Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

jayles

Member Since

August 12, 2010

Total number of comments

748

Total number of votes received

229

Bio

Latest Comments

A New Correlative Conjunction?

  • March 20, 2014, 5:31am

@Jasper yes; using "Q" to mean "question word" doesn't really work. Perhaps just better to start with a question mark like:
?SVO = Who hit the teacher?
?OxSV = Who did the teacher hit?
?TxSVO = When did the teacher hit you?

The other mnemonic I have used on occasion are "C" for comment,cause,and concession words/phrases:

"Evidently, she picked him up at the airport." => C,SVO'P where ' marks where the separable phrasal verb particle goes.

[It's really just something to write on the board when teaching so KIS to get the point across]

A New Correlative Conjunction?

  • March 19, 2014, 7:13pm

@WW BTW I've never really sorted out how to write up ;
"Who hit the teacher?"
"Who did the teacher hit?"

A New Correlative Conjunction?

  • March 19, 2014, 6:58pm

@WW Confirmed. Or just write it up as SxMV[OPT] if sts don't know 'pp' already. The point here is one could say:
"She walked her dog quickly down the street at dusk" => SV[OMPT] ;
or "She quickly walked her dog ..." SMV[OPT]
ie manner is often has two 'normal' positions,
but "NEVER split VO" (unless...blah blah)

The site mentioned is quite right; however personally I strive to avoid explaining complement/object and direct/indirect-object distinctions, although the latter should be easy enough in Europe with its dative-case-equipped languages. The bogey though is often languages like Russian and Hungarian that don't use the verb 'be' in the present, and Chinese with its 'adjectival verbs'.
http://mandarin.about.com/od/grammar/a/stativeverbs.htm

If English were a bit more sysematic (like V2 German), things would be easier!

What does “Curb your dog” mean?

  • March 18, 2014, 5:38pm

So they really do have kerbs in Oz? Just in the settlements?

“Anglish”

  • March 18, 2014, 5:33pm

Benefit: what was the middle English word for this?
In wills and conveyancing the phrase " to the use and behoof of someone" was standard usage until 20th century; but nowadays using "behoof" outside the word-string "for his/her/their own behoof" sounds strange.

What is the link to behoove/behove and were these doing-words erstly used in 1st and 2nd person and not hedged-in to the impersonal word-string "it behoves us all"?

On Tomorrow

  • March 14, 2014, 1:48pm

Also you need to change the timespan to 1800 to 2008 to get ADP results

On Tomorrow

  • March 14, 2014, 1:46pm

@HS+J a bit criyptic, yes; mea culpa. Go to:

books.google.com/ngrams

copy and paste in :

Monday_*,_ADP_ Monday,monday_*

and you will get a graph breaking down the book usage of monday by part of speech.
_ADP_ stands for adposition ie prepostion or postposition -see "About Ngram Viewer

On Tomorrow

  • March 13, 2014, 7:47pm

Keying in; Monday_* , _ADP_Monday to the ngram view suggests plain adverb is a minority usage.

“admits to”

  • March 12, 2014, 3:40am

@HS Friends and family live on as long as we remember them. And in their children.
Sometimes I play "Stranger on the Shore" in rememberance of a long-ago friend who played clarinet: at the going-down of the sun, lest we forget.

“admits to”

  • March 11, 2014, 10:21pm

Only then is one admitted TO heaven.