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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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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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Why “luxury vehicle” can’t be written as “luxurious car”

Question e-mailed by forces20, Forum member (October 15, 2011):

Good evening Sir Carillo,

1. Why can’t the phrases/terms “luxury vehicle” and “development communication” be written instead as “luxurious car” and “developmental communication,” respectively?

2. Is the article “the” necessary in “Department of the Interior and Local Government”?

3. Why do we need to use “between” in the phrase “read between the lines” and “between the rivers” instead of the preposition “among”? (I encounter numerous phrases using the preposition “between”).

Thanks,
forces20

My reply to forces20:

(1)
A “luxury vehicle” and a “luxurious car” are two different things.

A “luxury vehicle” is a term that refers to a class of vehicles that are more expensive than standard models because they have features that are not absolutely necessary but are offered to add prestige, comfort, or pleasure to people who can afford them. For instance, among Toyota cars, the Vios is an entry-level model—meaning lower-priced—while the Lexus is a luxury model that commands several multiples of the price of the lower-priced models. In terms of class of vehicles, sedans are usually offered by car manufacturers as lower-priced models and sports utility vehicles as well as sports cars as luxury models.

On the other hand, a “luxurious car” is a very expensive one characterized by self-indulgence and ostentation on the part of its owner. It is bought not so much for its use as transportation as for the sense of prestige and social distinction it gives to its owner. In a society where most everybody drives a Toyota or Kia sedan, for instance, a Camaro or Aston-Martin would conspicuously stand out as a luxurious car.

As to “development communication” and “developmental communication,” they are actually two different things. “Development communication” is a generic term that refers to the communication of nothing specific; it’s something that’s neither here nor there. In contrast, “developmental communication” is communication designed to assist growth or bring about improvement of a skill or craft; specifically, it refers to a college course offered to teach the discipline of bringing about such growth or improvement.

(2)
Using the article “the” in “Department of the Interior and Local Government” is a stylistic choice rather than a grammatical one. That proper noun can do as well without that “the.”

(3)
The use of “between” instead of “among” in the phrases “read between the lines” and “between the rivers” is dictated by the particular semantics of those phrases. This is a rather thorny aspect of English grammar that baffles a lot of people. To fully understand the usage of those two prepositions, I suggest you check out an earlier Forum posting of mine on the subject, “My hunch was right about the usage of ‘between’ and ‘among.’

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Should the noun “styrofoam” be spelled with an uppercase “S”?

Question from katrina90925, new Forum member (September 17, 2011):

Good day.

I am an editor of our school publication. I edited one of my co-editors’ articles, correcting the capital “S” of the word “styrofoam” to a lower case. Then he told me that “Styrofoam” is a patented name and should be capitalized. But again, I remember that this can be proper noun taken as common noun since it is used all the time. 

What is the real rule behind this? Thank you very much.

My reply to katrina90925:

Your editor is right in saying that “Styrofoam” is a patented name. It’s a 60-year-old trademark of The Dow Chemical Company for a light, resilient extruded polystyrene foam insulation, and as such should be treated as a proper name with the first letter in uppercase. However, that name is now commonly used in the generic sense, with the first letter in lower case, for disposable foam products such as coffee cups, coolers and packaging materials—a generic usage that Dow objects to on the ground that these materials are not made of Styrofoam but from expanded polystyrene (EPS), which doesn’t have the insulation value, compressive strength, or moisture-resistant properties of the Dow product.

So the question is: Should the word “Styrofoam” always be treated as a proper noun with the first letter in upper case? Three dictionaries I consulted, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the Oxford Dictionary, and Collins English Dictionary, acknowledge the generic, lower-case form as common usage in print. The Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, on the other hand, recognizes only the proper noun form with uppercase first letter. That’s three against one, so I think it would be going against the grain of current usage to scrupulously treat that word as a proper name all the time. When using it as a modifier, for instance, it would look too commercial to write “We used Styrofoam picnic boxes”; it would be much more natural and unobtrusive to write that as “We used styrofoam picnic boxes,” particularly if you aren’t sure of the provenance of those boxes. (I must warn you, though, that if you use Microsoft Spellchecker, it would insist on “Styrofoam” as a proper noun. I would routinely countermand that prescription if I were you.)

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What are the reasons for considering English a universal language?

Question by forces20, Forum member (September 13, 2011):

What are the reasons why is English considered universal language? Just curious and amazed.

My reply to forces20:

I can’t answer your question because it’s a loaded one that demands acceptance of a debatable academic premise, which is that English is a universal language. I personally don’t think English is a universal language whether in the literal or figurative sense; to me, it’s a premise that’s in the same league as the rhetorical claim that “mathematics is the universal language” or that “music is the universal language.” All I can tell you without equivocation is that English is a global language in the sense that it has wide currency as today’s dominant language for knowledge acquisition, international business and diplomacy, as well as mass communication and entertainment. I’m afraid that to accept your premise that English is a universal language—or the universal language—and give the reasons to support it would just put me in the position of providing firepower to those who would like to write an academic paper arguing in favor of a premise that I don’t believe in. I’m sorry to say that I’m unwilling to do that in this Forum.

Rejoinder from forces20 (September 16, 2011):

Admittedly, I have been influenced by the people who continually say English is the universal language, but thank you for your enlightening reply.

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What’s the correct format for writing dates in scientific literature?

Question posted as a private message by Pipes, Forum member (August 24, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I would just like to seek clarification with regard to writing dates in Scientific Literature. Which of the two formats is correct: 24th June 2011 or 24th June, 2011? Our professor also prescribes this format—June 24th, 2011. Is that format still acceptable? Thank you!

Yours,
Pipes

My reply to Pipes:

I don’t think any of the date formats you presented—including that of your professor—is acceptable in scientific literature. A telltale sign that they are nonstandard, unsystematic, and unsuitable for scientific purposes is the presence of the suffix “-th” after the day of the month, “24th.” You see, using serial endings for the day of the month—1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and all the way to 31st—entails a lot of spelling variation that’s anathema to the systematic approach demanded by science.

Although it’s by no means an internationally accepted full date format, what I think comes closest to the idea of writing dates scientifically is this popular format:

Full date: 24 June 2011
(without a comma after the day of the month)

Month and day only: 24 June
(also without a comma after the day of the month)

The above format, of course, differs from this conventional, nonscientific format that most of us have gotten used to:

June 24, 2011
(always with a comma after the day of the month)

Now, the international standard date and time notation prescribed by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) actually differs greatly from all of the above formats.

The international standard date notation is: YYYY-MM-DD

where YYYY is the year in the usual Gregorian calendar, MM is the month of the year between 01 (January) and 12 (December), and DD is the day of the month between 01 and 31.

So, I would say that the more scientific format for “June 24, 2011” will be the ISO format, as follows:

2011-06-24

Obviously, though, such a format won’t look very good in nonscientific prose or exposition, so now that you ask me, I’d settle for the popular systematic format I presented earlier:

24 June 2011

For more details about the scientific format for dates, click this link to Markus Kuhn’s summary of the international standard date and time notation. I’m sure that your professor can learn a thing or two from it, and might just have a change of mind about the format he or she prescribes.

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Should we use “who” or “whom” for interrogative questions?

Question posted as a private message by Pipes, Forum member (August 24, 2011):

Which interrogative pronoun is appropriate if the sentence below is rendered into a question?

“You should see Mrs. Laker at the Laker School of English about classes.”

Should it be “who” or the objective form “whom”?

My reply to Pipes:

Formally, since “Mrs. Laker” functions as the direct object of the verb “see,” the question form of that sentence should use the objective interrogative pronoun “whom,” as follows:

Whom should I see at the Laker School of English about classes?”

In modern usage, however, the subjective “who” is increasingly preferred for such questions:

Who should I see at the Laker School of English about classes?”

My advice: Use “whom” for your formal written school requirements, but feel free to use the less stuffy “who” in your day-to-day English.

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How to use the “to have been” and “having been” in sentences

Question by forces20, Forum member (August 15, 2011):

Hello Sir!

How can we properly use the perfect infinitive “to have been” and perfect gerund “having been” in a sentence?

My reply to forces20:

Here are the proper uses of those grammatical forms:

USAGE OF THE PERFECT INFINITIVE “TO HAVE BEEN”:

The perfect infinitive “to have been” is used (1) as a noun form to denote a hypothetical state or condition in the past, or (2) as a noun form to denote a previous state or action that is no longer subsisting.

Usage 1. As noun form to denote a hypothetical state or condition in the past, or a state or condition in the past that has been determined to be true only now:
1.   “To have been her student would have done wonders for me.” (as subject of sentence)
2.   “It’s a nice thought to have been her student.” (as complement)
3.   “The ultra-savvy investment advisor was found to have been a fraud all along.” (as adverbial modifier)

Usage 2. As noun form to denote a state or action in the past that is no longer subsisting (used with the passive form of such telling verbs as “say,” “believe,” “consider,” “assume,” “suppose,” and “think”):
1.   “She is reputed to have been a great beauty in the 1960s.”
2.   “Houdini is believed to have been the greatest escape artist of all time.” 

USAGE OF THE PERFECT GERUND “HAVING BEEN”:
The perfect gerund “having been” denotes a state or condition that no longer subsists at the time of speaking, as in the following examples:
1.   “Having been a student journalist is a big advantage to mass communication majors.” (perfect gerund as subject of the sentence)
2.   “The former long-reigning monarch hated having been deposed.” (perfect gerund as direct object of the verb)
3.   “Edna seldom talked about having been a beauty queen.” (perfect gerund as object of the preposition “about”)

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