The Grammar Logs
#557

Being in no way clever with money except when it comes to spending it irritate some people.

1. Except is a prep. or con? if it is prep. why is the following word "when"?
2. How do I explain "being"?
3. My teacher tells me "irritate" should be "irritating" because S+spend+time or money+(in) +Ving. but the subject means "person" not "it",right?... Is it a correct sentence?

The complement of prepositions of exception is often a clause or another prepositional phrase, as in "It's cooler today except in the eastern U.S." or "I got everything I ordered except what you wanted" or "I've forgotten nearly everything apart from what he taught me that last night." That explains the clause that follows your use of "except," I hope.

"Being" is a gerund, the subject of the sentence. It probably ought to be preceded by a possessive determiner such as "My being [this way]" or "Your being {this way]."

I disagree with your teacher, with all due respect. But I would make the verb "irritates," not "irritate," because the subject of the sentence is the gerund phrase beginning with "Being." All of that is what irritates some people.

Authority: A Grammar of Contemporary English by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. Longman Group: London. 1978. p. 329.

Is it correct to use who in the following sentence or should I be using whom? Please explain. I'm confused because Robert is the object of the prepositional phrase, but is the subject of the remaining phrase.

I am writing on behalf of Robert, who I understand has applied for an internship.

Robert is indeed the object of the prepositional phrase, but it is not the subject of anything. Who is the subject of a clause ("who has applied for an internship") that modifies Robert.

I was surprised to discover — when I tried these two phrases in Google.com — that the two usages are split quite evenly. And my dictionaries and usage books don't seem to help, either. Let me try this distinction: that when you are mildly amazed or astonished, you'd say you were surprised by some event or by something, especially if that sense of surprise were pleasant or fun; on the other hand, if you were mildly amazed in even a slightly negative sense, you'd say you were surprised at something (e.g., you were surprised by the mayor's testimony because you weren't expecting it, but you were surprised at the mayor's testimony because you found it so self-incriminating). Having said this, I wouldn't be surprised if you found many, many exceptions to the distinction thus made.

Can "women" be used as an adjective? In doing research for a feminist criticism of American drama, I've come across several mentions of "women playwrights," both in casual use as well as in titles of anthologies, literary criticisms, etc. In addition, a classmate is writing a term paper on Tennesee Williams' "women characters." While "women" appears as an adjective a few times in published works, I've yet to recognize the authors or editors of any of those works; this leads me to believe that it's just poor grammar and not accepted. In addition, simply hearing that makes me want to grind my teeth—it just sounds uneducated. One wouldn't say "men playwrights" or "men characters"—at least to the best of my knowledge—it would be "male playwrights," and consequently, shouldn't it also be "female playwrights?"

Bill Walsh speaks to this issue in his Lapsing into a Comma: "In most cases, use woman as the noun and female as the adjective: female soldiers, female priests. Things like women senators should be confined to quotes (does anybody say 'men senators'?). Female is OK as a noun when talking about animals, when it hasn't been established whether the person in question is a woman or a girl, and when talking about a group that includes both women and girls."

For a slightly different point of view, we see in the New York Times manual the following: "When making a point of sex distinction in a line of work, employ man and woman as nouns rather than modifiers: instead of the rise of female managers in corporate ranks, write the rise of women in teh ranks of corporate managers. Resort to male or female to modify a job title only when unavoidable, and when the equivalent would be used for someone of the opposite sex in the same context."

In your context, where you're making appropriate distinctions about playwrights based on sex, you're probably going to find it inevitable to talk about female playwrights. As long as you're also talking about male playwrights, that seems to be perfectly acceptable. You make a good analogy with "men/women characters."

Authority: Lapsing into a Comma by Bill Walsh. Contemporary Books: New York. 2000.

Authority: The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. by Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly. Times books: New York. 1999.

In the following sentence, is "on" a preposition even though there is no object? If not, what is it?

"My son, from this day on you have a new name."

No, it's behaving as an adverb (meaning "forward"), modifying the prepositional phrase "from this day." On also behaves as an adverb in phrases like "putting your shoes on" and "he rambled on and on" and "he went on home."

Authority: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Electronic Edition, Version 1.5. 1996. Used with permission.

In California, I've found that school teachers and administration personnel often use the word tardy as a plural. She had too many tardies.

I cannot find the word "tardies" in the dictionary and assume that is so because it is an adjective. I still have to transcribe it in statements. I spell it as indicated above (tardies) because transcriptions must be exact. Does it exist as a word? Is this usage common across the country? If it is not a word, is there a correct way to indicate so in transcription?

It's not listed in my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. It might be in the OED, but I doubt it. If you google the word (I guess if I can use "google" as a verb, they can use "tardy" as a noun), you'll find 51,000 results for "tardies." I suppose it's an inevitable use of the word in conjunction with "absences." Three tardies equal one absence, etc. The Google.com results also indicate that it's used throughout the country (although I did see a lot of California URLs there, too). I wouldn't do anything to the word if I were you (like putting it quotation marks or italicizing it or following it with [sic] ). People will just think you're being fussy, and it's probably better not to draw attention to the word.

The word into usually conveys a sense of movement that in will not necessarily have. But one must be careful. Turning papers into a teacher would require an unwanted Harry Potter-like wizardry. In would be much better in that context.

My editor brother at the NY Times likes to think he is right and quotes from the Times stylebook. Although he may be right about the following please prove him wrong:

• "In one corner of the small waiting room, a French couple were [not was?] having a bad time of it." [Saying farewell]
• "In China one meets friends in any port one visits. It is one of the things that make [not makes?] life so pleasant here.

I could use a little help here!

In the U.S., collective nouns (like couple) almost always take a singular verb, but if the elements of the collective entity behave like individuals, a plural verb is possible. Also, using a singular verb with a collective noun can lead to problems. If the French couple was having a hard time, could someone go over to counsel it? (Wouldn't the them you would undoubtedly use instead of it suggest that a plural verb would be preferred?)

In your second sentence, you want "make." "Of the things that make life so pleasant here, it [ease of making friends] is one."

I've got a problem with a case of subject/verb agreement with the sentence :

"The importation, supply and use of asbestos have been banned since 1999."

I was told I should write "… has been banned …". For me, there are three subjects in this sentence : importation, supply and use. Can you help me on this?

I don't think there's any way of not making making this subject (these subjects?) sound like peanut butter and jelly, like macaroni and cheese, like spaghetti and meatballs. These things tend to become notionally singular. If you added an "all" to your sentence, we might write it as a plural: "The importation, supply, and use of asbestos have all been banned since 1999." This is not to say that all things connected by and become notionally singular: "Peanut butter and mayonnaise are my favorite condiments." But the fact that the three things — importation, supply, and use — all apply to asbestos makes it appear that the three things are to be taken as one idea.

If you were typing this sentence —

If you mention a customer, please advise whether you have permission for us to name it in the report.

Would you not type '…permission for us to name them in the report…'.? I know 'customer' is singular but surely it makes sense to refer to a customer as a 'them' rather than an 'it'. Please help, I am very confused and need a proper explanation!

I agree that the "it" sounds odd, if not downright rude, and "them" sounds better. Can you avoid the problem either by pluralizing the first use of "customer" or by repeating the word "customer":

If you mention a customer, please advise whether you have permission for us to use that customer's name in the report.

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