The Grammar Logs
#588

I'm editing a document for another state agency. The author has the following sentence:

"Command the cooperation of students in an effort to provide maximum quietness."

To me, even though "quietness" is a noun, the word "quiet" used as a noun sounds better, but I am confused as to when "quietness" would be used, or is it used correctly here?

Thanks for any help.

"Maximum quietness"? That sounds like death. And I thought Nebraska was the land of plainspoken people! There's nothing wrong, really, with "quietness," though I would use the simpler noun, "quiet," myself. "Quietness" seems to evoke the essential nature of the quality of being quiet; it smacks of the poetic: "Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness , / Thou foster-child of silence and slow time." Even the words "silence" or "stillness" would work better in that sentence. But the author of that sentence is clearly a master of chill. If you're serious about the uses of "quietness," do a search for that word on Atlantic's Web site, and you'll get a good sense of its various colors.

What type of verbal is the word "running"? It does not seem to function as a noun or adjective, so it is not a gerund or participle. It seems to me more like an adverb. Is there a type of verbal that is an adverb? If so, what is it called, and if not, how can the function of this word in this sentence be characterized?

The verb phrase, "went running," consists of what is called a complementary verb (an auxiliary, basically) and the participle form. Youi'll see it in the present tense, too, as in "Let's go shopping" and in that peculiar British phrase, "He went missing" (he disappeared). So a form of "go," in this case, is part of the verb.

Your help on two questions, please:

1. The rule for determining when to use the singular and plural for such sentences as:

• -- An array of opportunities is/are available
• -- A variety of flowers is/are available

2. Does the word respectively, in the following example have a comma before it. (My "Punctuation Thesauras of the English Language" by Howard Lauther, says it does NOT.*)

The pie was divided among, Bill, Sue, Harry, and Wilma respectively.

*From the "Punctuation Thesauras":
"The word 'respectively' is not set apart from the other information in the sentence when it appears as the last word."

Your choice of a singular or plural verb to accompany "variety" or "array" will depend on your emphasis. Do you want to emphasize the singular notion of the group of things or do you wish to emphasize the plurality of all those flowers? (Usually, it's the latter.)

I don't how Lauther comes up with that "rule" for respectively. When I consult the Web sites of places I trust for writing style (like Atlantic), I find that the word is almost always set off with a comma when it appears at the end of a sentence or clause, and that's how I would write it. I can see that in some sentences, the rhythm of the sentence would flow better without the comma, and in fact, that's true of the sentence you give us. But I doubt very much if a rule can be written to cover this situation. (The same is true, by the way, of the adverb "too," when it appears at the end of a sentence or clause. I wish very much that there were some such rule, but no rule can be derived from theory or actual practice.)

If a corporation has a name with a comma before the Inc. or L.L.C. or P.C., should a comma follow as it does after a full date with year, i.e.,

Microsoft, Inc., is a large corporation started by Bill Gates.

Carbonation Corporation, L.L.C., will be the name of a corporation somewhere.

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage simply insists on eliminating the comma on both sides of the "Inc." Other authorities suggest that the comma between the company and the "Inc." be maintained if that seems to be the preference of the company so named (in its letterhead, etc.). However, the comma after the Inc. is not necessary. (This advice might very well contradict what I have said earlier on this matter.) The same thing seems to apply to "L.L.C."

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

From Garner's Modern American Usageby Bryan Garner. Copyright 2003 by Bryan A. Garner. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., www.oup-usa.org, and used with the gracious consent of Oxford University Press.

How would you write the possessive for a company whose name uses a plural word ending in an 's', even though the company is singular? For example, assume the company name is Fishing Industries. Is the possessive Fishing Industries' boats or Fishing Industries's boats? Thanks

I would probably avoid the problem and write about the boats of Fishing Industries. But if you insist on that possessive form, you cannot add a possessive "s" to a pluralized word, so it would be "Fishing Industries' boats."

Which is correct:

The idiom is "no end." The phrase "to no end" would suggest that there was no point to his having been pleased.

If a female named Mary Ann Smith were to have a daughter and named her Mary Ann Smith would it be proper to call the daughter Mary Ann Smith junior. If not how would you write it properly?

All that I read about "Jr." (more than I care to admit or remember), suggests that "Jr." and "Sr." and "III," etc., is limited to notions of male descendancy. Perhaps you could find an answer in a book of etiquette, but I don't think women have the same bizarre hang-ups about "passing on the name" as males do, so it's probably never been an issue or needed a name.

When using an expression consisting of an adjective bracketed by two as's, (as short as, as big as, as complicated as, as rocky as), do we consider the first 'as' an adverb modifying the adjective and the second 'as' a subordinate conjunction? I say yes. My incompetent colleague says to treat the entire three-word expression as a subordinate conjunction.

Consider, he says, the sentence, "As long as you're up, get me a soda." Here 'as long as' clearly means 'since', and I agree it must be treated as a subordinate conjunction. However, I snort, in all other uses, 'as long as' indicates distance, as in "The limo is almost as long as a train."

Your contempt for your incompetent colleague is well earned (although I'm not sure it warrants snorting). The first "as" is an adverb, just as it would be in the sentence "This rope is twice as long" (modifying the predicate adjective "long"). The second "as" creates what we call the elliptical clause of comparison. It is different from other elliptical clauses in that only the elliptical version is idiomatic: "I am taller than he [is tall]." But the fact of the clause is the reason that "I" is grammatically correct in that sentence, not "him" (although "him" is acceptable and widely heard in all but the most formal situations).

Authority: Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects by Martha Kolln. 3rd Edition. Allyn & Bacon: Boston. 1996. p. 146.

Is it "even though 1500 miles separate us" or "even though 1500 miles separates us"

You're probably thinking of the 1500 miles as a lump sum, a singular quantity of miles, so you would want to use the singular "separates." However, it is possible that you're thinking of each and every one of those 1500 miles as a separate bit of distance that separates you from someone, and then you'd want to use the plural. So it's up to you.

I am working on a press release and some colleagues are saying I am using the word 'whom' incorrectly. Please review the use in the following sentence and provide correct use and explanation.

"The warehouse owner was able to identify whom the parties were that rented the space."

The who/whom in question has to be in the subject case in that clause because of the linking verb "were": as in "the parties were 'they'" or "'they' were the parties." So you want "who." If the verb had been transitive, you would have wanted "whom," as in "The warehouse owner was able to identify whom the parties had asked for contribution." See our section on who/whom for help. No one can blame you for confusion in this sentence, though, because it first appears that you're looking for the object of the infinitive phrase "to identify." However, the entire clause "who the parties were that rented the space" is the object of the infinitive and the "who" remains in the nominative case.

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