Submitted by ajay • May 29, 2008
How much space should be given after a period in Word documents and in PDF’s?
36 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by uip • April 24, 2008
It seems like I’m seeing, more and more, “believe” and similar words being used as nouns. At first I thought that it was an ESL issue; perhaps in other languages, the same word is used for both “believe” and “belief”. But that explanation is looking less and less plausible. Is it just me, or are other people baffled by this? I don’t understand how any native speaker can confuse the two words. Perhaps there are accents in which they are pronounced the same?
5 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by monkey • January 15, 2008
Do we use “shall have done” followed by second and third persons? I understand that if ‘shall’ comes after second and third persons, it is employed to indicate an obligation or a warning, etc. How about ‘shall have done’?
for example: Company A shall have contributed 50 million dollars to the joint venture.
Is such usage correct? I feel somewhat strange. I understand that if we want to use future perfect tense, we will use “will have done” and in case of first persons “shall” could be adopted instead of “will”. If we want to use subjunctive mood, we will use “should have done”.
“[third persons] shall have done” looks neither future perfect nor an indication of obligations. I think it is wrong. Am I right?
4 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by cheripetraitis • December 22, 2007
My husband and I disagree on the use of these two words. I say, since we have three children, two girls and a boy, that I can say that “Rebecca is the younger daughter, and the youngest child”. He says that since she is the youngest of all three children, that he can say she is his youngest daughter. I feel that it should be she is the younger daughter since there are only two daughters and of course, she is the youngest child.
HELP!
19 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by tessa • November 1, 2007
Help! I have an annual report ready to go to print....Can someone please tell me which footnote is grammatically correct?
Percents do not add to 100 because members may indicate more than one business activity.
OR
Percentages do not add to 100 because members may indicate....
6 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by tim2 • August 10, 2007
What is the consensus on using words like “therefore” and “thus” as conjunctions (i.e. to connect two sentences), such as:
“I ate a burger, therefore/thus I am full.”
Or, can they not be used as conjunctions, and does a “real” conjunction or a semicolon need to be inserted?
“I ate a burger, and therefore/thus I am full.”
“I ate a burger; therefore/thus I am full.”
Any thoughts?
8 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by agro • July 7, 2007
a) a program that is open source
b) an open source program
(b) sounds right because “open source” is in fact a whole adjective. It is neither “open” nor “source”. So the construct in (b) is just like “a blue book”.
However,
a) the machine that is spinning around
b) the spinning around machine
Somehow, (b) doesn’t look right for me, because the base adjective is only “spinning”. Is it just my feeling, or is it indeed wrong? If wrong, is there a way to somehow “correct” it?
Thanks a lot.
9 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by mandi • June 15, 2007
A coworker and I are arguing over the word “correspondence”. I say it’s already plural, therefore an “s” at the end is unnecessary and incorrect. She says that because she was working on multiple letters, it is “correspondences”.
Who’s right?
28 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by joann • June 5, 2007
I’m getting married and my fiancee (with a Harvard PhD) says that our vows should end as “until death us do part.” My priest (with a PhD equivalent who studied in Rome under the Pope) says that the traditional language is “until death do us part.”
I’m just a Texas Aggie who thinks that perhaps we should use “for as long as we both shall live.”
But just for grins, which of the “until death . . .” phrases is correct? Or are both correct?
8 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by jaclyn • June 4, 2007
I have a picture posted on a website and I was wondering if my caption underneath it is grammatically correct. I wrote “Greg and me” and he feels it should be “Greg and I.” Who is right?
35 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by gin • May 22, 2007
The following are default extensions.
The followings are default extensions.
Which one of the above is correct?
9 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by pinenut • April 30, 2007
The modal verbs, should and would, are different in meaning in that the former expresses the obligation or necessity on the part of the subject while the latter the intention or prediction in the future.
There are a couple of examples I cite below and which I found by googling.
“As a Southerner, how would I be received?”
In this sentence, ‘would’ can clearly be seen to be used to express the prediction in the future.
“How would I go about helping my brother get some help with his drug abuse and violent behavior?”
In this sentence, ‘would’ seems to mean the necessity, so ‘should’ is more appropriate in this case. What do you think?
15 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by gusinmexico • March 7, 2007
Well, a fellow ESL teacher who is taking a degree in English told me she had to explain why it is correct to say, “The door opens.” and why it is incorrect to say, “The dog wets.”
My first reaction was thinking that someone or something actuates on the door to open it. Therefore, our saying of, “the door opens” merely refers to the fact that it was opened by a third party. Thus, the sentence may have a passive structure.
However, when I try to rephrase, “the dog wets” I find myself lacking an object, therefore I would need to use “get + wet” to validate the passive, but I must not add words to the sentence. I’d rather change the verb. But, alas, the purpose of the exercise is to elaborate on an argument that can satisfactorily state why the sentence is wrong.
I told my fellow teacher to consider the fact that “wet” would require an object for the sentence to make sense.
Any input, opinion, or observations are appreciated.
11 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by jme • February 1, 2007
Why is it that double-negatives are looked negatively upon, yet we commonly use a double-negative prefix? I’m reffering to my gripe with the word “undisclosed.” Understandabley if, let’s say, documents, were “disclosed” we are using a negative prefix of “dis” on “closed”, here meaning not “open” to the public. So by “disclosing” the documents, we have in essence opened them. So, when we have not opened them, should they not remain “closed” instead of becoming “undisclosed?”
12 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by gwillimlaw • December 18, 2006
Is “She was wearing the exact same outfit” grammatical? And if so, what part of speech is “exact”?
People use that phrase all the time, and seem to think it’s correct, so from a descriptive viewpoint it is correct. “Same” is clearly an adjective, and “exact” modifies “same”, so you would expect it to be an adverb.
So what’s the problem? Well, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) doesn’t list “exact” as an adverb. It can only be an adjective (or a verb, with a different meaning). The adverb form is “exactly”. So if you take Webster as an authority, you should say “She was wearing exactly the same outfit” instead.
What’s the verdict? Do you think the first version of the sentence is grammatical or not?
56 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by ryan • November 17, 2006
Why is it, when using the construction ‘only then’, do we reverse the verb order that follows? i.e. We must acquire funding. Only then can we achieve our goals.
A friend suggested it was for emphasis, but I thought I’d put it to the masses, too. I had a student put this question to me and could not come up with a grammatical reason. Is it just ‘English is that way’? Does anyone know of any other situations where this occurs without a question? Is there a name for this?
18 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by Dyske • September 13, 2006
Several people I know felt that this use of “concern” was correct:
“She felt concern, but not enough to sacrifice...”
I felt that it should be “concerned”. Two of them are professional writers, so I can’t argue much, but if “concern” is also correct, what is its function? Noun or adjective? If it’s a noun, shouldn’t it be “a concern”? If it’s an adjective, shouldn’t it be “concerned”? In dictionaries, “concern” is either a noun or a verb, not an adjective.
Oddly enough, the same people felt that “She felt scare” was clearly wrong. If “scare” is wrong and “scared” is correct, then shouldn’t the same hold true for “concern” and “concerned”?
On the web, I do see many people using “feel concern” although it is slightly less common than “feel concerned”.
17 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by gabe • August 30, 2006
In linguistics, is there a term that refers to words (like “format”) that can function as either verb or noun?
4 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by lonfriday • July 31, 2006
In the sentence, “I met him drunk,” couldn’t the adjective apply to either party, the “he” or the “I”?
19 comments
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Posted in Grammar
Submitted by marsha • July 19, 2006
I work in the legal field and it is necessary to write out percentages. I need help. Is this the correct way? For 4.975% - would it be written “Four and Nine Hundred Seventy-Five Thousands percent”.
33 comments
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Posted in Grammar
