Hey, grammarians!

Factual Questions
21

I’m not the expert grammarian that anyone else here is, but I can define those terms. Nouns and pronouns have what is called “case” depending on how they’re used in the sentence. There are three cases in English, and I learned them as Nominative, Genitive, and Objective.

Nominative is used in two ways. First, as the subject of a verb:

Cecil Adams does it again!
I can’t wait to hear what Cecil Adams says next.

Second, as the so-called predicate nominative of a verb like “be”:

Our favorite person is Cecil Adams.

Genitive is easy to spot. It’s used for possession:

We are all under Cecil Adams’ control.

The Objective case is used when the noun is a Direct Object, Indirect Object, or Object of a Preposition:

I give Cecil Adams my undying loyalty.
Great minds think alike; fools question Cecil Adams.
May you live in the shadow of Cecil Adams.

There are a few other fine points, but you get the idea. As you can see by my examples, nouns in general look identical in the Nominative and Objective cases. The reason we have cases at all is because it’s a holdover from Latin, in which nouns don’t, in general, look the same in different cases. Pronouns, however, usually look different in different cases. For example, the pronoun that is “he” in the Nominative is “his” in the Genitive and “him” in the Objective. Try substituting those words for the bold words in the examples above. Similary, for the interrogative pronoun, the three cases are “who”, “whose”, and “whom”. Try substituting those as well.

Trying to replace a pronoun with he/him is good, I guess, but I always prefer to look at what the noun is doing in the sentence. Is it the subject (or predicate nominative) of a verb, or an object?

22

I still have not gotten an anwer to this one. What exactly constitutes a general truth?

I also have another question. Is is right to say, “The Miami Heat are coming to town”? I contend that the tema is a group, and that it is illogical to say “is” when you’d never say, “The Lakers is coming.”

However, this is one of the very few questions that has stumped our resident grammar “consultant”. She says there are cases where you just say and write what “sounds best”, but I’m reluctant to give in.

23

I’m sure I speak for everybody when I say we’ve all been there, getting bogged down in trying to figure out whether a sentence is grammatical to the point that the sentence doesn’t even make sense any more.

Here’s a tip: if you’re unsure whether the sentence is grammatically correct, just rewrite the damn thing from scratch. Stop trying to make some text book happy and make the sentence clear and unambiguous.

Don’t know whether to say “The Miami Heat are coming to town” or “The Miami Heat is coming to town”? Then don’t say it that way. Look at what you’re saying around that sentence; what sounds good in a vacuum might sound awful in context. I’m prone to make things into subordinate elements if I can’t get them to come out right any other way, but that’s my writing style. Reconsider the point you’re trying to get across and brainstorm different ways to say it until you find one that is (1)clear, (2)grammatically correct, and (3)succinct, if that’s important for you. In that order.

BTW, a “general truth” is something that is always true, generally. :slight_smile: See the sentence above that starts “I’m prone …”. General truths like “the sun rises in the east” go in the present tense unless you’re trying to make a point. If you say that, it probably doesn’t mean anything except what it says. If you say “Yesterday, the sun rose in the east,” then there is (to my ear) automatically a subtext of tension in the sentence. What about today? Did the sun not rise? Rise in the west? The reader would be intrigued by your unusual choice of words.

24

From what I know, the issue of whether a team name takes a plural verb or a singular verb is still a style issue and can vary from newspaper to newspaper. I had a professor whose day job was as copy editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In class, he told us the teams always take a plural verb - the Lakers ARE, the Phillies ARE, etc. But then he checked with the sports desk there, and lo and behold, it can vary from paper to paper, depending on house style (not sure what Chicago or AP say, off the top of my head). He also said it matters what the actual team NAME is. For example, his paper (at the time) would say “the Lakers are” but also “the Jazz is”. This doesn’t always sound correct to the ear, but as far as I know, it’s still one of those gray-area issues. But maybe they’ve cleared it up since I last checked.

Hm, don’t know why, but I don’t see any subtext in the sentence. It’s a simple one, explaining that the sun rose in the east yesterday. It’s unusual to hear the words, because the sun always rises in the east, though. Is that what you mean?

25

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Why would the writer choose to say it that way, if that’s the way it always has happened and, as far we know, always will? The idea here is that tone sets mood. If you say something in an unusual way or make a statement of universal truth in such a way that it sounds like a unique occurrence, you normally set a mood of expectation in your reader. I realize this gets pretty far afield of the OP or any of the follow-up posts, so I’ll just drop it.

26

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by KneadToKnow *
**

So it really becomes more a question of tone rather than of grammar itself. You can’t really set a rule down for this (at least in this example), because it all depends on the author’s intention. If, by remarking that the sun rose in the east yesterday, he or she meant to set up the reader, that would be one thing. (“But it didn’t rise in the east today. At least not in Podunk, Alabama, where 33-year-old Jim Bob Canton…”)

And setting enters into it, too. What if the setting of the sentence were another planet? What if this were a sci-fi story? Then all bets are off (ok, most). So it’s a general truth in the sense of how the audience for that particular piece of literature will view it.

27
  • A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage *, Bergan & Cornelia Evans, 1957:

[Q] Today the form * who * is preferred when the word stands before a verb, as in “who did you see?” The form * whom * is required when the word follows a preposition, as in “to whom did you sepak?”, but this is an unnatural interrogative word order. The form * whom * may be used, but is not required, when it follows the verb, as in “you saw whom?” [page 556]

Also at page 483: [Q] The objective form is acceptable in all other constructions, such as “that is him.” In more complex sentences, such as “the first person he recognized was me” and “is itus they are talking about?” a subjective pronoun is never used, except in the most artificial prose. [/Q]

  • What’s The Good Word? *, Willaim Safire. 2982: [at page 159]

[Q] …[T]he old correctness has become the new error of pedeantry. Nobody picks a suspect out of a lineup with a shouted “That’s he!” In the real world, “That is him!” or “That is her” is the preferred form. It’s time we stopped differentiating between spoken and written English on such pronouns: I don’t like the idea of claiming “It is I” is right for writing and “It is me” is acceptable for speaking. The colloquial form has taken over.

The subjective form (I, they) should be used only when the word looks and sounds like the subject. But when it looks like the object (as in “It’s them”), use the objective (me, them). If anybody demands to know who told you to do this horrible deed, tell them it was me. [/Q]

28

Well, thanks for the opinions and help, but (and I hope this doesn’t come off too sarcastic) I’m not really interested in whether William Safire considers colloquial usage to have overtaken the standard written. I’m trying to teach to a test written by ETS, so basically, I care what they think.

I am also somewhat suspicious of teaching kids to write “Who did you see?” I realize that we all talk like that, but there is solid logic behind the idea of it being wrong.

Aha! Hacker, page 197: “Who can be used only for subjects and subject complements (what’s that?). Whom can be used only for objects.”

Page 199: “When whom appears as an object in a question, it appears out of order, before both the subject and the verb. To choose the correct pronoun, you can mentally restucture the question. ‘Whom did the party nominate in 1976?’ Whom is the direct object of ‘did nominate’. This becomes clear if you restructure the question: The party did nominate whom in 1976?”

This supports both my answer, which I might add is how I’m able to get all the answers right on this thing, and my method of figuring out which to use. I don’t remember any more if I got it from her or not.

Now off to re-acquaint myself with “that” and “which”…

29

It’s important, I think, to differentiate between that which is grammatically correct and that which is common usage. If I were teaching your class, I would teach “correct” grammar, because unless they’re very young, they probably already have a sense of how other people talk in real life.

From “Good Grammar and Word Usage” by Morton Freeman (1999):

Yikes. Does this help any? It’s more contemporary than many I’ve seen in this thread so far, anyway…

30

It’s not really the elimination of “whom” that bothers me there. It’s ending the sentence in a preposition, which, no, I’m not going to stop doing in common speech either. I don’t feel like being a total geek any more than I already am.

But then, I work with a guy who literally has something wrong in the connections between the conceptual part of his brain and the word and sentence formation, I’m convinced.(Well, that and he just doesn’t really care.) His most recent evidence is saying, “We need to recuperate that money.”

31

Ah, the ending of a sentence with a preposition. That is something up with which I will not put! :slight_smile:

IMHO, a sentence should be recast if it ends with a preposition unless doing so would be awkward. You never change something simply for the sake of changing it, no matter what the rule. This is a “rule” that provides plenty of leeway; if you’re writing formally, you should change the word order around so that the preposition isn’t last. However, you shouldn’t do this if you only muddle the whole situation further.

By the same token, you don’t have to change your speech to reflect this “rule,” nor do you have to change common written communication, such as email, notes, anything informal.

32

I have to ask again what constitutes a general truth. Does it need to be true currently, or basically indefinately? We would say, “I told her that Albany is the capital of New York.” That one I get. But how about, “I told her that I am amazing?”

Also, Hacker doesn’t seem to address this sentence I’m writing: Students are led through structured lessons and given the ability to review words in a variety of ways to enhance memory-building.

Is that a proper use of a hyphen? It seems wrong.

33

I think that a “general truth” would mean something that the average person would know to be factual. Your first statement, given this criterion, is a general truth. The second is not, since it’s an opinion.

Again IMHO, there is such a thing as overhyphenation. In your example, I would remove the hyphen, because it’s not needed. If, however, you added a word after “memory-building,” say, “characteristics,” then I would leave it in, because omission might make the sentence unclear.

And that’s the best way to approach it. A compound adjective will get a hyphen if it precedes the noun it modifies and if the hyphen alleviates confusion. Do not add a hyphen just because it looks like it fits.

34

Correct English is “…of its being wrong.” “Being wrong” is a gerund noun and “its” is the adjective.

You may not much care for Safire’s opinion, but is there a soul who doesn’t wish he can write like him.

I’d tell you what Safire and Evans said re “that” and “which” but you apparently don’t care, so I won’t bother.

35

You know, I tried to not burn bridges here, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Why can’t I say that I’m not interested in what a certain person has to say, especially when he is not a recognized expert in the field and seems to be stating his personal opinion without it being a slight on the person reporting that opinion?

Now that I think about it, I do realize that it should be “behind the idea of its being wrong.” This is another point that is in fact made on the SAT II Writing test and which I didn’t understand until I had to teach the class. So, you’re right, and I suppose this is the thread where we’re all going to be pretty nit-picky about grammar, because that’s what I wanted to discuss.

Barb, it really isn’t anything against you. Please come back.

36

Maybe because William Safire is a “recognized expert in the field”? He’s not an academic (neither was E.B. White), but he’s a speechwriter and journalist whose column “On Language” appears in the most influential newspaper in the United States. His books aren’t bad, either.

If you’re wondering, I’m snippy because your posts imply that you have little idea of who he is, and have not taken the twenty seconds required to run a google search and educate yourself. It’s irritating to try to fight ignorance on an uneven playing field.

37

Thanks xtnJohnson. As you noted, and as Dave apparently did not, I was not stating my personal opinion. I wouldn’t be that crass, as I am nowhere being an expert on the English language. However, just because I am not an expert does not mean that I can’t cite experts.

Incidentally, if Cerf was not and Safire is not an expert, I don’t know who can be so called. Cerf was publisher of Random House and if you read Safire you cannot help but admire his grasp of the English language, in addition to the books he wrote on it.

38

Quoth KneadToKnow: “Here’s a tip: if you’re unsure whether the sentence is grammatically correct, just rewrite the damn thing from scratch. Stop trying to make some text book happy and make the sentence clear and unambiguous.”

Ideally, that would be good, but the kids on the SAT don’t have the luxury of rewriting the sentences they’re given. And they don’t have to luxury of appealing to what anyone says is common usage.

Incidentally, Dave, “I tried to not burn bridges here” contains a split infinitive.