I heard this sentence on radio or TV and while it seems correct grammatically, I believe the verb be is in the subjunctive mode, somehow it did not feel colloquial.
Any comments?
Archive for the ‘Grammar’ Category
My mother wishes my child be like me.
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 by karl B.Infinitive without “to”
Thursday, May 21st, 2009 by tomolonightWhat is an infinitive without “to”?
He need not wait.
or
He needs not wait.
Can you explain more about this?
One of the most…
Thursday, May 14th, 2009 by dyskeIn one of the discussions here, Brian W. tells me that the following sentence is wrong:
“This is one of the most common errors people make…”
He says it should be: “One of the more common…”
He explains:
Proper use of ‘most’ requires the size of the set in which the subject is a member: “one of the 10 most.” Without a numeric qualifier, all but the last are potentially included in the set “one of the most.” That (unfortunately) makes it as meaningful as “up to 10… or more!”
Now, is this a grammatical issue or stylistic issue? I see “one of the most” being used quite often.
As a side note, in Japanese, “one of the most” would be an oxymoron because the concept of “most” implies that it is at the top of the list, that is, there is only one thing that could be “most” or “best”. I remember feeling awkward about the phrase “one of the most” when I was first learning English.
Verb, the process of being
Monday, May 4th, 2009 by Dr. McWhat is it called when a verb is no longer the process of doing, but the process of being something?
Is it still simply just a verb?
Sorry for the lack of example, it was troubling me late last night, if i still remembered the word, i probably wouldn’t be asking this question.
Effect vs. Affect
Monday, April 27th, 2009 by dyskeThis is one of the most common errors people make, and I frequently come across people arguing about it. The explanations of how to use them properly are easy to find, but the conceptual difference between the two does not seem to stick in people’s mind. The confusion comes from the fact that “effect” can be used as a verb, although it’s rare. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any confusion (i.e. “effect” = noun and “affect” = verb). To make it worse, “effect” used as a verb is pretty close in meaning to “affect”. And, if that’s not confusing enough, “affect” can also be used as a noun, and it’s also similar in meaning to “effect” as a noun.
So, the only way to get the hang of using them properly is to see actual examples. While I was arguing about this with a friend of mine, I came across this quiz that tests your ability to use “effect” and “affect” properly. I’m curious how well or badly everyone does on this quiz.
PainInTheEnglish.com Revamped!
Saturday, April 11th, 2009 by dyskeThe original version of PainInTheEnglish.com was coded from scratch in 2002. At the time, blogs were relatively simple, but now we’ve all come to expect a lot from them. I had been meaning to port the site over to WordPress for a long time, but I wasn’t able to find any time to do so. Now, thanks to the current recession (or Great Depression 2.0), I finally got around to do it. The best thing about WordPress is that there are zillions of plugins available for it. Whatever features we need, now we can easily add them.
If you find any issues or problems, or if you have any suggestions or requests, please email me.
Please note that the address for the RSS feed have changed. Now a feed for comments are also available.
Teams — is or are?
Saturday, April 11th, 2009 by PhilSo I frequently write headlines such as “Manchester United are in the quarter-finals” but I always wonder if it should actually be “Manchester United is in the quarter-finals”. I think I actually use them interchangeably depending on what mood I’m in. I guess the question is whether a soccer team is a group of players (“are”) or if it’s an entity (“is”). Which is it?
Sleep / Asleep
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 by MelI cannot stand when people say “sleep” instead of “asleep”. For example I've heard, “When I got home, he was sleep on the couch”.
What is this laziness of not saying ASLEEP?? I have lived in the North all of my life, and most recently moved to the south. This must be some sort of “southern dialect”, annoying to say the least….Has anyone else encountered this?
There is/are progress and improvements.
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 by Green SparkWhich would be correct?
There ARE progress and improvements.
There IS progress and improvements.
"it" after the word "known"
Saturday, February 7th, 2009 by VictoriaThis is what I'd like to have engraved on a memorial brick, but the last line doesn't look correct with the word “it” after “known”.
I'm glad most
folks let me know
they're religious.
By their actions,
I wouldn't have
ever known it.
