed my Attorney General to start an investigation into the matter" is acceptable.

My old English instructor used to sneer at politicians who said that. He insisted that "today" should be in the "finished time" category. To say it correctly, according to him,

• I have just instructed... or
• Today, I instructed...

Who is correct, the geocities or my instructor?

You're probably referring to Colin Mahoney's article on the present perfect, an excellent exposition, indeed. I'm going to waffle on your question and suggest that "today" is often used in the same manner as the time adverb "just," to mean that something has very recently been completed: "Today [Just now], I have instructed the National Guard to mobilize … ." If the President were to announce something like that on the evening news, we would interpret the event has having happened just this morning or just this afternoon or even the moment just preceding the announcement. So I have no problem with regarding today as unfinished time and using the present perfect with that time adverb. On the other hand, I see no problem with using the simple past with today, either (as your English instructor would approve): "Today I instructed the National Guard to mobilize … ." I will leave an e-mail icon here in case someone else cares to venture an opinion.

Colin Mahoney himself writes the following in response:
"Today" is clearly unfinished (though maybe we could argue about that till midnight). What's important here, I think, is whether the action can still happen. For example:

"I bought a new pair of shoes today."

would be a perfectly natural thing to say when I get home tonight, as at that point it will be no longer possible to buy shoes — the shops will be shut. I might say:

"I have bought a new pair of shoes today."

if I was thinking of continuing buying things — conceptually, I see it as still possible.

Is it correct to use the words "most all" in describing an amount? For example: "… most all Cruise Tour vacations come with pre- and post-cruise city excursions.…"

The use of "most" to mean "very," "quite" (as in "His appearance at the festival was most unusual") or "almost" (as in your sentence) is regarded by most authorities as a casualism (to use Garner's word), something to be avoided in writing.

From The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Styleby Bryan Garner. Copyright 1995 by Bryan A. Garner. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., www.oup-usa.org, and used with the gracious consent of Oxford University Press.

What is the appropriate preposition to use after the word "matriculate?"

My family has harvested more diplomas than it has walls to show them on, so I have some experience with "matriculation." If you do a search on a handful of good university sites, you'll find that people matriculate at a college or university, but they matriculate in or into a program. Occasionally, you'll see that students matriculate for a degree program, but that's rather unusual.

I have a question regarding the placement of also. My previous editor insisted that the correct placement in passive voice is:

I also was involved in the planning process.

Instead of

I was also involved in the planning process.

Is this correct? If so, nobody ever seems to make the right placement. Thank you!

Your editor's version is apt to be read to mean that you were involved along with someone else (or other people). Your original version will probably be read to mean that you were engaged in this process as well as in other things (which is probably what you meant, right?). Adverbs are slippery, and they can pop up in many different places in a sentence. Usually, however, when an adverb, an auxiliary verb (like "was"), and a main verb (like "involved") are present, the adverb fits most comfortably between the auxiliary verb and the main verb — "was also involved."

Is this a grammatically correct sentence:

At that time there were eight women, all but one of whom were older than seventy.

The subject of "were" is the plural "all." The intervening prepositional phrase, "but one of them," doesn't change the subject-verb relationship. So the sentence is bit awkward, but it's correct enough.

If you write " the State of Ohio's intranet" should intranet be capitalized?

The online Merriam-Webster's capitalizes Internet, so I thought it would recommend capitalizing "intranet," but it doesn't. I guess the singular nature of the Internet calls for the capital letter, but the multiplicity of intranets puts them in another category, a lower and lesser realm of the digital host.

The following sentence is the mission statement of the New York State Education Department.

Our mission is to raise the knowledge, skill, and opportunity of all the people in New York.

Is the phrase "…of all the people…" in the mission statement grammatically correct? I believe it should be written as, "…of all of the people…" It would not be correct to write "…of some the people…" or "…of none the people…"

"All" is different from those other indefinite pronouns. The more formal construction would be "all the people," leaving out the "of." What is it about mission statements and vision statements that causes their authors to lose their minds? You can raise pigs and vegetables, you can raise the bar and raise hell, but how do you "raise opportunity"? I suppose you can raise the level of opportunity or opportunities and you can raise skill levels, but there must be something better to do with knowledge than to raise it. My rant is over.

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