Ask Our Grammar "Experts" II, the Sequel

[Mark]

ha yes, that is true. Of course, I took that line from the lyrics of a song, so the first one also has the right meter for Frank's track. Still, it's just meant to be an example of the sort of thing Janyegail talks about in message 152. And I took it from Zappa's lyrics to indicate that it might be a sociolect. Unfortunately, I do not know the technical term for this form of speech. I'd be interested to know if anybody does.

[Doug]

I think "Found" is probably redundant from the previous sentence. Just say, "It was scarier than she thought." or, "She found it more scary." ("thought" adds little, if anything because scary is a thoughtful emotion.) You can try anticipated or feared instead of thought. It is very easy, even fun, to be redundant in the heat of creative description.:)

[Mrs. C.]

Caroline wrote: "A friend and I were wondering if there are any instances where one would/should use "whilst" rather than "while"."

Afraid that is a bygone expression. The only time it would or should be used is probably in a historical novel.

[Mrs. C.]

Newengland wrote: "And from Garner's Modern American Usage:

"Because this word is actually of Greek origin -- not Latin -- the classical plural is octopodes, not octopi. But the standard plural in AmE ..."

You're right about the word having Greek origins, but it entered English through the vehicle of Latin. "Octopus" is a masculine nominative case singular noun. The -us changes to -i to make the masculine nominative plural.

[Ruth]

Mrs. C. wrote: "Caroline wrote: "A friend and I were wondering if there are any instances where one would/should use "whilst" rather than "while"."

Afraid that is a bygone expression. The only time it would or s..."

Sheesh, I use it all the time.

[Mrs. C.]

Caroline wrote: "All my life I have used the term "I'm sorry" as an expression of sympathy, e.g., "I'm so sorry you've broken your foot!" or "I heard you had a puncture on your way here, I'm sorry". In recent yea..."

Caroline, I have noticed this same thing. If someone's pet dies, and you say, "I'm sorry," the other person often replies in a surly way, "Well, it's not YOUR fault." I sometimes think it's just the flip society we live in. It's just hard for people to say "thank you" sometimes. I guess one could do better by uttering the whole phrase, "I'm sorry to hear that." The familiar "I'm sorry for your loss" has become pretty standard, it seems, but that sounds canned when speaking to a good friend. It's hard to divorce language from culture, isn't it?

[Mrs. C.]

Cleo wrote: "Mark B wrote: "Could "Because they can be trained" be considered a dependent clause?"

Thanks for the response, Mark. I do believe you're right!

Does no one have an opinion on question 1?"

Regarding #1, I believe we would consider "be" a linking verb here because it is linking the subject to a prepositional phrase telling location. It would be a state of being verb if was actually connecting to a word showing "state" or "condition," such as, "I was sick." Location and condition are two different things, but it is splitting hairs, isn't it?

[Ruth]

Mrs. C. wrote: "The familiar "I'm sorry for your loss" has become pretty standard, it seems, "..."

You just hit a pet peeve. Not only does it seem canned, it doesn't make sense. You're sorry for the person, not the loss.

[Stephen]

I SHOULD know this but... today I was writing the phrase "most people's back yards" and had to really think about where to put the apostrophe.

I know that the apostrophe goes after the "s" when an "s" has been added to make a noun plural. I know that an apostrophe 's' is added to a singular noun to show possession. But since "people" is plural already, I went with putting the apostrophe BEFORE the "s."

Do you all concur that that is correct?

[Cecily]

Yes, that is correct, for the reasons you cite.

(The trick is to forget what the last letter is, and just the apostrophe after the noun, whether it be singular or plural.)

[Doug]

Well, alrighty then. "The deer's red color..."or "those deer red color..."? In the first case it is one deer and the latter is many deer? Hummmm....

[Cecily]

It's the same rule: the apostrophe goes after the noun, whatever it is.

The oddity with "deer" is that the plural is the same as the singular, with no final s. Thus:

The deer's red color.
Those deer's red color.

The reader needs other clues to know whether the first refers to one deer or more.

[Doug]

Thank you. Cecily. I thought that.

[[deleted user]]

I'm reading a draft fiction story for a friend and came across this sentence:

What say, I fix us a little dinner and then you can stay here in the main house tonight.

I want her to omit the comma. "What say" just isn't an introductory phrase IMHO. Agree?

[Ruth]

Agree.

[[deleted user]]

Gracias.

[Ken, Moderator]

Agree, too. No pause. "What say" just runs the red light...

[Doug]

Jonmontanavega wrote: "I'm reading a draft fiction story for a friend and came across this sentence:

What say, I fix us a little dinner and then you can stay here in the main house tonight.

I want her to omit the comm..."

What say is a request, a phrase if you will asking for approval. I would like to spend the night in the main house merely in exchange for agreeing to do so. There is still the stipulation that it's only a contract if (she) fixes dinner. Throw the whole sentence out.

[Andrea]

I dont think you need to throw out the sentence. It's dialogue, in vernacular, right?

[Ruth]

Andrea wrote: "I dont think you need to throw out the sentence. It's dialogue, in vernacular, right?"

Agree.

[[deleted user]]

The sentence stayed and the comma went, or such was my recommendation to the author.

Speaking of commas, I suggested she fix many comma splices. However, for one reason or another I didn't object to all of them. Has anyone seen a reasoned argument about when to keep (or use) and when to avoid comma splices? Or, do most rationales come down to an "I know it when I see it" argument?

The context is fiction. The splices occur both in narrative and dialogue sentences.

[Doug]

Andrea wrote: "I dont think you need to throw out the sentence. It's dialogue, in vernacular, right?"

Maybe saying throw it out was a little harsh but I had other points of contention with the construction. First, I must warn, I am not degreed. Yes, it is vernacular and people do construct a lot of oral language that is incorrect but shows up when written and can be studied a minute. Consider that people say similar things like "I fix us" which is problematic but aside from that, we have three unrelated subjects in one sentence mysteriously connected by "and" (and maybe a comma). In the coloquial the speaker would probably make two shorter sentences. I could be wrong. It's only fiction writing. I'm always happy to respond with a thought or two. :) :)

[Stephen]

I didn't comment before but I'm a big fan of the ellipsis in dialogue. Not as a replacement to a comma, but as a pause for thought.

Then again... each character has a cadence when speaking that can be represented by the writer in whatever method works best for them... provided it doesn't annoy the readers too much.

[Doug]

Stephen wrote: "I didn't comment before but I'm a big fan of the ellipsis in dialogue. Not as a replacement to a comma, but as a pause for thought.

Then again... each character has a cadence when speaking that ..."

Agreed. Some of the best fiction is coloquial. It has intrinsic personality beyond word definitions.

[Ruth]

Stephen wrote: "I didn't comment before but I'm a big fan of the ellipsis in dialogue. Not as a replacement to a comma, but as a pause for thought.

Then again... each character has a cadence when speaking that ..."

But the ellipsis doesn't indicate a pause. It indicates that some words have been left out of the sentence. For pauses, we have commas and periods.

[Ken, Moderator]

According to my guidebook, the ellipsis has two purposes:

1. To show omitted words.
2. To show a pause.

[Doug]

I love ellipses, but i think are to be used sparingly for emphases, unless it is a character personality's cadence or dialect. In that case, maybe there is a third way to use them when transcribing actual speech.

I often encounter the following problem while talking to people. When they speak, they actually insert the pause and extra words instead of completeing a sentence and starting another one. It can also be a sequence mistake.

In that case, it isn't words left out but a pause and extra or repeated words inserted. If we want to put that cadence on paper, the ellipes warns us of it while we read.

Ie: Little Joe's puppy... when he does... his tricks... they are funny,,, like jumping... and Joe... I mean... Little Joe... takes him... and puts him up... unless he jumps... so he can do them... on the coffee table... makes me laugh.

Here is the same sentence with the extra words removed:

Little Joe's puppy, when he does his tricks are funny like jumping and Little Joe puts him up so he can do them on the coffee table, makes me laugh.

i find this extra word insertion with ellipse idea useful in poetry because I am not bound by every grammar rule in verse.

[Stephen]

I've a question about parallel structure...

I was watching a documentary on the battle of Jutland and the narrator was describing the British casualties and said something like "... three battle cruisers had exploded and sank."

When I heard that, it felt awkwardly phrased and I mentally wanted to correct it to "... three battle cruisers had exploded and sunk."

I'm guessing that the real error here was the incorrect use of the pluperfect form of the first verb. I'd have been perfectly happy to hear "... three battle cruisers exploded and sank" but, once the pluperfect tense was invoked for the first verb I expected the tense to continue to the second verb and sort of assumed and implied the had in front of the second verb.

I know that I'm picking nits here, but what exactly is correct in this type of sentence structure? If two verbs are present, shouldn't their tenses be the same?

[Ken, Moderator]

Unless this is another British thumb of the nose (the war over grammar, you know), I'd say you are right. SUNK!

[Doug]

Stephen wrote: "I've a question about parallel structure...

I was watching a documentary on the battle of Jutland and the narrator was describing the British casualties and said something like "... three battle c..."

Good question, Stephen. I think the author was wrong because the condition of the verbs can be different merely because of the way their tenses are spelled.

My opinion is that it revolves not around the tense carring over (which I think it normally would) but the condition or type of verbs that are connected with "and" because of the spelling of the tense. After all, "and" can connect all sorts of things alike or different. So the modifier "had" needed to be repeated. Looking forward to hearing other remarks.

[Andrea]

A nagging question for this self-admitted nitpicker: is it afterward or afterwards?

[Ruth]

I looked that up once. My source said afterward was preferred.

[Ken, Moderator]

Bryan Garner, in Garner's Modern American Usage, agrees, saying American editors prefer "afterward" even though readers will often see them used interchangeably.

[Andrea]

Thanks! I know I've used it both ways.

[Stephen]

How do folks here feel about newly coined words? I'm constantly adding words to my spell check dictionary that just seem right to me.

e.g. alterable is a word but enterable is not. In this computer age I seem to always be talking about "enterable" fields so I just added it to my dictionary. Lately it seems that I'm adding a word a day.

[Ken, Moderator]

I'm still figuring out "mic" or "mike" for microphone.

[Doug]

Stephen wrote: "How do folks here feel about newly coined words? I'm constantly adding words to my spell check dictionary that just seem right to me.

e.g. alterable is a word but enterable is not. In this comput..."

Oddly my dictionary just entered "alterable" which car guys have been using for at least 50 years. You change out an engine or you alter the one you got if it is alterable. Also odd is the example they used; "alter my will". You can't alter your will. It is always your will whatever it is. If it means a document then I asume altering would mean you print it in a different color ink or some such. It will always be your will regardless of what it says. You could change it into a "trust". You could change the document or the conditions of your will or correct a mispelling. That's my opinion and my name is not Webster whom may have a different opinion.

[Sarah]

Regarding 'afterward' vs 'afterwards,' I find this with most -ward(s) suffixes: toward, upward, forward, westward, etc. I was pretty random about it, but I think without the -s is the preferred spelling in general. I know my editor nixes it.

[Doug]

S. wrote: "Regarding 'afterward' vs 'afterwards,' I find this with most -ward(s) suffixes: toward, upward, forward, westward, etc. I was pretty random about it, but I think without the -s is the preferred spe..."

Consider this scientifically. How many up downs fores or other directions and positions can there be? actually any number in the theory of relativity but we don't live there. So I use physical relationship or position. Therefore the reason for adding an s has to be due to a plural modifier. ie: removing power stops wheels forward movement. (one direction) Ie: alkali in the water poisoned the wolves insides.(many insides) ie: meteors fell on the slopes upwards from the beach (various distances). The plane crashed upward of the beach (a single place). ie: They had marched forewards (indefinite number of marches indicated). He marched foreward (one march or location assumed). This is the rule I made up and use. Without a plural reason I go without the s.

[Stephen]

Today I encountered the sentence "He didn't start the truck because it would have waked people up." My immediate impulse was to reach for the blue pencil but then I reconsidered. Personally I'd have written that sentence with the word woken instead of waked but is waked really wrong? What's the grammar rule here?

[Ken, Moderator]

My understanding is it's a pick 'em. Garner claims that, for the past participle, American English prefers waked and British English woken. Oddly, in your example sentence, I, too, prefer "woken," though I think the writer is OK with "waked."

[Andrea]

It may be aq cultural thing. To me, that sentence sounds more British.

[Cecily]

It doesn't sound British to me (a lifelong Brit).

[Michael]

It's definitely not a British idiom. For me, "...it would have awoken people," sounds correct. Keeping the original writer's sentence construction, I'd have said, "...it would have woken people up."

[Cecily]

Also, if we're being picky, a Brit would be more likely to refer to a lorry or a van than a truck.

[Michael]

True, Cecily, unless it was a flat-bed truck or a dumper truck. (Picky, picky minutiae!)

[Cecily]

Which is why I said "likely" rather than "definitely". (Pickier!)

[Stephen]

Thanks for the responses all.

btw.. the story was set in Oklahoma so no bifurcated lorries or dual-carriageways involved.

[Ken, Moderator]

It seems Americans and Brits alike prefer "would have woken." Next thing you know, we'll be inviting Cornwallis back.

[Michael]

Cecily wrote: "Which is why I said "likely" rather than "definitely". (Pickier!)"

Ha, ha! Out pedanted again! ;-)