Jose Carillo's Forum

STUDENTS’ SOUNDING BOARD

We’ll be glad to help clarify matters about English usage for you

This Students’ Sounding Board is a section created especially for college and high school students. On request, it will provide informal advice and entertain discussions on specific questions, concerns, doubts, and problems about English grammar and usage as taught or taken up in class. If a particular rule or aspect of English confuses you or remains fuzzy to you, the Students’ Sounding Board can help clarify it. Please keep in mind, though, that this section isn’t meant to be an editing facility, research resource, or clearing house for student essays, class reports, term papers, or dissertations. Submissions shouldn’t be longer than 100-150 words.

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The uses of the “is to +verb”/“are to + verb” grammar structure

Question e-mailed by Jhumur Dasgupta (Jun6, 2012):

I have frequently come across sentence structures such as “is to”/“are to” such as the one given below:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks are to receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal.”

I prefer not using those structures as I don’t have much clue about them, instead opting to use “will” structures. Can you please explain in detail the usefulness of “is to”/“are to” structures and when to use them?

My reply to Jhumur:

In formal English, the “is to”/“are to” grammatical structure is often used to state officially mandated arrangements, plans, or regulations. In the present tense, they evoke the sense of a definite expectation that the action or activity referred to will be undertaken or will take place in the near future, as in the sentence you presented as example:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks are to receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal.”

Such sentences that use “is to” or “are to” in tandem with the verb—“receive” in the case of the sentence above—convey the idea of a very strong certainty, in contrast to sentences that use the usual future-tense structure “will receive,” as in the following construction:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks will receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal.”

In this simple future-tense version of the “are to receive” sentence, the element of the mandate to make the action happen is absent, and only the futurity and not the strong certainty of that action is evoked.

When used in the past tense, of course, the “is to”/“are to” structure becomes “was to”/“were to” that, in tandem with “have had,” forms the perfect infinitive to describe a planned action or activity that didn’t take place, as in the following hypothetical variation of the sentence you presented:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks were to receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal, but the plan was aborted due to strong opposition by general public.”

The “is to”/“are to” grammatical structure also finds common use either to issue or acknowledge instructions or orders, as in the following examples:

Issuing an order: “You are to report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”
Acknowledging an order: “We are to report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”

Note that the aspect of compulsion to do the stated action is markedly absent or at most weak when the simple future tense is used:

At best an expectation: “You will report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”
At best a promise: “We will report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”

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Options for avoiding officious subjunctive sentences

Question from leelee, new Forum member (January 9, 2012):

I got a G-TELP today, and I found some confusing questions. 

1. S recommended that ----------- ~  
(a) should meet (b) must meet (c) meet  
<- I know that the sentence including request, order, ask, command... can omit should, but if there are two options, which one should I pick?

My reply to leelee (February 25, 2012):

Sorry for this much delayed reply, leelee. Your question got buried in the flurry of postings in the Forum at that time, so it’s only now that I’m able to answer it.

That sentence in the G-TELP multiple-choice test that baffled you is one of the forms that sentences in the subjunctive mood can take. Recall that the subjunctive mood denotes acts or states that are conditional or contingent on possible outcomes of the speaker’s wish, desire, or doubt, as in “I’ll forgive her if she apologizes.” This is as opposed to denoting acts and states in real-world situations, which is what the indicative mood does (“She just took the risk.”), or to expressing direct commands, which is what the imperative mood does (“Take your time!”).

Now, the form of the sentence in that G-TELP test is what’s called the parliamentary motion or jussive form of the subjunctive. It can denote an indirect demand, strong suggestion, or pointed request, as in “We ask that the Impeachment Court act on this matter without delay.” Take note that here, the main clause states the speaker’s desire (“we ask”) and the subordinate “that”-clause describes the nature of the desired action (“that the Impeachment Court act on this matter without delay”). Also, we must firmly keep in mind that in this form of the subjective sentence, the operative verb in the “that”-clause oddly takes the third-person singular form minus the “-s” or “-es” at the tail end, or what’s known as the base form of the verb (in this particular case, “ask” is used instead of “asks”).

Based on these considerations, it becomes clear that the sentence contemplated by that G-TELP question is a sentence in the subjunctive mood. The correct answer choice is therefore “(a) meet,” so the correct form of that sentence should be this: “S recommended that we meet.” The answer couldn’t be “(b) must meet,” for using the verbal auxiliary “must” in the sentence “S recommended that we must meet” will make it semantically defective. Indeed, the verbal auxiliary “must” is redundant in that sentence because both its sense and purpose are already subsumed by the subjunctive character of the construction itself.

Having said that, I must say that subjunctive sentences of the form presented by Leelee can sometimes sound very formal and officious. Indeed, the use the subjunctive “that”-clause in that manner can justifiably be used only by individuals who can invoke a vested power to compel other people beholden to them to follow what they say, such as statesmen, legislators, bureaucrats, jurists, lawyers, ideologues, and clerics.

So for laypeople like me, I would recommend a grammatically simpler and less formal-sounding alternative: use the auxiliary verb “should” together with the operative verb in the “that”-clause, as in “S recommended that we should meet.” This, in fact, was what you cited as a grammatically correct alternative to the subjunctive construction, except that “should” is really optional grammatically and can thus be dropped altogether. So perhaps using plain and unpretentious English would be an even simpler and more forthright alternative: “S says we should meet.”

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Positioning pronouns in complex sentences largely a style decision

Question by Chase, Forum member (January 24, 2012):

I am having difficulty with the placement of pronouns in complex sentences. In the following examples, do we place the pronouns in the subordinate clause or the independent clause?

Juan and Maria went to the movies. Juan and Maria finished studying.
A. After they finished studying, Juan and Maria went to the movies. 
B. Juan and Maria went to the movies after they finished studying.

John did not win the competition. John was disappointed. 
A. Much to his disappointment, John did not win the competition. 
B. Much to John's disappointment, he did not win the competition. 

The chicken was delicious. The chicken was spicy.
A. Though the chicken was spicy, it was delicious.
B. Though it was spicy, the chicken was delicious.

Jenny queued outside the shop for five hours. Jenny wanted to buy the limited edition bag.
A. As she wanted to buy the limited edition bag, Jenny queued outside the shop for five hours.
B. As Jenny wanted to buy the limited edition bag, she queued outside the shop for five hours

Alice put the ingredients on the table. Alice baked some cookies.
A. Before Alice baked some cookies, she put the ingredients on the table
B. Before she baked some cookies, Alice put the ingredients on the table.

Mary walks to school every day. She wants to keep fit.
A. Since she wants to keep fit, Mary walks to school every day.
B. Since Mary wants to keep fit, she walks to school every day.

My reply to Chase:

In complex sentences, whether to position pronouns in the subordinate clause or in the independent clause is largely a stylistic decision. That decision will be based on these considerations: (1) the type of composition, whether narrative, expository, argumentative, persuasive, etc.; (2) the position of the sentence in the paragraph, whether lead sentence or part of the development of that lead sentence; and (3) the function of the sentence, whether a topic sentence, an explication sentence, or a transition sentence. 

As a general rule, when a composition is started by a complex sentence with a front-end subordinate clause, that subordinate clause should carry the nouns to clearly identify them to the reader before anything else, after which the independent (main) clause can use the pronouns for those nouns.

Applying this general rule to your first example, the composition should start with the complex sentence in this form:

After Juan and Maria finished studying, they went to the movies. Juan was so tired that he went to sleep as soon as they were seated, but Maria stayed awake until the end of the film…”

Starting with a complex sentence using the pronouns in the front-end subordinate clause undesirably postpones the identity of the subjects—a state of affairs that could confuse some readers as to the identity of the subjects (in particular, it could conceivably give rise to the question of whether the pronoun “they” refers to persons distinct from “Juan and Maria”) :

After they finished studying, Juan and Maria went to the movies. Juan was so tired that he went to sleep as soon as they were seated, but Maria stayed awake until the end of the film…” 

On the other hand, when a complex sentence serves as a transition device in a composition, using pronouns in the front-end subordinate clause becomes not only desirable but functional. See how this applies to your second example:

“John was so keen on getting the gold medal in the swimming Olympics. He practiced long and hard for it, doing several laps in the pool even past midnight in the run-up to the event. Much to his disappointment, however, John did not win the competition...

In the last sentence of the passage above, putting the proper noun “John” in the front-end subordinate clause doesn’t work and sound as well in the context of the total narrative:

“John was so keen on getting the gold medal in the swimming Olympics. He practiced long and hard for it, doing several laps in the pool even past midnight in the run-up to the event. Much to John’s disappointment, however, he did not win the competition...” 

For a stand-alone sentence, of course, it’s much more preferable to put the pronoun in the front-end subordinate clause:

Though the chicken was spicy, it was delicious.”

In contrast, putting the pronoun in the main clause can make some readers momentarily—and unnecessarily—wonder what the sentence is talking about:

Though it was spicy, the chicken was delicious.”

Although it’s ultimately the writer’s stylistic decision whether to put the pronouns in the front-end subordinate clause or in the main clause of complex sentences, I must say that the discerning reader is the best judge of the wisdom of that decision.

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“I am too shy and this hampers my progress in speaking English”

E-mail from ianconnectsyou, new Forum member (December 11, 2011):

Sir, I would like to ask you for advice on how to boost my confidence in speaking English. This has been a problem that I have not been able to solve. I know that I can speak good English compared to other students, but the problem is that I am too shy, to the point that I will begin my conversation in English and shift to Filipino when I see or notice that people start looking at me. I do not know what they are thinking when they hear me speaking in English; I infer, however, that they think of me as haughty, or “mayabang” in Filipino. I am only successful in thinking in English because that is something nobody can hear. I know this is an important issue for me because it can hamper my progress to confidently speak and write in English. I wish you could share something.

Also, please give me some advice or study method to become fluent in English. For sure I have seen many about it on the Internet, but of course I prefer yours.

Thanks.

My reply to ianconnectsyou:

You are not alone in your problem with your spoken English, Ian. I experienced it myself when I was a young man like you, and over the past nine years, many readers of my English-usage column in The Manila Times would confide to me that they were having the same problem. Shyness in speaking English shouldn’t be a permanent handicap, though; it can be overcome by continuously improving one’s English grammar and usage and by pursuing a no-nonsense personal speech improvement program. So, to achieve this goal, consider the same lines of action I had suggested to young people like you in an essay I wrote for my column way back in 2003. That essay later became the epilogue of my first English-usage book, English Plain and Simple, and I am now posting it here to help put you on the road to becoming fluent and confident in your spoken English:

Advice to the English-challenged

Scores of readers of my daily column in the Manila Times have asked me by e-mail how they can improve not only their written but also their spoken English. The two notes below are typical of their plight about their proficiency in the language:

Arkie Manny: “Can you please give me advice on how to converse in English more effectively? I am working here abroad and there are times when I stutter when talking with my colleagues.” 

Abby B., who studies in a prestigious Philippine university: “Way back in high school, we were not trained to speak English well. So now that I am in college, it is proving to be a very big disadvantage. I have a problem communicating with people. Sometimes I fail to answer my teacher’s questions during recitation not because I don’t know the answer, but because I don’t know how to deliver it. I get scared that I might not say what I really want to say and that my grammar might be wrong. I find it hard to deal with the problem. It affects my self-esteem. I want to become competitive. I want to become fluent. I hope you can give me advice.”

Arkie’s and Abby’s woes are actually very similar, so I gave them the same advice. Of course, I offered it not as speech therapist nor speech improvement expert, of which I’m neither, but only as one who, many years ago, suffered from both problems mildly and had decently managed to cope with them.

I know of at least three reasons why some people find it difficult to express themselves in social, business, and classroom situations: a minor congenital vocal defect, an inferiority complex, or a deficient vocabulary, bad grammar, and bad pronunciation. To have any of these problems is, of course, excruciating enough. But worse is that many people just give up and blame their genetics, their upbringing, and their schools for it. Few bother to look deeply into their problem and find ways to surmount it.

In the case of a vocal defect, like the legendary stutter of Demosthenes of ancient Greece, personal initiative can make a lot of difference. Every day, that Athenian sword-maker’s son would do a solitary marathon and huff and puff through the city streets to the beach, stuff his mouth with pebbles, then start orating to the waves at the top of his voice. In time, the stutter disappeared and he went on to become the greatest orator Greece had ever known. Today, of course, you need not even do such an excruciating routine. You can simply get hold of a good English-language book or magazine and start reading aloud in the privacy of your bedroom. You can even do audiotapes of your readings to check your progress. If you do this for at least 20 minutes each night for a month, it just might do wonders to your recalcitrant tongue and diction as it did to mine.

If you have inferiority complex, there should be two or three personality development centers in your area that can help. I have not gone to one myself, but I had observed first-hand how their specialists make people see clearly the nature of their speech problems. The simple assisted routine of watching yourself speak in front of a mirror, or of being videotaped to capture your bad pronunciation as well as your tics and mannerisms, can be a painfully revealing but liberating process. A young secretary of mine many years ago suffered from an exasperating shyness; when spoken to, she would slur her replies and her right eye would blink rapidly without her even knowing it. I sent her to one such center and she became a self-confident, more refined woman in eight weeks, the slur and blinking gone.

Finally, as to deficient vocabulary and bad grammar, I actually know of only one appropriate course of action for that: a methodical self-review of English grammar, reading a lot of good English-language books and magazines, and checking the dictionary for the meaning and pronunciation of any new word you encounter. It is sad that many schools and many teachers these days cannot be trusted to help you in this; their own problems with English vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation maybe even worse than yours. You can easily see this in the incomprehensible, tortured English of leading Philippine educators who make the mistake of publishing their work in newspapers. Also, if you can help it, avoid tuning in to the Taglish morning programs of the local TV networks; listening to their fractured English and Filipino can set back your self-improvement efforts a few days each time.

As one who was similarly English-challenged in speech and who suffered from a mild stutter until third year in high school, I can tell you that there are few better therapies than the three I have described. Of course I must say one more thing: good English diction, as with practically all art forms, is simply the result of patiently cultivating the quality of one’s mind and of practice, practice, practice.
-----------------
From the book English Plain and Simple: No-Nonsense Ways to Learn the Global Language by Jose A. Carillo © 2004 by the author © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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Does “have to” mean the same as the modal auxiliary verb “must”?

Questions sent in as private message by Pipes, Forum member (November 26, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I hope you haven’t grown tired of replying to my every question. I actually have these follow-up questions if you don’t mind:

1. What is the difference between “have to” and “must”? Do they mean the same thing when they refer to obligation? Is it true that we can use them interchangeably, as what other grammarians say? 

2. Is it correct to use the subject pronoun “she” in the IF-clause, as in: “If I were she, I would have joined the camping?” 

3. What exactly is the correct response to the question: “How do you do?” I was told it should be “How do you do, too?” Is that correct?

Thank you so much, Sir. Have a good night!

Yours, 
Pipes

My reply to Pipes:

No, Pipes, don’t you worry. I won’t ever grow tired of answering sensible questions from people who really want to improve their English grammar and usage. They are what this Forum is primarily for.

Now to my thoughts on your latest questions:

1. What is the difference between “have to” and “must”? Do they mean the same thing when they refer to obligation? Is it true that we can use them interchangeably, as what other grammarians say?

“Have to” and “must” both express a desire or resolve to do something but they mean it in different ways. This being the case, they shouldn’t be used interchangeably.

Generally, “have to” expresses an impersonal obligation demanded or imposed by another person or entity; the subject of “have to” is obliged to do the action of the verb that follows, as in “I have to clock in to work at 8:30 a.m. every day.” “Motorists in Britain have to drive on the left lane.”

In contrast, “must” expresses a subjective obligation or resolve on the part of the speaker or subject. It’s a modal auxiliary verb for indicating that the action of the verb that follows is essential or necessary, as in “I must put an end to this lopsided arrangement.” “She must quit the job or get fired!”

2. Is it correct to use the subject pronoun “she” in the IF-clause, as in: “If I were she, I would have joined the camping?” 

In subjunctive sentences like “If I were her/she, I would have joined the camping,” it remains contentious whether to use the object pronoun “her” or the subject pronoun “she.” For formal writing, it’s highly advisable to use “she” in such sentences: “If I were she, I would have joined the camping?” English teachers and hidebound bureaucrats definitely won’t quibble over your choice. Many people find such sentences stiff and unnatural-sounding, though, so they often use “her” instead in informal writing or speech: “If I were her, I would have joined the camping.” Depending on the communication situation, use your best judgment when making the choice.

3. What exactly is the correct response to the question: “How do you do?” I was told it should be “How do you do, too?” Is that correct?

As far as I know, the prevailing appropriate, positive polite response to “How do you do?” is “I’m fine, thank you! And you?” or, in “I’m good, thank you! And you?” (A more ebullient reply would be “I’m doing great, thank you! And you?”) To reply “How do you do, too?” would be too nonchalant, excruciatingly stiff—perhaps even irritating. I suppose a middle-ground, still acceptable response would be “I’m fine, thank you. And how about you?”

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Clarification of the proper usage of “Do you mind…?” questions

I made a back check of my e-mails for the past month and came across this e-mail from Pipes dated November 5, 2011 with a pdf file of the book page I requested. Due to an oversight, I missed reading it earlier.

Here’s the e-mail from Pipes:


Dear Mr. Carillo,

Attached is the copy of the book I had told you about. However, since the book was written and published here in Thailand, I guess there is not much to worry about. You can take at look at how erroneous the book is.

Yours,
Pipes

My reply to Pipes:

I found that all the responses on that page regarding this statement are grammatically and logically correct: “If the sentence begins with “Do you mind...? or “Would you mind…?”

Your note to me was as follows:

4. Our book suggests that the correct responses for the questions that start with “Would you mind...?” and “Do you mind...?” are “Yes, I would mind” and “Yes, I do mind.” (signifying approval)?

Shouldn’t the responses be “No, I wouldn’t mind” and “NO, I don’t mind.”?

I said in my reply that you were correct in saying that to signify approval of the requested action, the correct responses should be “No, I wouldn’t mind” and “No, I don’t mind,” as in the following examples that I provided: 

Question: “Would you mind closing the door?” Correct response signifying approval: “No, I wouldn’t mind, go right ahead.” 

Question: “Do you mind closing the door?” Correct response signifying approval: “No, I don’t mind, go right ahead.”

Upon reviewing the prescribed alternative answers in the book, however, I found that you have misunderstood them to be all signifying disapproval. On the contrary, all of those answers actually signify approval of the requested action (“No, of course not,” “No, not at all,” “Not at all,” etc.). What this means is that they are all correct responses. It looks like you’ve simply mistaken them for the “Not Permit” answers below them on that same page, which prescribe the answers signifying disapproval (“Yes, I do,” “Yes, I do mind,” “Yes, I would,” etc.)

To sum up, all of the prescribed responses in that page are grammatically and logically correct, so I suggest that you go over them again so you can internalize their usage in the proper way.

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When “man” functions in a sentence not as noun but as adjective

Question sent as private message by Pipes, Forum member (November 2, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I would just like to consult you with regard to the following questions:

1. How does the word “man” function in the following sentence?

“He is a man.”

Am I right that it functions as a noun, and that the sentence pattern is S-LV-C? How does it become S-LV-Cadj?

2. “Men plough the field and women pull out the young rice shoots from a nursery seedbed that are big enough to transplant.”

I read that sentence from a magazine about Thai Farming. However, I am not sure if the clause “that are big enough to transplant” is in the right place or not. 

Thank you.

Respectfully yours,
Pipes

My reply to Pipes,

Yes, you’re right. The word “man” functions as a noun complement in the sentence “He is a man.” The sentence pattern is therefore S-LV-C.

The pattern of that sentence can be made into S-LV-Cadj-Adv by making “man” function as an adjective complement modified by an adverb, as follows:

“He is man enough.”

Here, “man” can’t stand alone as an adjective complement; it needs the adverb “enough” to make it functional in that sentence. A construction that can purely be S-LV-Cadj—meaning that the adjective alone works as a complement—is the following sentence where the adjective “manly” takes the place of the noun “man”:

“He is manly.”

(For the uninitiated in the abbreviations for sentence patterns, the codes above are being used as follows:  S – subject, LV – linking verb, C – complement, Cadj – adjective complement, Adv – adverb. For a comprehensive listing of all the sentence pattern abbreviations, click this link to “Sentence Patterns” in the Towson University Writing Support website.)

Now, regarding this sentence that you’ve read from a Thai farming magazine:

“Men plough the field and women pull out the young rice shoots from a nursery seedbed that are big enough to transplant.”

Here, the relative clause “that are big enough to transplant” is a dangling modifier, unable to find a proper subject to modify in that sentence. It couldn’t logically modify the noun phrase “a nursery seedbed” that adjoins it. Its true subject is, of course, the noun phrase “the young rice shoots,” but the noun phrase “a nursery seedbed” gets in the way and prevents the modification from taking place.

A rewrite of that sentence is needed to make the dangling modifier logically connect to its true subject, as follows:

“Men plough the field and women pull out from a nursery seedbed the young rice shoots that are big enough to transplant.”

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An assortment of bewildering questions about English usage

Questions sent as private message by pipes, Forum member (October 27, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

Good day!

I would just like to consult you about the following grammar-related questions that baffle me a lot:

1. During the search for Miss Universe 2011, the male host said, “Architecture and Agriculture is her hobby.” I’m sure I did hear him right. Since when have they (“Architecture and Agriculture”) become one? Is the use of the verb here correct?

2. What are the correct plural forms of “fish” and “food?” I recall my elementary and secondary teachers telling us about “schools of fish” and “foods.” However, my college professor told us that we should use “fishes” for fish and “food” for the noun food instead. Was he right in his grammar prescription?

3. When do we use “had...had” as in, “The boy had already had experience on the road with Gypsies....”?

4. Our book suggests that the correct responses signifying approval for the questions that start with “Would you mind...?” and “Do you mind...?” are “Yes, I would mind” and “Yes, I do mind.” 

Shouldn’t the responses be “No, I wouldn’t mind” and "No, I don’t mind”?

5. Is there such a thing as a “possible conditional”? Would you mind giving me examples?

I am not an expert on these. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much.

Yours,
pipes

My reply to pipes:

Let’s take up your questions one by one:

1. “Architecture and agriculture is her hobby.”

Of course, that male host in the recent Miss Universe 2011 committed a grammar boo-boo by treating the compound subject “architecture and agriculture” as singular; he should have used the plural form of the verb “be” and the plural noun complement “hobbies” in that sentence, as follows: “Architecture and agriculture are her hobbies.” In the presence of so many samples of pulchritude from all over the world, that male host must have been mesmerized into thinking that the noun phrase “architecture and agriculture” is in the same league as, say, the expression “the long and the short of it.” The elements of this latter compound phrase are so inseparable that they have come to be taken as a unit, so the phrase is considered singular, as in “The long and the short of it is that he made a grammar mistake.” 

2. The correct plural forms of “fish” and “food”

Your college professor was correct is prescribing “fishes” as the plural form of “fish,” as in “schools of fish” and “fishes” when referring to more than two of such aquatic animals. When the word “fish” is used to refer to the flesh of fish used as food, however, that prescription no longer applies, for “fish” then becomes a collective noun that’s considered singular in form, as in “A lot of fish was served at lunch.”  

And, yes, your college professor was also correct in prescribing “food” as the collective singular form for the noun “food.” That must be qualified, though, to be true only for several servings of the same kind of food, as in “The host served several plates of food unfamiliar to the guests.” When referring to various kinds of food as products, though, we can use the plural form “foods” for them, as in “The company manufactures various foods in its new facility.”

3. The use of the form “had...had”

In the sentence that you provided, “The boy had already had experience on the road with Gypsies,” the past-perfect form “had…had” is used to indicate that the boy already had a previous encounter on the road with Gypsies before another such experience with them in the past. 

The past perfect form “had…had” consists of the main verb “had”—the past-tense form of the verb “have” in the sense of “to acquire or get possession of”—and the past participle ‘had,” to which an object (“experience” in the example above) is added. 

Without the adverb “already” as used in the example above, “had…had” is typically used in past-perfect sentences relating two separate past actions, one of which happened earlier than the other, as in “We had had breakfast by the time Alice came home.” 

4. The correct responses signifying approval for the questions that start with “Would you mind...?” and “Do you mind...?”   

The book you are using is grievously wrong if it indeed prescribes that the correct responses signifying approval for the questions that start with “Would you mind...?” and “Do you mind...?” are “Yes, I would mind” and “Yes, I do mind.” That book’s author or authors must have been terribly misinformed or confused when they made those prescriptions, for the well-established usage is that the correct responses to those questions signifying approval are exactly the opposite of what they prescribed:

Question: “Would you mind closing the door?” Correct response signifying approval: “No, I wouldn’t mind, go right ahead.” 

Question: “Do you mind closing the door?” Correct response signifying approval: “No, I don’t mind, go right ahead.”

Please furnish me the title and other details of that book and, if possible, a scanned copy of the page where that erroneous prescription appears. I think representations must be made to withdraw that book from circulation right away so it can be stopped from perpetuating this very serious grammar misinformation about English grammar.  

5. Is there such a thing as a “possible conditional”? 

Yes, of course. The possible conditional, also called the future possible conditional or the first conditional (real possibility), is the simplest form of the conditional sentence. (Click this link to a comprehensive discussion of the conditionals in the Forum, “The four types of conditional sentences.”) Such sentences talk about a future possibility that depends upon a certain future condition, and they take the form of an “if”-clause in the simple present tense, with the main clause in the simple future tense.

Here are two examples:

(1) “If you come this weekend, I’ll take you to the concert.”
(2) “If the team performs well tonight, we’ll have a chance of qualifying for the championship.”

Alternatively, the order of the “if”-clause and the main clause in possible conditionals can be inverted without changing their meaning:

(1) “I’ll take you to the concert if you come this weekend.”
(2) “We’ll have a chance of qualifying for the championship if the team performs well tonight.”

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The difference between “expected from” and “expected of” someone

Question from Nathan_Yell, Forum member (October 24, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I would like to know how “expected from” and “expected of” are used specifically. What is the difference, for example, of saying “This is expected from the manager” to “This is expected of the manager”?

Thank you!

My reply to Nathan_Yell:

The difference between “expected from” and “expected of” is the nature of the object being expected. “Expected from” means that something, whether material or nonmaterial, is being anticipated to come from someone and that there will be an actual transfer of that something from the source to the one expecting it, as in “This bonus is expected from the manager” and “This negative response is expected from the suspended sales clerk.” On the other hand, “expected of” means believing that someone is capable of living up to or adopting some standard of performance, behavior, or way of thinking, as in “This level of performance is expected of anyone hired for this executive position” and “Taking its corporate social responsibility is something we would expect of a company that big.” In this case, since the expected object is invariably an intangible one, there is no expectation of that object being actually transferred to the one expecting it. The knowledge that the expectation is met is enough.

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