OK, these 2 questions have been driving me crazy for weeks, and I can’t find the answer in English Grammar Books.
Which is correct?
a. This is one of those things that ARE always popping up
OR
b. This is one of those things that IS always popping up.
In other words, does the verb in the dependant clause modify “one” or “things”?
Do we capitalize the names of the armed forces?
i.e. Is it “My brother is in the army and my cousin is in the air force,” or is it “My brother is in the Army and my cousin is in the Air Force.”
If there are any English majors out there with the answer, I’d be grateful. Thanks!!
I’d say either is acceptable, depending on what you want to stress. I’d go with your first example normally, but I can thing of reasons the second would be better.
Depending on usage. I was in the army. Which army? I was in the U.S. Army, used as a formal name of a branch of the U.S. government. In German, no problem, you’d always capitalize Wehrmacht anyway.
I can’t answer your second question. However, the verb in the first question modifies the relative pronoun “that”, which refers to “one”. So “is” is the correct verb.
So, OK, if I’m wrong I am sure somebody will show up to beat me senseless, but I’ll jump in here anyway.
that IS always popping up.
Which is to say, one. Consider how you would write it if you were to replace “one of those things” with “something”. Alternately, add a noun after ‘this’. Such as “This cat is one of those things that…”. Sure, that just is not especially pleasant either, but I think goes far to show that we go with the singular.
Opposing views, anyone?
I’d expect that the names of the armed forces would be considered proper nouns. So give 'em capitals.
I’m not an English major, but I’m a copyeditor. Fair enough?
(1) I’m afraid that once again, I’ll have to dissent from the opinions already given. To see why “a” is correct, turn the sentence around:
(2) This one’s a style choice. I’m betting that the army and the air force want them capped in their own documents, but Chicago style (section 7.96 in the 14th edition, if you want to look it up) says they are lowercase. Pick a style and stick with it throughout your document.
And Major is a title, so it is capitalized as in: “so if there are any English Majors out there…” although I would’t look to the military for an answer to these questions.
“This is one of those things that is always popping up.”
“One” is your subject, “things” is in a prepositional phrase so it doesn’t count (at least not in this case - there are times you have to look to the prepositional phrase for direction, but this is not one).
DPWhite, I hope you’re joking. But in case you’re not:
“Major” is a title only when used with a name, and only in a military context. So “Major Frank Burns,” “A major outranks a captain,” and “He’s a history major” are the correct forms.
I hate to disagree with a copy editor, since I’ll probably be wrong, but I would say that “army” is lowercase, but U.S. Army is capitalized. It’s a branch of the government, and certainly Department of Defense, Internal Revenue Service, Treasury Department, etc. are all capitalized.
I don’t have any source to back this up, other than it just looks wrong to write “United States coast guard” or “United States air force”.
Doesn’t count? You can’t throw out bits from the prepositional phrase here and there willy-nilly.
::sighs and takes out Hodges’::
We have here a subject/linking verb/subject complement: “This / is / one.” The complement, “one,” is modified by the entire prepositional phrase “of those things that are always popping up.”
In order for the correct verb in the prepositional phrase to be “is,” you would have to be able to take out everything between “one” and the verb. This would give
“This is one is always popping up.”
Doesn’t make sense, does it? Two verbs = not kosher. That’s because the verb “are” belongs to the preositional phrase, not the main subject. You’re trying to combine parts that don’t go with each other.
cmburns, the OP didn’t ask about “U.S. Army.” He/she asked about “army,” standing alone. Chiacgo agrees that the full title of the organization would be capped – thus, “United States Army” and “United States Coast Guard.” It’s analogous to “the president,” but “President Bush.” To use your other examples, in this style we would write “Department of Defense” but “the department,” “Internal Revenue Service” but “the service,” and so on.
Scarlett: the only reason I put in the comment “although I would’t look to the military for an answer to these questions” was so that the rocket scientists who populate the SDMB would understand that I was joking. I suppose I am guilty of trolling. Please mods, ban me now!
No harm, no foul, DPW. I didn’t see any signs of sarcasm except for the military crack, which wasn’t enough fo me to tell whether you were serious about the grammar part. And since I was confused, I wanted to make sure no one else was misled.
OK, Scarlett67, go back to the OP example. “My brother is in the army and my cousin is in the air force.” If I’m reading your post correctly, you’re saying that sentence is correct as is. I’d disagree, since I think it is understood that the sentence means “My brother is in the [U.S.] Army and my cousin is in the [U.S] Air Force”. Or British, Turkish, Italian, whatever.
We’re not talking about what’s understood, we’re talking about what’s actually in the sentence. How clear we are on what army the brother is in is for the write to decide; if “army” is sufficient, fine. But if the full name is needed, then it must be capped. But it’s not for grammar to assume that a specific army is meant when none has been denoted.
According to Chicago style (which I use every day), the following sentences are correct:
My brother is in the army.
My brother is in the United States Army.
My brother is in the Turkish Army. (provided that “Turkish Army” is what the army of Turkey calls itself; if it calls itself the “Turkish Royal Militia and Bugle Corps,” then “Turkish army” would be acceptable, because then “army” is a common noun, not part of the proper-noun title. More on this below.)
You’re going to make me get a haircut? You and what army?
Words such as “army,” “navy,” “department,” and “committee” can be common nouns, or they can also be proper nouns when used as part of the official title of an entity.
Again, I am talking about Chicago style, which is fairly commonly used in general publishing. ::thumbs through other handy style guides:: I see that GPO, AMA, Words into Type, APA, and CBE all follow the same rule as Chicago. New York Times (which may be based on AP style) caps subsequent references to the U.S. Army (“the Army”), but lowercases references to foreign armies. So NYT style seems to be a lonely minority.
I guess I disagree with Scarlett67. Or Hodges, anyway.
Well, if you remove the that it doesn’t make sense, no. But just as TV Time can’t toss out bits of prepositional phrase, you can’t toss out parts of the restrictive clause.
“This is one that is always popping up”
Perfectly good English to me. Two verbs are kosher if the second verb is nestled in a clause. Hodges seems to favor the first interpretation, but that doesn’t make the second one wrong.
They’re both right. Or both wrong, if you hate sentences that cross those creaky old bridges in the depths of our English woods. I like them. Let’s break it down:
a. This is one of those things that ARE always popping up
This is one
\
(of those THINGS)
\
(that ARE always popping up)
(Those THINGS ARE always popping up)
b. This is one of those things that IS always popping up
This is ONE
/\
/ \
(of those things) (that IS always popping up)
(This is ONE that IS always popping up)
Either way you have the copula in agreement with a noun.
If you really wanted to, you might record somebody saying the phrase and look for extra-syntactic cues about which noun the clause was supposed to be attached to, though I’m not positive you could find any. Let’s say the stress pattern did give us that information. You might find that for that particular utterance you recorded, the wrong form of the copula was used. In other words, the syntax contradicted the stress pattern.
But really, for this particular sentence both variations mean pretty much the same thing so it doesn’t matter.
I’m not a copy editor, but I have a linguistics degree.
INteresting, hazel-rah. Yeah, it’s an age-old debate, and we copyeditors certainly go round and round over this. Obviously I’m biased, and I’ve shown my reasons. I’m waiting for permission to post some more examples by the person I trust most as a grammar expert.
Yeah, really, it all comes down to the fact that if you say po-TAH-to, I’ll know what you mean, but I’ll always order po-TAY-toes for myself.
I’m still not convinced. To use a current real world example, consider this sentence. “Villages along the Pakistani border were bombed this morning by air force jets”. In this case, it could be either Royal Air Force or United States Air Force, the writer hasn’t specified. I’d still think you’d need to cap “air force”. Likewise, if your brother is in THE Army, vs. an army, it shouldn’t matter that a specific army hasn’t been denoted.
Although having just written that, it occurs to me that maybe the brother is in “the army of Metallica fans” or somesuch, which blows my whole point, so I’ll just stop writing now.
Well, I’ve quoted every style guide on my shelves; I don’t know what else I can do, or how I can explain it more clearly than I already have. But I’ll try.
Suppose more countries were involved; then it could be the French Air Force, the German Air Force, or the air force of any other number of countries. If it’s unclear from context, then THE WRITER needs to clarify that by adding more information – descriptive words, not capital letters. Things like punctuation and capital letters can carry only so much meaning. In your example, yes, it’s unclear as it stands, but (according to most style guides) capping “Air Force” still won’t clarify what air force is meant. To assume that the U.S. Air Force is meant is sloppy logic at best and parochialism at worst. (What would that sentence mean if it were published in a Canadian newspaper?)
**
Again, different readers may have different ideas about what is “THE Army.” We can’t depend on a single capital letter to convey the writer’s meaning to every reader.
Although having just written that, it occurs to me that maybe the brother is in “the army of Metallica fans” or somesuch, which blows my whole point, so I’ll just stop writing now. **
[/QUOTE]
