The Grammar Logs
#577

Is it proper to use "as" in place of "because."

Example. Please excuse my daughter from school as she has a cold.

Some authorities object to what is called the "causal as" (using "as" to mean "because" or "since"), because "as" can sometimes mean "while" and you'll end up with an ambiguous sentence. In truth, this is seldom the case. The example you give us would probably be improved upon by leaving the causal connection to one's good sense: "My daughter has a bad cold. Please excuse her from school today." Here is one authority's decision on the matter (on the use of "as," not on your daughter's being excused):

Causal as is a standard and acceptable alternative to because and since, but it is less frequently used than either. Objection to it on grounds of ambiguity seems dubious at best, since ambiguous examples in published writing are hard to come by.

By permission, From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage © 1994 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com).

Is it correct to say "the both of us" as opposed to just "both of us"?

Some authorities pick on this phrase, saying the "the" is unnecessary, but it is a fairly common idiom, at least in speech and especially in the United States. Gilman writes that "the expression appears to be an Americanism, at least as far as we can tell from the evidence we now have. There is no reason you should avoid it if it is your normal idiom."

By permission, From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage © 1994 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com).

What is the correct usage of the terms "consists of" and "consists in"?

I had never heard of using "consists in" before until I ran across a quote of General George Patton. In a letter to General Marshall about the French province of Lorraine, he supposedly wrote: "because I can think of no greater burden than to be the owner of this nasty country where it rains every day and where the whole wealth of the people consists in assorted manure piles."

Intuitively it would seem to have to do with the number of the object, but that does not seem to hold true.

It doesn't seem to have anything to do with number. Ward Gilman maintains that consist in means "lie, reside (in)," as in "The mistake that is made on television consists in believing that anyone can speaking interestingly" and consist of means "to be composed of or made up (of)," as in "… the city seemed to me to consist of three areas … ." But then he proceeds to say that there's a great deal of inconsistency in the world of real writing. I think most careful writers would use "consists of" where Patton used "consists in."

By permission, From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage © 1994 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com). p 288.

Which is correct:

• He offers nutrition counseling.
• He offers nutritional counseling.

I argue that the counseling he offers is not nutritional, therefore the correct adjective is "nutrition". I know we increasingly see "nutritional" used as the adjective, but I hope it has not become accepted usage!

Your argument is sound. It's similar to the building that houses the education faculty at a university: it's the education building, not the educational building. If you did a search on Google.com for these two phrases, however, you would discover that "nutrition counseling" outnumbers "nutritional counseling" by nearly three to one, but there are many, many uses of the latter phrase — many times by people who, you might think, should know better.

I know "sit" is an intransitive verb where it doesn't take an object. But can I not say, "This table sits four people"? If so, isn't "four people" an object making sit a transitive verb then?

The normal verb for that idiom, though, is "seats," as in "This table seats four people," where it is, indeed, a transitive verb. "Sit" can be a transitive verb, though, in certain limited contexts. We talk about chickens that "sit eggs" (well, chick farmers do, anyway), and if you can "sit a horse" that means you don't fall off every time the beast starts to gallop.

1. "I headed for the city center when the bus in front of me began to slow down"
2. "I was heading for the city center when the bus in front of me began to slow down"

I was told that if "when" is used with 2 past simple tense clauses, the 1st action is always the dependent "when clause". So in the first sentence, first the bus in front of me slows down, and then I head for the city center. However, in the 2nd example, I was heading before the bus in front of me started to slow down. Can the 1st sentence, somehow, mean the same as the 2nd sentence? Thank you very much.

I had never heard of this before, this principle of the two simple-past tenses with a "when clause." Either I misunderstand it, or I'm not buying it. The first sentence really doesn't make sense. Why would you head for the city center when the bus began to slow down? On the other hand, I don't know why you couldn't write, "I braked hard when the bus in front of me began to slow down"? (And that would be two simple past tenses with the "when clause" coming second in the sentence.) In your second sentence, the progressive past, "was heading," indicates an action in progress, and that's not the same thing as "headed."

There is document that provides for a monthly health benefit if a person is totally disabled. The term "total disability" is defined to mean the person "can not perform any of the material and substantial duties of his or her regular job." There is a dispute as to whether that definition means the person is disabled if he/she is unable to perform any one of the duties or whether he/she must be unable to perform all of the duties.

From a grammar standpoint, my understanding is the word "any" is an indefinite pronoun and that in order to determine whether it is plural or singular you look to the noun it modifies. In this case the noun is "duty" or as used in the sentence "duties."

So, the question remains does the definition require the person to be unable to perform "any one" or "all" of the duties in meet the definition.

According to Garner, in a negative assertion (which your sentence is, because of the "cannot"), the word "any" creates an "emphatic negative," meaning "not at all" or "not even one." Given Garner's stature as an advisor in legal writing, I'm inclined to say that this means the person is disabled if he cannot perform any one of the duties of that regular job. I think that's how most reasonable adults would read the sentence. I also think the sentence could be less ambiguous with "any one of the duties."

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.

I would like to ask the difference between so — that and such that, giving two examples.

There is so little entertainment in the country that I'd probably be bored.

However, we are sagely told to use" such that" in this sentence:

The local restaurant serves such good food that people go there from miles away.

So what exactly the difference between them?, Could we use "so good food" in the second example? When should we use so that or such that?

Why are questions from Turkey always so difficult? You could probably use "such" in your first sentence, but you could not exchange "so" for "such" in the second. "So" and "such" in these contexts, are both adverbs: such indicating "to such a degree" (such a tall lad) and so meaning "to a definite but unspecified extent or degree." (Not a big difference, is there?) As intensifying adverbs, they are both best used when followed by a clause beginning with "that." But as for the difference, it's harder to say. It's interesting to note that in your second sentence, we could use "so" if we wrote, "The local restaurant serves SO MUCH good food that people go there from miles away." (We haven't improved anything, but the "so" does work there.) I shall risk the observation that "so" works in the less definite constructions — so little, so much — but in the more measurable situation ("such good food"), we want "such." I will leave an e-mail icon here in case someone else cares to add to this.

The writer wanted to say that Smith had previously been accused of a crime. Her sentence read: "Smith had been criminally charged" I think this really means that the act of charging smith was a crime. She should have written: "Smith had been charged with a crime" Am I correct? What is the rule here?

You make perfect sense to me. However, "criminally charged" meaning "charged with a crime" seems to be a commonplace idiom. None of my usage manuals have picked up on this odd bit of phrasing.

Should the sentence read....

• DOES your child's reading and/or math skills need to be reviewed?
OR

• DO your child's reading and/or math skills need to be reviewed?

Your dilemma is another good reason to leave the and/or construction to the lawyers (who seem to have an unseemly affection for it). A simple "or" would suffice nicely here. If you use "or," you'd use the singular "does." If you insist on "and," you'd use the plural "do." If you really want "and/or," you'll have to further bastardize the sentence with "Do/does." Or maybe we can start over again with something like "Is it time to review your child's reading and math skills?"

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