Jose Carillo's Forum

USE AND MISUSE

The Use and Misuse section is open to all Forum members for discussing anything related to English grammar and usage. It invites and encourages questions and in-depth discussions about any aspect of English, from vocabulary and syntax to sentence structure and idiomatic expressions. It is, of course, also the perfect place for relating interesting experiences or encounters with English use and misuse at work, in school, or in the mass media.


A “swan song” doesn’t mean a big but misguided idea

Questions by Maria Balina, Forum member (August 19, 2012):

Hi, Mr. Carillo!

1. I read the following in the column of Carmen N. Pedrosa (“Again, in defiance of the rule of law,” Philippine Star, August 18, 2012):
            
“President Aquino’s unconscionable use of power is encouraged by the swan song that this is the way forward for the country.”

It can be inferred that swan song means that one big thing or achievement that Aquino will be remembered for even if he’s no longer president.  It’s like a testament to how well he has run the country. However, the word “swan song” is not in the dictionary. I wonder why.

2. Does the phrase “not that I know of” mean no?  Can it also mean “I guess?”

3. Am I right when I say that (a) the past perfect tense can never be used alone in a sentence since it expresses an action completed before another action indicated by a simple past verb, and that the past perfect tense should be used sparingly?

Please enlighten me.

My reply to Maria Balina:

I’m surprised that “swan song” isn’t listed in your dictionary. Mine, the Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, defines it literally as “a song of great sweetness said to be sung by a dying swan” and figuratively as “a farewell appearance or final act or pronouncement.” At any rate, I don’t think that “swan song” was used by Ms. Pedrosa in its semantically correct sense in that sentence. She might have meant “mistaken idea” or “rationalization,” as in the following rewrite of that sentence:

 “President Aquino’s unconscionable use of power is encouraged by the mistaken idea that this is the way forward for the country.”

Also, I think it’s incorrect to infer that by using “swan song,” Ms. Pedrosa wanted to convey the idea that the unconscionable use of power is “that one big thing or achievement that Aquino will be remembered for even if he’s no longer president.” My feeling is that she really meant to say that it’s neither the correct way to make the country go forward nor a desirable thing for a national leader to want to be remembered about. By the mistaken use of “swan song,” however, this sense was lost in the rendition.

As to the phrase “not that I know of,” it definitely doesn’t mean a categorical “no” and it doesn’t mean “I guess” either. What it means is “not that I’m aware of,” as in this conversational exchange: “Did the senator really plagiarize those passages from the blogger’s website?” “Not that I know of, for I haven’t read the senator’s speech and the blog yet.” Of course, the sense would be downright wrong if the reply was “No, for I haven’t read the senator’s speech and the blog yet.” 

As to your last question, it’s not right to say that the past perfect tense can never be used alone in a sentence and it’s not right either to say that the past perfect tense should be used sparingly. 

It’s true that the typical past perfect sentence consists of two separate actions in time, as in this sentence: “The ship had sunk when the rescue team arrived.” The earlier action takes the past perfect (“had sunk”) and the later action takes the simple past (“arrived”). However, the past perfect can also be used alone to denote an action that began and ended at some indefinite time in the past, as in this sentence: “The heavy floods had lasted two weeks.”

Clearly, there’s no point in prescribing that the past perfect be used sparingly. It will always be called for when the action had taken place and was completed at an indefinite time in the past. When the precise time is given, however, the simple past tense must be used: “We met at the park yesterday.”

Reaction  by Mwita Chacha, Forum member (August 26, 2012):

Sir, I fairly don’t think “'The ship had sunk when the rescue team arrived,”' the sentence you’ve supplied as an example to clarify on past perfect tenses, is a pertinent one in that it is wrongly using the word “when.” My understanding of the subordinating conjunction “when” is that it’s an adverb of time joining two clauses that have their actions taking place at one time. Since you wanted to mean the action of the arriving of the rescue team and that of the ship sinking occurred at two separate times, the appropriate and correct subordinating conjunction should have been “before,” which, like “when,” is the adverb of time, but unlike “before,”  it serves to show that two actions in sentence clauses indeed have taken place not in the same time. Thus my reformed, legitimate past-perfect sentence would be “The ship had sunk before the rescue team arrived.” But if there had been an imperative need to incorporate “when,”' then I would have introduced another time adverb to the sentence. The other reformed sentence would therefore read “The ship had already sunk when the rescue team arrived.”'

My clarification regarding Mwita Chacha’s comments:

In the sentence “The ship had sunk when the rescue team arrived,” I’m using the subordinating conjunction “when” in the relative sense of “at or just after the moment that”—meaning that the rescue team didn’t arrive early enough to find the ship still afloat but nevertheless arrived close to the time of its sinking.

In your version, “The ship had sunk before the rescue team arrived,” you are using the conjunction “before” in the sense of “earlier than the time that.” Your “before” version gives no indication in any way that the rescue team arrived at a time close to the sinking of the ship—it could have been hours, days, or weeks before the sinking of the ship. 

We must keep in mind that “when” could have any of the following relative senses: (1) “at what time,” (2) “at, during, or after the time that,” and (3) “at or just after the moment that.” In contrast, the conjunction “before” has the sense of “earlier than the time that,” with no indication whatsoever of the closeness of a later event to the occurrence or consummation of an earlier event. When “before” is used in such contexts, the earlier event clearly happened sometime before the later event but there’s no way of ascertaining relatively when. For all we know, the earlier event—in this case the sinking of the ship—could have happened a long, long time before.

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Some questions about the Forum discussion on inverted sentences

Rejoinder of Mwita Chacha (July 14, 2012):

In your reply to Miss Mae last July 19, 2012 regarding her question on inverted sentences, you said:

Mwita is absolutely correct in saying that the construction in question is an inverted sentence. She also shows why it is so and clearly explains the typical inverted sentence structure. Her answer, however, doesn’t address the question of why the correct answer could only be (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that,” and not (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which.” I will therefore elaborate on her analysis.

As we will recall, an inverted sentence is one that deliberately departs from the normal declarative form. In this particular case, we have this rather structurally unwieldy sentence: “The clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest lie in the fine print at the end of the document.” We can see that although that sentence is grammatically correct, its bad syntax makes it clunky and difficult to comprehend.

In contrast, the form of inversion presented in the test puts the prepositional phrase “in the fine print at the end of the document” at the beginning of the sentence, and then positions the intransitive verb “lie” ahead of its subject “the clauses.” This inverted sentence is the result: “In the fine print at the end of the document lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest.”

As we can see, inversion has made the sentence not only much more readable but also highly emphatic. This improvement in syntax comes at a price, though. When we look at the inverted sentence, it strongly appears that the subject of the verb “lie” is the singular noun “document”—not the plural “clauses”—so the reader is apt to be tempted to correct that verb to the singular form “lies.”

When constructing inverted sentences, it is therefore crucial to identify its true subject correctly. That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it. Indeed, the singular verb form “lies” for the plural “clauses” is what makes (C) “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that” incorrect.

That, however, still leaves as possible correct answers either (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which” and (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that.” So what is it that makes E the only correct answer?

It’s the use in E of the relative pronoun “that” as opposed to the use in D of the relative pronoun “which.” Remember now that in American English, “that” is used when the relative clause is restrictive or indispensable to the meaning of the sentence, and “which” (preceded by a comma) is used when the relative clause is nonrestrictive or not absolutely necessary to that meaning. In the inverted sentence in question here, the relative clause “that result from civil unrest” is clearly a restrictive relative clause, one strongly bound semantically to the noun “expenses” in that sentence.

The second sentence in the fifth paragraph looks somewhat fragmented, as nowhere in it one can locate the predicate for that noun clause “That true subject is the...” At first blush, of course, I thought that the “that” in that sentence was acting as a determiner for the noun phrase “true subject,” but I later realized it did not qualify to be a demonstrative adjective inasmuch as it was only being mentioned for the first time in the paragraph.

Looking carefully at the first paragraph of the posting, I also ended up confused regarding what the antecedent noun should be for the subjective and possessive pronouns “she” and “her.” With the absence of a comma after the name “Mwita” in the first sentence, it strongly appears that ‘she” and “her” are referring to the proper noun “Mwita,” which is apparently the only subject that comes before. If so, and in order for the trouble of confusing a Forum member’s sex not to recur, I’m obliged to make it clear that Mwita Chacha is one of the Forum’s male members.

My reply to Mwita Chacha’s rejoinder (July 26, 2012):

Let’s take a close look at the second sentence of the fifth paragraph:

When constructing inverted sentences, it is therefore crucial to identify its true subject correctly. That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it. Indeed, the singular verb form “lies” for the plural “clauses” is what makes (C) “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that” incorrect.

Now let’s zero in on the second sentence itself:

That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it.

The second sentence is, of course, a compound sentence consisting of two coordinate clauses linked by the conjunction “and,” as follows:

First coordinate clause: “that true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence”

Its subject is: “that true subject” (“that” is being used here not as a determiner but as a  
pointing adjective) 
The verb is: “is” (functioning as a linking verb)
The predicate is: “the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence”

Second coordinate clause: “the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes after it”

Now let’s resolve your confusion about the first paragraph of that posting of mine:

Mwita is absolutely correct in saying that the construction in question is an inverted sentence. She also shows why it is so and clearly explains the typical inverted sentence structure. Her answer, however, doesn’t address the question of why the correct answer could only be (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that,” and not (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which.” I will therefore elaborate on her analysis.

I really see nothing grammatically or semantically wrong with the sentence constructions in that paragraph. The problem is that I assumed that your name—“Mwita Chacha”—is a female name rather than a male name. Before deciding on what your gender was, I actually checked your Forum membership account but found that you didn’t specify it. Now, in the Philippines where I’m based, names of people are strongly influenced by Hispanic culture. First names that end in the letter “a” are expected to be feminine (as in “Maria,” “Teresa,” and “Celia”), and first names that end in “o” are expected to be masculine (as in “Mario,” “Roberto,” and “Eduardo”). I must admit that my cultural upbringing got the better of me, making me instinctively assume—and wrongly—that “Mwita” is a feminine name. In retrospect, I should have checked your gender with you first before using the pronouns “she” and “her” to refer to you. For not doing so, Mwita, I’m offering my profuse apologies.

Mwita Chacha’s rejoinder (July 26, 2012):

Apologies accepted! After the controversy, I’m sure you will agree with me that assuming other people's genders basing on our knowledge of how names are spelled in different cultures is naturally ill-advised and totally inappropriate action. If I am not mistaken, it’s safe in English language to use the “it” as a pronoun when we are unsure about the gender of an antecedent noun or when we don't want to show the gender of a person under discussion. Therefore, rather than making predictions regarding others' sexes—which is something improper in all respects—it is expedient to apply the neuter pronoun “it” when talking about people we’re not certain about their gender or when talking about people whose gender we consciously want to avoid exposing.

My reply to  Mwita Chacha’s rejoinder (July 26, 2012):

I’m delighted that you have accepted my apology! I must hasten to add, though, that it’s neither safe nor acceptable in English—indeed, it’s considered extremely bad form—to use the pronoun “it” for a person whose gender is unknown. In polite circles, it is terribly insulting to refer to a person as an “it” whether that person’s gender is known or not; doing so is to denigrate and reduce that person to the level of an animal or thing. 

For all the richness of its lexicon, in fact, the English language is disconcertingly deficient when it comes to the indefinite pronouns. Apart from having no specific pronoun for a person of unknown gender, English also has no non-gender-specific possessive pronoun when the antecedent is the indefinite pronoun “everybody” or “everyone”; using the neuter possessive pronoun “its” simply will not do. The grammatically acceptable possessive in such cases is, of course, the unwieldy form “his or her,” as in the sentence “Everybody got his or her midyear bonus yesterday.” Many grammarians still deem the use of the non-gender-specific plural “they” in such situations as improper and ungrammatical: “Everybody got their midyear bonus yesterday.” A grammatically safe alternative is, of course, to pluralize “everybody” to the plural pronoun “all” so the non-gender-specific possessive pronoun “their” can be used instead, as follows: “All got their midyear bonus yesterday.”

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Two bewildering encounters with inverted sentence tests

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (July 18, 2012):

How could the answer in the following test be letter E?

“In the fine print at the end of the document lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest.”

A. “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that”
B. “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which”
C. “lies the clause that make us liable for any expenses that”
D. “lie the clauses that makes us liable for any expenses which”
E. “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that”

I answered letter C, but was told that the subject “the clauses” requires a plural verb, so “lies” should be changed to “lie.”

Reply to Miss Mae’s question by Mwita Chacha, Forum member (July 19, 2012):

This case is an example of subject-verb inversion constructions in English language. In such constructions, the normal Subject + Verb sentence construction pattern is reversed to become Verb + Subject pattern. If we decide to construct the sentence you have presented by using the normal Subject + Verb structure, it will read “The clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest lie in the fine print at the end of the document.” It has now become clear that the subject of the sentence is the plural noun “clauses,” and, as such, it requires the plural verb “lie.” Consequently, as you were told, the right answer to that question is E, not C.

Joe Carillo’s elaboration on Mwita Chacha’s explanation (July 19, 2012):

Mwita is absolutely correct in saying that the construction in question is an inverted sentence. She also shows why it is so and clearly explains the typical inverted sentence structure. Her answer, however, doesn’t address the question of why the correct answer could only be (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that,” and not (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which.” I will therefore elaborate on her analysis.

As we will recall, an inverted sentence is one that deliberately departs from the normal declarative form. In this particular case, we have this rather structurally unwieldy sentence: “The clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest lie in the fine print at the end of the document.” We can see that although that sentence is grammatically correct, its bad syntax makes it clunky and difficult to comprehend. 

In contrast, the form of inversion presented in the test puts the prepositional phrase “in the fine print at the end of the document” at the beginning of the sentence, and then positions the intransitive verb “lie” ahead of its subject “the clauses.” This inverted sentence is the result: “In the fine print at the end of the document lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that result from civil unrest.”

As we can see, inversion has made the sentence not only much more readable but also highly emphatic. This improvement in syntax comes at a price, though. When we look at the inverted sentence, it strongly appears that the subject of the verb “lie” is the singular noun “document”—not the plural “clauses”—so the reader is apt to be tempted to correct that verb to the singular form “lies.”

When constructing inverted sentences, it is therefore crucial to identify its true subject correctly. That true subject is the subject of the main clause of the inverted sentence, and the verb should agree with the number of that subject, not with that of the noun that intervenes or comes before it. Indeed, the singular verb form “lies” for the plural “clauses” is what makes (C) “lies the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that” incorrect.

That, however, still leaves as possible correct answers either (D) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses which” and (E) “lie the clauses that make us liable for any expenses that.” So what is it that makes E the only correct answer?

It’s the use in E of the relative pronoun “that” as opposed to the use in D of the relative pronoun “which.” Remember now that in American English, “that” is used when the relative clause is restrictive or indispensable to the meaning of the sentence, and “which” (preceded by a comma) is used when the relative clause is nonrestrictive or not absolutely necessary to that meaning. In the inverted sentence in question here, the relative clause “that result from civil unrest” is clearly a restrictive relative clause, one strongly bound semantically to the noun “expenses” in that sentence.

Rejoinder of Miss Mae (July 19, 2012):

I thought the absence of a comma before which is the only reason that made letter D wrong.

Anyway, does this mean that subjects in inverted sentences are always in the main clause?

Also, Could you also explain the answer to the test below?

“With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier, inspiring thousands of others to attempt overcoming seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”

A. “inspiring thousands of others to attempt overcoming”
B. “inspiring thousands of others to attempt to overcome”
C. “inspiring thousands of others to overcome”
D. “and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome”
E. “and inspired thousands of others to attempt overcoming”

There must be a better reason why letter D is the answer [The explanation was: “inspired” is correctly parallel to “broke,” and “attempt to overcome” is idiomatic.]

My reply to Miss Mae’s rejoinder (July 20, 2012):

In answer to your first question, yes, the true subject of an inverted sentence is always to be found in the main clause. As I explained in my elaboration on Mwita’s reply to your original question, this is the fundamental characteristic of inverted sentences.

Now, as to the second inverted-sentence test that you provided, I would say that it’s a badly constructed and misleading English language proficiency test. Both from the grammar and sentence structure standpoints, (D) “and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome” simply couldn’t be the correct answer to that test.

See what happens when we use answer D in that sentence:

“With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier, and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”

The comma preceding the additive clause “and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles” makes the sentence structurally defective. Since both the first clause “Bannister broke a psychological barrier” and “(Bannister) inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles” have the same subject, that comma is unnecessary and only serves to truncate the compound sentence. The correct construction is to treat the verb phrases “broke a psychological barrier” and “inspired thousands of others…” as a simple compound verb phrase unpunctuated by a comma (it would also be in the interest of clarity to put a comma after the prepositional phrase “with his sub-four minute mile”), as follows :

“With his sub-four minute mile, Bannister broke a psychological barrier and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”

A comma after the first coordinate clause would have been necessary had the second verb phrase used the pronoun “he” for “Bannister” as its subject, in which case it would have become a full-bodied second coordinate clause on its own, as follows:

“With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier, and he inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.”
 
For largely the same reason, answer (E) “and inspired thousands of others to attempt overcoming” is also an incorrect answer.

(C) “inspiring thousands of others to overcome” is actually a possible answer purely from a grammatical and structural standpoint. From a semantic standpoint, however, it’s incorrect because it gives the wrong sense that thousands of other people have already overcome insurmountable hurdles by following Bannister’s example. This, of course, isn’t the case at all; their surmounting of their individual hurdles is just an expectation, not yet a reality.

This leaves either (A) “inspiring thousands of others to attempt overcoming” or (B) “inspiring thousands of others to attempt to overcome” as the only possible correct answers. Both the form “to attempt overcoming” (infinitive + gerund) and the form “to attempt to overcome” (infinitive + infinitive) yield a semantically valid sense for the sentence, so they are both correct answers. Stylistically and euphonically, however, I prefer answer B, in which case the sentence should read as follows:

“With his sub-four minute mile Bannister broke a psychological barrier, inspiring thousands of others to attempt to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles.

I must say that the explanation you cited justifying (D) “and inspired thousands of others to attempt to overcome” as the correct answer is pure nonsense. There is neither logical nor imperative need for the verbs “inspired” and “broke” to be set in parallel in that sentence, and to say that the form “attempt to overcome” is correct because it’s idiomatic is a vapid, insupportable explanation. It’s evident that the developer of that test sentence isn’t very conversant with the English language, in the process providing faulty answer choices in many respects.

To avoid befuddling our English, we should guard against such low-quality English proficiency tests that litter the World Wide Web.

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The proper usage of the comma in punctuating parallel clauses

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (July 8, 2012):

Can you please clarify the following “rule” prescribed in Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style (Second Edition)?

“Commas are used to separate short and obviously parallel main clauses that are not joined by conjunctions.”

The paragraph right after it adds that “clauses not joined by conjunctions are normally separated by semi-colons.”

My reply to Miss Mae:

I think the punctuation rules you cited can best be explained by examples.

Rule 1: Commas are used to separate short and obviously parallel main clauses that are not joined by conjunctions.

Example 1: “To err is human, to forgive is divine.”
Joined by conjunction: “To err is human and to forgive is divine.”

Example 3: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Joined by conjunctions: “I came and I saw and I conquered.”

Note that the clauses in the above examples are short and simple and are constructed in parallel.

Rule 2: Clauses not joined by conjunctions are normally separated by semi-colons.

Example 1: “We arrived exactly at noon as agreed upon yesterday; they arrived over an hour late.”
With conjunction: “We arrived exactly at noon as agreed upon yesterday but they arrived over an hour late.”

Example 2: “We are regular paying members of this club; those boisterous and highly demanding guys are just guests.”
With conjunction: “We are regular paying members of this club while those boisterous and highly demanding guys are just guests.”

Note that the sense of the sentences in Example 1 and Example 2 tends to get confusing when the clauses are punctuated only by a comma:

Example 1 punctuated by a comma: “We arrived exactly at noon as agreed upon yesterday, they arrived over an hour late.”

Example 2 punctuated by a comma: “We are regular paying members of this club, those boisterous and highly demanding guys are just guests.”

What the two punctuation rules you cited are telling us is that stylistically, the length and complexity of the parallel clauses determine the appropriate punctuation mark between them. When the clauses are relatively short and simple, the comma will usually be adequate to punctuate them. When the clauses are long and complex, however, the comma can no longer provide adequate punctuation. The semicolon, which provides a stronger punctuation, must be used instead for clarity’s sake.

Related question by Mwita Chacha, Forum member (July 10, 2012):

A comma is clearly called for before conjunction “but” in an example sentence that clarifies rule 2, is it not?

My reply to Mwita Chacha:

You contended that a comma is clearly called before the conjunction “but” in the following sentence:

“We arrived exactly at noon as agreed upon yesterday but they arrived over an hour late.”

Following that contention, that sentence should be reconstructed as follows:

“We arrived exactly at noon as agreed upon yesterday, but they arrived over an hour late.”

This is indeed the formal, general rule for linking two independent clauses, but in my own experience, it is largely ignored when the two independent clauses are not only short and uncomplicated but also balanced in construction. This is precisely why I didn’t use the comma in this sentence that I used to clarify Rule 2 in my previous posting, as follows:

“We arrived exactly at noon as agreed upon yesterday but they arrived over an hour late.”

See how using the comma looks more and more uncalled for—and I must say overly fastidious—as the balanced, independent clauses get shorter: 

“We arrived exactly at noon but they arrived over an hour late.”
Compare with a comma before “but”: “We arrived exactly at noon, but they arrived over an hour late.”

“We arrived at noon but they arrived late.”
Compare with a comma before “but”: “We arrived at noon, but they arrived late.”

“We arrived on time but they arrived late.”
Compare with a comma before “but”: “We arrived on time, but they arrived late.”

“We were on time but they were late.”
Compare with a comma before “but”: “We were on time, but they were late.”

It’s an entirely different matter, of course, when the independent clauses are long and complicated and when they are not balanced in their structure. This time, the comma before the “but” (and before the other coordinating conjunctions for that matter) becomes absolutely mandatory for clarity’s sake.

Try making sense of the following sentence with long, unbalanced independent clauses:

“We arrived at the airport on time after having to replace a nasty flat tire along the way for almost 20 minutes but our companions in another car that left 30 minutes earlier never made to the airport because they made a wrong exit at the expressway and got hopelessly lost.”

Now see how the sentence reads much more easily and clearly with a comma before the coordinating conjunction “but”:

“We arrived at the airport on time after having to replace a nasty flat tire along the way for almost 20 minutes, but our companions in another car that left 30 minutes earlier never made it to the airport because they made a wrong exit at the expressway and got hopelessly lost.”

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The proper stylistic treatment of acronyms in expositions

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (June 13, 2012):

Why do some news stories use only the acronym for an entity in their lead paragraphs, then just use it repeatedly all throughout the article without spelling out the full name of the entity? Is that only a matter of style or the correct way to go about it?

Also, the acronym “PWDs” was coined to refer to “persons with disabilities.” How can a single person with disability use it in describing herself?

Subsequent question by Miss Mae on the same subject (July 1, 2012):

There are also news stories quoting speakers who did not spell out acronyms in their statements. Should writers keep them at that even if it means baffling possible readers several paragraphs later?

How about popular acronyms such as OS and SMS? Babies are born every minute...

My reply to Miss Mae:

As a matter of style, old-school print journalism mandated that acronyms for individuals and entities shouldn’t be used to identify them on first mention in a news story (except in a headline, of course, where use of the acronym is obviously justified by the space constraints). So every name, whether short or long, would be completely spelled out on first mention and the acronym would be supplied beside it and then used in all subsequent mentions. In present-day journalism, however, this practice is no longer rigorously observed particularly in the case of very long names. In the United States, in particular, we will notice the frequent use by print media of the acronym “SCOTUS” even on first mention for the “Supreme Court of the United States.” It’s admittedly an unsettling practice, but for as long as the acronyms are largely understood on first mention, I don’t think there’s nothing intrinsically wrong about it. After all, the objective is to communicate an idea, and if the acronym is familiar to practically every reader or listener, why not avail of if for brevity and clarity’s sake?

As to the singular form for the notionally plural “PWDs,” it’s common practice to use “a PWD”—minus the “s.” Individually then, a PWD can describe himself or herself as follows: “I’m a PWD.”

Now, when a reporter quotes a statement where an unfamiliar acronym is used for the first time or for the only time in a news story, it is obviously obligatory for him or her to immediately spell it out for the reader or listener.  This can be done by spelling out the acronym in a parenthetical immediately after the acronym or in a note immediately after the quoted statement. For example:

“I think there’s wisdom in the decision of the SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States] to uphold the Health Care Law as legislated by the US Congress,” the first-term Democrat senator from Pennsylvania said.

or, for readers or listeners outside of the United States:

“I think there’s wisdom in the decision of the SCOTUS to uphold the Health Care Law as legislated by the US Congress,” the first-term Democrat senator from Pennsylvania said. (SCOTUS is the acronym for the Supreme Court of the United States.)

As to the use of the popular acronyms “OS” and “SMS” in a story without spelling them out, the writer has to play it by ear. For a technical journal, for instance, there's really no need to spell them out or explain them in a news or feature story. For a formal dissertation, however, it is highly advisable to spell out both of them on first mention.

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How the progressive tenses differ from the perfect progressive

Questions from Miss Mae, Forum member (June 6, 2012):

Am I right that the only difference between a present progressive tense and a present perfect progressive tense is that the action in a present perfect progressive tense already started?

How about the past progressive tense and the past perfect progressive tense? Am I right that the only difference between them lies with the fact that the action in a past perfect progressive tense is already complete?

The future progressive tense and the future perfect progressive tense seem to have no remarkable difference between them, for “perfect” in perfect tenses signify completion. Am I right in those, too?

My reply to Miss Mae:

I’m afraid that your statements about the various forms of the progressive tenses and of the perfect tenses don’t correctly reflect the differences between them. To show why, however, we first need to clearly understand the concept of the perfect tenses and progressive tenses in English.  

The perfect tenses are the verb forms that express an action or state completed at the time of speaking or at a time spoken of (whether in the past, present, or future); the word “perfect” in this sense means “made complete” or “completely done.” The progressive tenses, on the other hand, are the verb forms that express an action or state in progress at the time of speaking or a time spoken of (whether in the past, present, or future).

How the present progressive differs from the present perfect progressive 

The present progressive tense describes an ongoing action that is happening at the same time that the statement is written or spoken. This tense is formed by using “am”/“is”/“are” with the verb form ending in “-ing,” as in the following sentence: “The jurors are reviewing the evidence against the accused.”

In contrast, the present perfect progressive tense describes an action that began in the past, continues in the present, and may continue into the future. This tense is formed by using “has”/“have been” and the present participle of the verb (the verb form ending in “-ing”), as in the following sentence: “The jurors have been reviewing the evidence against the accused much more closely.”

It is therefore incorrect to say that the only difference between the present progressive tense and the present perfect progressive tense is that the action in the former already started. In both of these tenses, in fact, the action has already started. In the present progressive tense, however, there is no indication when that action started; all we know is that the action is in progress even as it is being written or spoken about. In contrast, in the present perfect progressive tense, it is clear that the action started at some time in the past and there is the implicit possibility that it may continue into the future.    

How the past progressive differs from the past perfect progressive

The past progressive tense describes a past action that was happening when another action took place. This tense is formed by using “was”/“were” with the verb form ending in “-ing,” as in the following sentence: “The newspaper reporter was interviewing the high official when the demonstrators pelted the latter with rotten tomatoes.” 

In contrast, the past perfect progressive tense describes a past ongoing action or activity that was completed before some other past action. This tense is formed by using “had been” and the present perfect of the verb (the verb form ending in “-ing”), as in this sentence: “Prior to their arrest, the hoodlums had been victimizing students in the city campus.”

It is therefore incorrect to say that the only difference between the past progressive tense and the past perfect progressive tense is that the action in a past perfect progressive tense is already complete. The past progressive tense describes an ongoing past action or activity that is immediately followed by another action, also in the past. In the past perfect progressive tense, however, the past ongoing action or activity had already ceased or stopped but is told in the context of another past action or activity that followed it.

How the future progressive differs from the future perfect progressive 

The future progressive tense describes an ongoing or continuous action that will take place in the future. This tense is formed by using “will be” or “shall be” with the verb form ending in “-ing,” as in the following sentence: “Next year, we will be touring Europe with our friends.”

In contrast, the future perfect progressive tense describes an action that will occur or will be completed in the future before some other action. This tense is formed by using “will have” with the past participle of the verb, as in the following sentence: “By the time we are back in Rome, we will have been touring no less than 11 European cities.”

It is therefore incorrect to say that there’s no remarkable difference between the future progressive tense and the future perfect progressive tense. The future progressive tense is about an ongoing or continuous action that’s expected to take place in the future, but the future perfect progressive tense is about the expectation of completing an ongoing or continuous action or activity in the future before some other future action or activity takes place.

It will take some doing, but by thoroughly familiarizing ourselves with the attributes and nuances of the perfect tenses and of the progressive tenses, we should be able to construct grammatically airtight sentences in the perfect progressive tenses without any trouble.

For a very comprehensive verb tenses tutorial that covers the tenses all the way to the perfect progressive tenses, click this link to Englishpage.com.

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Tired of hearing Philippine media misusing “inhibit” for “recuse”

Feedback by Eduardo (Jay) Olaguer, Forum member (May 8, 2012):

I’m so tired of hearing Filipino newspapers refer to judges or lawmakers as “inhibiting” themselves, meaning that they withdraw from participating in a decision due to a conflict of interest. Why don’t they use the word “recuse” instead of “inhibit”? Those who recuse themselves are known as “recusants,” like the English Catholics who withdrew from attending Anglican “masses”" during the English Reformation.

My reply to Ed:

I agree with you that “recuse” is the more precise word for the act of lawmakers of withdrawing from participation in collective decision-making owing to a conflict of interest. For some strange reason, however, “inhibit” has gained more traction than “recuse” in Philippine usage. Perhaps a lawyer among the Forum members can share with us an insider’s insight on this evident usage discrepancy.

Here’s how my digital Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines the two words:

recuse
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form: recused ; recusing
Etymology: Middle English, to refuse, reject, from Anglo-French recuser, from Latin recusare
Date: 1949

 : to disqualify (oneself) as judge in a particular case;  broadly   : to remove (oneself) from participation to avoid a conflict of interest
recusal  noun 

inhibit
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin inhibitus, past participle of inhibēre, from in- 2in- + habēre to have — more at HABIT
Date: 15th century

transitive verb 
1 : to prohibit from doing something
2 a : to hold in check  : RESTRAIN  b : to discourage from free or spontaneous activity especially through the operation of inner psychological or external social constraints
intransitive verb   : to cause inhibition
synonyms see FORBID
inhibitive  adjective 
inhibitory  adjective

Indeed, no matter how I look at it, “inhibit” just doesn’t seem to capture the idea or context that the lawmakers are using it for.

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Which is the correct spelling: “program” or “programme”?

Question by lezacoreejes, new Forum member (May 16, 2012):

I always thought you spelled program as programme, but then the computer tells you immediately that it is wrong.

My reply to lezacoreejes:

How the noun “program” is spelled will depend on which country you reside or where the printed material you are reading originated or was published. In the United States and in countries that use American English, the prevailing spelling is “program” for the noun that means a brief and usually printed outline of the order to be followed, of the features to be presented, and of the persons participating in a public performance. In Great Britain and in the British Commonwealth countries, however, the spelling variant “programme” is chiefly used for that word. It’s therefore incorrect to say that “programme” is a misspelling of “program”; what your computer’s spell-check program will tell you will depend on whether it’s programmed for American English or British English. That’s really all there is to it.

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What’s the proper way to use the possessive apostrophe-“s”

Question by Sky, Forum member (April 16, 2012):

Do we need to put ’s in the constructions below?

1. “...essay introduction” or “essay’s introduction” (I know an English-language teacher from a university in Australia using “essay’s introduction,” but what I have learned is “essay introduction,” so I’m confused now.) 

2. “...bank card” or “bank’s card”

3. “...student card” or “student’s card...”

Thanks.

My reply to Sky (April 17, 2012):

The general rule is to use the apostrophe-s for the possessive form of proper nouns and generic names of living or tangible entities, as in “Alicia’s dilemma,” “Manila’s nightlife,” “the planet’s survival,” “Jupiter’s 66 confirmed moons,” “the monkey’s back,” and “the beetle’s lifespan.” Awkward-sounding possessives often result when the apostrophe-s is used for the possessive of inanimate things or abstract concepts, as in “table’s edge” (better: “edge of the table”), “fairy’s tales” (better: “fairy tales”), “democracy’s enemies” (better: “enemies of democracy”), and “sin’s wages” (better: “wages of sin”); such constructions should be routinely avoided. Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule against using the apostrophe-s for the possessive of inanimate things, such as “the razor’s edge” and “a doorknob’s function.” 

Based on the above guidelines, both the possessive forms “essay introduction” and “essay’s introduction” fail the euphony test; the better form is “introduction to the essay.” “Bank card” sounds better than “bank’s card,” and “student card” sounds better than “student’s card.”

When in doubt, use the possessive form that doesn’t sound dissonant or jarring to the ear. I would say that the ultimate criterion for using or not using the apostrophe is how badly the construction sounds when said aloud.

Comment by mika23, Forum member (April 19, 2012):

I think when we use the word “student card” without -’s means it is a pronoun and “student” here is considered as an adjective. I think both cases are right, but depending on your purpose you can choose a suitable answer. Use -’s when we want to emphasize the possession.

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A thorny question about the answer to a series of questions

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (April 15, 2012):

In the following passage, shouldn’t the answer be “The answer is simple: both”?

“And the questions about Germany continue. Berlin or Munich? Castle or club? Ski or hike? East or west? BMW or Mercedes?

“In fact, the answers are simple: both.”

My reply to Miss Mae:

No, since there are actually five questions, answering them with “The answer is simple: both” would not only be grammatically incorrect but also confusing. This statement provided in the passage is therefore correct: “In fact, the answers are simple: both.”

I can understand your confusion though, for even that correct answer is rather semantically slippery. It’s hard to pin down mentally to which “both” refers. For clarity, I would word that statement as follows:

“In fact, the answer to each question is simple: both.”

Another clear way to word that statement:

“In fact, the answers to all five questions are simple: both.”

The first alternative construction, which treats “answer” as a singular subject, makes it clear that the answer “both” applies to each of the five questions; the second alternative construction, which treats “answers” as a plural subject, makes it clear that the answer “both” applies to all five questions.

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The more/most idiomatic ways of saying that one has a cold

Question from Sky, Forum member (April 7, 2012):

Which of the statements below is correct or more/most idiomatic?

1. “I caught a cold.”
2. “I caught cold.”
3. “I caught colds.”
4. “I got a cold.”
5. “I got colds.” 

Thanks.

My reply to Sky:

I would think that Sentences 1 and 4 are the more idiomatic usage among the five you listed. Read them aloud to check for yourself:

1. “I caught a cold.”
4. “I got a cold.”

Sentences 2, 3, and 5 can be fixed and made to sound idiomatic by adding the article “the” before the noun “cold” or “colds,” as follows:

2. “I caught the cold.”
3. “I caught the colds.”
5. “I got the colds.”

Of course, these four colloquial expressions of the same idea are also commonly used:

6. “I have a cold.”
7. “I’ve got a cold.”
8. “I’m down with the cold.”
9. “I went down with the cold.”

All of the nine sentence constructions listed above are grammatically airtight and may be used depending on the particular situation of the speaker and the severity of the affliction.

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Using the conjunction “whenever” and the sequence of tenses

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (April 1, 2012):

If I use “whenever” in the sentence “But through the Nile, cities and civilizations sprang whenever the river overflows and scatter fertile soil onto its banks,” wouldn’t it seem that cities and civilizations still arise in Egypt today since the river still runs off every high tide?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Yes, that sentence would seem to mean that cities and civilizations still arise in Egypt today every time the river run offs at high tide—a state of affairs that couldn’t be possibly true. The semantic problem in that sentence is due to the wrong use of the temporal subordinating conjunction “whenever” as well as the wrong use of the simple past-tense “sprang” in the main clause and of the present-tense “overflows and scatters” in the subordinate clause.

For that complex sentence to yield the correct sense, the sequence of tenses in the two clauses should be corrected as follows:

“But through the Nile, cities and civilizations had sprung in places where the river would overflow and scatter fertile soil onto its banks.”

“Had sprung” is, of course, used here to indicate certain events in the indefinite past, and “would overflow and scatter” is used to indicate that the two indicated actions repeatedly (seasonally) happened in the past.

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When to use “there is” or “there are”

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (March 25, 2012):

I’m getting confused with how “there is” and “there are” should be used. What really should be the rule?

“There is plenty to enjoy in the cultural arena. There are countless attractions, too, trendy and vibrant.”

My reply to Miss Mae:

The two sentences you presented use the so-called anticipatory “there” as subject, where the notional subject is the noun phrase that follows the linking verb “is” or “are.” The anticipatory “there,” as you may recall, carries little or no independent meaning and simply points forward to the notional subject that’s positioned later in the sentence to give it end-weight or emphasis.

The rule for deciding whether the notional subject is singular (thus needing “is”) or plural (thus needing “are) is very simple: it’s singular when the head noun is singular in form or notionally singular, and it’s plural when the head noun is plural in form of notionally plural.

In the first sentence in question, “There is plenty to enjoy in the cultural arena,” the head noun of the noun phrase, “plenty,” is notionally singular, so the use of the singular form linking verb “is” is correct. In the second sentence, “There are countless attractions, too, trendy and vibrant,” the nominal noun of the noun phrase, “attractions,” is plural, so the use of the plural form linking verb “are” is correct.   

RELATED READING:
The wisdom of routinely avoiding anticipatory “there is/are” clauses

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Problem in relating the pronoun “they” to its antecedent nouns

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (March 23, 2012):

How about this sentence?

“From children to music lovers to antique collectors, they can have a drink in the outdoor cafés here, dine in one of the restaurants, or shop in the covered shopping centres.”

Is it right that “they” is used to refer to the “children,” “music lovers,” and “antique collectors”?

My reply to Miss Mae:

The syntax of this sentence is defective and confusing:

“From children to music lovers to antique collectors, they can have a drink in the outdoor cafés here, dine in one of the restaurants, or shop in the covered shopping centres.”

The pronoun “they” is improperly positioned in a way that it can’t be a collective pronoun for the three antecedent subjects in the prepositional phrase upfront of the sentence. The result: that prepositional dangles and is unable to latch on to the subject “they” of the main clause.

Here’s a reconstruction of that sentence that solves the problem:

“Children, music lovers, and antique collectors can have a drink in the outdoor cafés here, dine in one of the restaurants, or shop in the covered shopping centres.”

Still, even in that corrected sentence, there’s something iffy about the listing and the order of the kinds of customers of the commercial establishments. What’s the logic of the primacy of children in that list? Why are they being listed in the league of music lovers and antique collectors? Can’t children be music lovers and antique collectors, too? Can children go to those establishments alone, without adult companions?

This is why from the available information in that sentence, it would make more sense to reconstruct it this way to address those concerns:

“Music lovers and and antique collectors can bring along their children and have a drink in the outdoor cafés here, dine in one of the restaurants, or shop in the covered shopping centres.”

Sentences must not only be grammatically correct but plausible and logically airtight as well.

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The distinction between the usage of “further” and “farther

Question from jonathanfvaldez, Forum member (March 21, 2012):

My web research (see following excerpt) shows that the use of “further” instead of “farther” in the phrase “Nothing could be farther from the truth” is acceptable.  What is your preference?

“If we speak of a statement that is far from the truth, for example, we should also allow the use of farther in a sentence such as Nothing could be farther from the truth. But Nothing could be further from the truth is so well established as to seem a fixed expression.”
(“farther,” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., 2000)”

My reply to jonathanfvaldez:

Hands down, my personal preference is “farther” rather than “further” in the sentence “Nothing could be farther from the truth.” But in the sense of such statements as “Don't speak any further,” I'll go for “further” instead of “farther” anytime.

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The choice between “these” and “that”

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (March 19, 2012):

I finally made up my mind. I’d use “these” in this sentence: 

“Clean, accessible, and diverse—the coast of Zuid Holland is just like these.”

But did I make the right choice? “That” also sounds right...

My reply to Miss Mae:

This sentence of yours is grammatically incorrect: 

“Clean, accessible, and diverse—the coast of Zuid Holland is just like these.”

You can't use the pointing pronoun “these” or “those” to refer to adjectives, only to nouns, pronouns, and other noun forms. To refer or point to adjectives as a collective antecedent in such sentences, use “that” as follows:

“Clean, accessible, and diverse—the coast of Zuid Holland is just like that.”

That sentence of yours can use “these” only as a qualifier of an attribute noun describing the antecedent list of adjectives, as follows:

“Clean, accessible, and diverse—the coast of Zuid Holland has these attributes.”

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Is this correct: “All agents continue to be assisting customers”?

Question by na2rboy, new Forum member (March 10, 2012):

Hi, everyone! At work, I have people telling me that this sentence is correct:

“All available agents continue to be assisting other customers.”

Is it correct? If not, what rule is it breaking? 

In my head, it feels wrong. Maybe because I am desperate to make it “All available agents are still assisting other customers.”

Thanks!

My reply to na2rboy:

No, I don’t think this sentence you presented is structurally and syntactically correct:

“All available agents continue to be assisting other customers.”

It’s one of those iffy, officious, and convoluted statements that get established in the workplace despite being grammatically faulty.

For one, the verb phrase “continue to be assisting other customers” uses the verb “continue” in a very awkward way. In this construction, the phrase “to be assisting other customers” is actually an infinitive phrase—a noun form—functioning as the direct object of the verb “continue.” However, in such constructions, the verb “continue” happens to have a grammar peculiarity: it’s one of those verbs that require the verb embedded in the infinitive phrase to drop the “to” and become what’s called a “bare infinitive.” Below are some examples of how this bare-infinitive transformation works for infinitive phrases that serve as direct object of the verb “continue”:

“continue to be working beyond midnight” becomes “continue working beyond midnight”
“continue to be seeing ghosts” becomes “continue seeing ghosts”
“continue to be teaching algebra” becomes “continue teaching algebra”

When we apply this bare-infinitive transformation to “All available agents continue to be assisting other customers,” the sentence gets streamlined as follows:

“All available agents continue assisting other customers.”

Even in this corrected construction, however, the sentence remains semantically questionable. It’s a fuzzy statement because the verb “continue” doesn’t yield a logical, real-life sense. Indeed, what does it mean when “All available agents continue assisting other customers”? By using the verb “continue,” the statement evokes a wrong sense of a permanent state instead of just a temporary one. Indeed, “continue” is actually a wrong choice of verb in describing the situation at hand. The correct sense will emerge when that verb is replaced by either “are busy” or “are” in these grammatically airtight alternative constructions:

“All available agents are busy assisting other customers.”
“All available agents are assisting other customers at the moment.”

Although the first statement above is grammatically and semantically perfect, I’m leery of its use of the word “busy,” which I think can rub the listener the wrong way. To my mind, the more palatable statement from a customer relations standpoint is the second sentence. Try saying it aloud to check if my perception is right:

“All available agents are assisting other customers at the moment.”

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Using the anticipatory “there”

Question by Stella, new Forum member (March 11, 2012):

Is the sentence constructions below possible this sentence?

“There is a cat there.”
“There it is the MP3,” in the sense of “The MP3 is there.”

Thanks a lot.

My reply to Stella:

Yes, the two sentences below that you presented are grammatically possible:

(1) “There is a cat there.”
(2) “There it is the MP3,” in the sense of “The MP3 is there.”

Sentence 1 actually uses two senses of “there”—the first the so-called anticipatory “there,” and the second, the pointing “there.” Be definition, the anticipatory “there” is pronoun that carries little or no independent meaning but simply points forward to the notional subject that’s placed later in the sentence for reasons of end weight or emphasis. In the sentence “There is a cat there,” the notional subject of the anticipatory “there” is the noun “cat.” On the other hand, the second “there” in that sentence is the pointing “there”—an adjective used for directional emphasis.

Although grammatically possible, Sentence 2 is actually a run-on sentence that strict grammarians are likely to sneer at. To make it grammatically aboveboard, it needs to be punctuated in any of the following ways:

“There it is, the MP3.”
“There it is: the MP3,”
“There it is—the MP3.”

All three punctuations work but the third—the double dash—is preferable stylistically because it delivers just the right sense of pause needed by the statement.

RELATED READING:
The wisdom of routinely avoiding anticipatory “there is/are” clauses

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Problem in subject-verb agreement

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (March 7, 2012):

Is the construction below correct, Sir?

“Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ that the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold.”

A collective noun calls for a singular verb (especially if those involved n the unit are in unison). But the nouns it is referring to are more than one. How should I go about this then?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Yes, the construction of this sentence that you presented is correct:

“Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ that the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold.”

The construction above is actually a complex sentence, with “Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’” as the main clause and the relative clause “that the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold” as the subordinate or dependent clause. It’s true, as you pointed out, that “little region” is a collective noun, but it really has no syntactical relation to the plural-form verb “behold” in the subordinate clause. That verb is operative only in the subordinate clause, and it is in the present-tense plural form because the doer of its action isn’t “Zuid Holland” or “little region” but the group of plural nouns “Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban.” There is therefore no subject-verb disagreement in that sentence at all.

Two alternative constructions of that sentence are these:

(1)  “Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ that is beheld by the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban.” 
(2) “Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ beheld by the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold.”

In these two constructions, no question about subject-verb agreement arises because the verb “beheld” is in the past participle form, unlike in the original sentence construction where a possible subject-verb disagreement might be perceived—wrongly, of course—because “behold” is in the present-tense.
  
By the way, for those who are not very knowledgeable in world geography, Zuid Holland is South Holland (“zuid” is the Dutch word for “south”), a province situated on the North Sea in the western part of the Netherlands. Its provincial capital is The Hague and it is one of the most densely populated and industrialized areas in the world.

Rejoinder by Miss Mae (March 10, 2012):

Uh, oh. I thought wrongly!

Because the reason why I got confused with this construction is the presence of the five collective nouns (“the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold”).

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The proper way to construct elliptical sentences

Question e-mailed by Fern S. (January 25, 2012):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I wrote a draft memorandum to our personnel department. The last sentence of the memorandum read as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and are interested to transfer to our department.”

Our assistant manager edited the foregoing sentence by deleting the word “are” after “and.” The edited sentence reads as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.”

Was the correction correct?

Thank you.

Fern 

My reply to Fern:

Yes, I think your assistant manager’s correction of that sentence in your draft memo is well-advised. By deleting the word “are” after “and” from your original sentence construction, your assistant manager has come up with this more streamlined and better-sounding elliptical sentence:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.”

Recall that an elliptical construction is a sentence that omits from a clause one or more words that would otherwise be required by the remaining elements. This is done to streamline a sentence and make it more concise and easier to articulate. For instance, the sentence “The youngest staff in the office is as competent as the eldest” is an elliptical form of this fully spelled-out sentence: “The youngest staff in the office is as competent as the eldest staff in the office.” Note that the second mention of the words “staff in the office” has been dropped to streamline the sentence and make it more concise.

Let’s take a closer look at your original sentence construction:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and are interested to transfer to our department.”

The above sentence construction of yours is actually also an elliptical or streamlined version of the following fully spelled-out sentence that has two relative clauses:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and who are interested to transfer to our department.”

When you streamlined the above sentence, however, you only dropped the “who” of the second relative clause to come up with this elliptical version:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and are interested to transfer to our department.”  

While there’s nothing grammatically wrong with the streamlined sentence above, I would say that your effort to make it elliptical wasn’t done completely because you only dropped the relative pronoun “who” and retained the second linking verb “are.” The norm when making such sentences elliptical is to drop both the relative pronoun “who” and the verb that follows it. By dropping the second linking verb “are” as well, your assistant manager did right in completing that “ellipticalization” process as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.”

Even so, I think the English of the above elliptical sentence as well as that of your original sentence construction isn’t grammatically airtight. It actually needs to drop the comma before the relative clause “who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.” This is because that relative clause is actually restrictive in nature and as such, that comma before it is grammatically unnecessary. Removing that comma would convert that relative clause into the correct restrictive form, as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.” 

You will recall that in English grammar, a restrictive relative clause is one that’s essential to the definiteness of the word it modifies, as in “The man who was caught speeding is a high government official.” In contrast, a nonrestrictive relative clause is one that’s not essential to the definiteness of the meaning of the word it modifies, “My eldest daughter, who has a master’s degree, has decided not to pursue a PhD for the time being.” One distinctive difference between them is that a restrictive relative clause can’t be dropped from the sentence because doing so seriously changes the meaning of that sentence, while a nonrestrictive relative clause is actually optional to that sentence and can be dropped at will. Another difference is that a restrictive relative clause shouldn't be set off by commas, while a nonrestrictive relative clause needs to be set off from the main clause by a comma or a pair of commas depending on its position in the sentence. 

RELATED POSTINGS ON ELLIPTICAL SENTENCES: 
“Deconstructing and understanding those puzzling elliptical sentences,” August 28, 2011
“Elliptical sentences often read and sound better than regular sentences,” June 18, 2010

RELATED POSTINGS ON RELATIVE CLAUSES:
“Guideposts for using ‘who,’ ‘that,’ and ‘which’ to link relative clauses,” April 2, 2011
“Why it’s tough choosing between ‘that’ and ‘which’ to link relative clauses,” April 9, 2011

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