I know that the proper order for a nominative series of nouns including the speaker is “John and I,” but what about for the objective? “Mrs. Smith taught me and John,” or, “Mrs. Smith taught John and me”? The same goes for prepositions, “Mrs. Smith taught chemistry to me and John,” vs. “Mrs. Smith taught chemistry to John and me.”
Also, does whether one uses the objective pronoun or the reflexive pronoun affect the order? “I taught John and myself,” vs, “I taught myself and John.”
My teen-age daughter wrote a psychological thriller novella, “Keeping Her in the Light” last summer that Canada-based Eternal Press published last November.
She wants to finish another psychological thriller that she started writing 2 years ago. The setting is during the Victorian Era. She stopped writing this novella because she feels that the conversations in her novella should be in the style of the Victorian Era.
Kindly advise if there is a software or method of converting modern day English to the Victorian Era English.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Jomel Fuentes
Manila, Philippines
How do I write out .25%
In 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.
When you link something in a quote, should we include the double quotes in the link? For instance:
I asked where to look, and John answered, “Wikipedia!”
or
I asked where to look, and John answered, “Wikipedia!”
This is really a matter of style, but I’m wondering if any major sites have a style guide that specifies this.
I'm still undecided on how to spell correctly:
“Drum Track Recording Service” or
“Drum Tracks Recording Service”.
I'm personally voting for the second variant, but as I'm not a native English speaker, I'm not sure.
I've noticed in the past that the BBC News Web site seems to be rather hit-or-miss with its use of acronyms and abbreviations. One I see repeatedly is its use of “Nasa” for “NASA,” and another I noticed today is “Farc” instead of “FARC” for the Colombian guerrilla group. At the same time, UK, TV, PM, US, and even BBC are treated as I would expect. Can anyone explain this beyond “the editors are twits”?
The abbreviation which prompted me to post this, though, is their habit of abbreviating “Sri Lanka” as “S Lanka.” Why would anyone think it necessary to drop those two characters?
By way of introduction, my name is Mike, and I was born and raised in southern California. I'm a survivor of public schools through high school graduation in 1978. I know full well that my command of the English language is far from perfect, and I do not attempt to correct errors in others' informal writing or speech, but journalists, authors, and others who write for public consumption I hold to a higher standard, and are therefore considered fair game. :-)
Isn't it redundant to say
That is the REASON WHY I am here.
Isn't the 'reason' the 'why' as well? But how come many people use it?
I'm helping to rewrite my organisation's style guide. I prefer (and we have always used) Collins but some other colleagues prefer the OED.
Does anyone have any strong views on their respective merits?
thanks,
James
There wasn't a clause left in the sole agency contract that wasn't a source of conflict.
The author of a book I am editing refuses to change the above sentence to:
Every clause left in the sole agency contract was a source of conflict.
His reason is this is “a literary device to accentuate [my point]” . I think it is bad English to use the same word twice in one sentence. Am I being pedantic?
