YOU ASKED ME THIS QUESTION

Error-riddled English-usage books coming out of the woodwork

I’m sure it was simply coincidental, but on July 9, two days after Forum member Kuyerjudd made a posting in the Forum asking me if he should burn a badly written English-usage book in his college, a Philippine regional education official ordered the pullout of a set of error-riddled English workbooks being used in Lipa City’s 66 public elementary schools. This was after the workbooks were found to have so many grammatical mistakes, false information, incoherent sentences, and typographical errors.

According to a report in the July 12 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, “Many of the errors in the workbooks are obviously encoding errors that could have been caught by proofreading. A good editing would have done wonders for the workbooks.” The report also quoted the chair of the workbook development team as admitting that “she did not have the time to go over the contents of the workbooks before these were sent off for printing.”

In a subsequent posting in the Forum on July 14, Kuyerjudd comments about those error-riddled workbooks: “I actually don’t have any problem with workbooks being badly written as long as they’re not about English usage. And, sure, I guess they make a valid point there, saying a badly written book is better than no book, but it just ticks me off that they force that stuff on students.”

It also turns out that Kuyerjudd had not consummated his idea of burning that English-usage book—the one coauthored by his college professor—for (1) being blind to the semantic difference between “borrowing” and “lending,” and (2) asking an absurd true-or-false question and answering it wrongly. As I wrote in this column last week, he had consulted me about his idea and I told him that if only to make his indignation over that book subside a little, he could do so “where it’s safe and where you won’t start a major conflagration.”

Instead of burning that book, though, Kuyerjudd decided to read it in its entirety, then posted these comments in the Forum:

“I’ve finished reading the whole book. Not all of it is badly written; I figure it’s just the parts that one terrible writer wrote. I have to say, though, that even the parts that were ‘okay’ were not properly edited, with all the orphans and widows as well as annoying mid-paragraph breaks—and oh, don’t get me started on the alignment! They could have at least proofread it.

“Also, there was this section on how to write summaries. They used a summary of the novel Twilight that was taken off some site. The URL was scattered across the page, which made me question if the writers knew what a bibliography was. Plus, why Twilight? Couldn’t they have used literary fiction? It’s not that I despise Twilight (and that’s not to say that I don’t), but wouldn’t a book like Tuesdays with Morrie or The Five People You Meet in Heaven make more sense in a college workbook? Sure, Twilight easily captures the attention of its teenage readers, but a terribly written summary of half of Twilight taken off some shady website? 

“The exercise after the section begins with the phrase, ‘Assuming all of you have read Twilight [...].’ And then I couldn’t read on without cringing.

“Afterwards there’s another multiple-choice question in the Critical Reading section (before which there were paragraphs you had to read) that goes as follows:

“3. He felt that something ominous is about to happen. ‘Ominous’ means _______. (a) good, (b) evil, (c) jolly, (d) great

“I tell you, it’s like reading a book meant for grade-schoolers. And also, that’s supposed to be ‘was’ there, right?

Then Kuyerjudd gave this afterthought: “Once, in class, our professor corrected part of a paragraph in the book. I guess that’s all good, but frankly, I couldn’t help laughing silently to myself.”

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Can I just burn our monstrosity of an English-usage book now?

Question from Kuyerjudd, new Forum member (July 7, 2010):

Hi there!

In our English class, we were forced to buy an English book written by the professors of the college in which I study. I have no problem with that and the fact that the number one rule at school is “nothing is compulsory,” but the thing is that it’s terribly written. I lost two points off an exercise because of a “stray” adverb.

A passage in one of the chapters says: “It takes three whole days to read the English dictionary” (or something like that).

But in the True-or-False exercise, it says that “It would take nearly three days to read the English dictionary” is true.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t “whole” and “nearly” two different things?

And here’s another brilliant one: 

“1. English continues to grow through borrowing, which means ________.

a. inventing
b. buying
c. acquiring
d. lending”

I was convinced the correct answer was “c. acquiring.” Imagine my surprise when our English prof said it was “d. lending.”

College may be all too new for me but even I know that “lending” and “borrowing” don’t mean the same thing.

Furthermore, upon inspection (i.e., visually editing the book and leaving proofread marks), the monstrosity should not have been published and forced upon the minds of students in the college where I’m studying.

Now, how would a freshman student like me go about fixing this?

My reply to Kuyerjudd:

You’re absolutely right about that answer-choice test! The words “whole” and “nearly” are two entirely different things and it looks like the authors of that English book—all professors of your college, you say—are semantically insensitive and have no business writing English-usage books at all. In the context of the usage you cited, my digital Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines those two words as follows:

whole
“3 a : constituting the total sum or undiminished entirety  : ENTIRE  <owns the whole island>  b : each or all of the  <took part in the whole series of athletic events>”

nearly
1 : in a close manner or relationship  <nearly related>
2 a : almost but not quite  <nearly identical>  <nearly a year later>  b : to the least extent  <not nearly as good as we expected>

So, if the passage in the chapter under study says “It takes three whole days to read the English dictionary,” it would be semantically wrong to say that the following statement is True: “It would take nearly three days to read the English dictionary.” It would be false because “nearly three days” is not the same as “three whole days.” Even if the adverb “nearly” is changed to “almost,” the statement would still be false. The only adverb that could conceivably make that statement true is “exactly,” but then it would have shown that the original statement itself, that “It takes three whole days to read the English dictionary,” is semantically defective and, to be frank about it, unrealistic, imprecise, illogical, and almost absurd.

The sentence “It takes three whole days to read the English dictionary” is, to begin with, not an appropriate referent statement for the True-or-False question because its parameters are highly questionable and not well-thought-out. Below are three fatal semantic defects of that statement:

1. English dictionaries vary widely in number of entries and textual content. The highly abridged ones may have only a few thousand word entries with very brief definitions, thus making them fit in just a few hundred pages. My Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate, however, has 165,000 entries and 225,000 definitions in all, and runs to a total of 1,624 pages; the unabridged Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, on the other hand, lists 450,000 words and 10,000,000 usage examples, and runs to 2,662 pages. And the latest printed edition of the Oxford English Dictionary consists of 20 volumes, with a total of 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. Clearly then, it would take much more than just “three whole days”—in actuality probably several months or years—to read a respectably sizable dictionary straight and without stopping (a very bad idea to begin with), so to say that “It takes three whole days to read the English dictionary” is a badly informed statement and is nothing less than puerile, bad thinking.

2. People read at widely varying speeds, so assuming that they start reading a copy of the same reasonably authoritative dictionary simultaneously and do so until the last page, it would take them a highly variable number of weeks or months to do so. With this fact taken into account, the statement that “It takes three whole days to read the English dictionary” becomes even more unrealistic and absurd.

3. The statement that “It takes three whole days to read the English dictionary” is actually a semantic cop-out because it doesn’t identify the person who takes only that long to read the English dictionary. If the statement at least said that a speed-reading world champion can do that and if at least specified a particular abridged dictionary, perhaps it would have acquired at least a bit of verisimilitude or truth. As it is, however, the statement is bizarre and definitely out of this world.

Now, as to this filling-the-blank test statement: 

“1. English continues to grow through borrowing, which means ________.

a. inventing
b. buying
c. acquiring
d. lending”

You’re absolutely right! The correct answer should be “acquiring,” not “lending” as your English professor said. In the context of that statement, “borrowing” means “to appropriate for one’s own use,” “to derive,” or “to adopt,” definitely not “to lend.” The action of “borrowing” in this context is that of the entity making the acquisition, not of the entity from which the acquisition is taken. 

In sum, Kuyerjudd, if indeed the authors of that English book are blind to these distinctions between “borrowing” and “lending,” and couldn’t even compose a proper and logical True-or-False question, then I agree with you that it would be dangerous to make those professors continue teaching English, and even more dangerous for them to be allowed to write English-usage textbooks. 

So, you ask, how should a college freshman student like you go about fixing this very serious problem? You’ve actually made a very good start by describing your predicament in this Forum. Just keep on doing so whenever you discover patently absurd things about English and language in general that are being taught or being foisted on you in school or elsewhere. And yes, I think your indignation would subside a little bit if you burned that English-usage book authored by those professors. Do it right now, but please do it in a place where it’s safe and where you won’t start a major conflagration.

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Why isn’t it natural to say “I haven’t seen George for a lot of years”?

Question from Cheryl, new Forum member (July 1, 2010):

“I haven’t seen George for a lot of years.”

I know it doesn’t sound natural to use “a lot of” in the sentence above—the quantifier “many” being the correct quantifier—but can anyone explain why from a grammar rule viewpoint? In most cases we can substitute “a lot of” or “lots of” for both much and many, so why not here?

My reply to Cheryl:

In informal conversations and writing, native English speakers very frequently use “a lot of,” “lots of,” and “plenty of” with both uncountable and plural nouns, as in “a lot of books,” “lots of time,” and “plenty of problems,” and they interchange these quantifiers at will, as in “lots of books” and “plenty of books,” “a lot of time” and “plenty of time,” and “a lot problems” and “lots of problems.” (And as you say, you’d rather use “many” as quantifier in such cases.)

In the specific case of the noun “years,” it’s actually idiomatic among native English speakers to interchangeably say “I haven’t seen George for lots of years” or “I haven’t seen George a lot of years,” as evidenced by these number of entries for them in Google—“a lot of years,” 15,700,000 results; “lots of years,” 1,940,000 results. (Here’s a random sample: “Retirement age really isn’t so very old. At 62 or 65 years of age you have lots of years to have fun.”)

To native English speakers, therefore, in contrast to your personal experience (I presume you are French), it’s perfectly natural to use “lots of years” or “a lot of years” to quantify “time” in general and “years” in particular. Our perception of what’s grammatically and idiomatically correct in language actually depends on the linguistic community we are living in, and it takes a lot of getting used to before we become perfectly attuned to and comfortable with its idiomatic ways of saying things.

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What’s the difference between “flammable” and “inflammable”?

Question from edmanuelsong (June 29, 2010):

What’s the difference between “flammable” and “inflammable”?

My reply to edmanuelsong:

“Flammable” and “inflammable” are adjectives that mean exactly the same thing—“capable of being easily ignited and of burning quickly.” The older word is actually “inflammable,” which was derived from the Medieval Latin inflammabilis, which literally means “to set on fire.” A common misconception, of course, is that the prefix “in-” in “inflammable” means “the opposite or negative,” but it doesn’t; it means “inside” instead, so there’s really no contradiction between “inflammable” and “flammable.” Nevertheless, there’s a very real danger in people wrongly thinking that “inflammable” means “not flammable,” so in time it became conventional to drop the prefix “in-” in “inflammable” and just to say “flammable.” Also for safety’s sake, it became conventional to describe things that can’t be burned or ignited as “non-flammable” and not “inflammable.”

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Can you help me answer this confusing English-proficiency test?

Question from computer chair (June 20, 2010):

In a test I took, the following question was given:

In each of the following sentences, part of the sentence or the entire sentence is underlined. Beneath each sentence you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. Choose the best answer. 

“Outsourcing jobs to a consulting firm in another country is more cost-effective than paying employees locally, but overwhelmingly negative are its effects on customer satisfaction.”

(A) overwhelmingly negative are its effects on customer satisfaction
(B) it has overwhelmingly negative customer satisfaction effects
(C) in its customer satisfaction effects it is overwhelmingly negative
(D) there are the overwhelmingly negative effects in customer satisfaction
(E) its effects on customer satisfaction are overwhelmingly negative

*I was able to narrow down the answer choices to either B or E

The answer is E and the explanation was the following: The subject and action are in the wrong order in this sentence [using the clause in answer choice A]. (E) corrects the unnecessary reversal. (B) does nothing to solve the problem. (C) creates the awkward phrase “customer satisfaction effects.” (D) unnecessarily introduces the phrase “there are the,” and uses “in” where “on” is correct.

Please help me solve this confusion. Thank you.

My reply to computer chair:

The bad syntax and very clumsy phrasing of answer choices B, C, and D make them obviously incorrect. The choices can thus be quickly narrowed down to A and E.

The inverted clause in answer choice A is a possibly correct answer, for an inverted clause is actually a legitimate clause construction that positions the predicate ahead of the subject. At first blush, however, it looks like there’s a subject-verb disagreement error in A. In fact, I myself was initially tripped into thinking that the inverted clause “overwhelmingly negative are its effects on customer satisfaction” is rendered incorrect by the plural form of its operative verb “are,” which evidently doesn’t agree with its singular-from antecedent noun phrase, “outsourcing jobs to a consulting firm in another country.” On closer scrutiny, however, we will find that there is, in fact, no subject-verb disagreement in that inverted clause, for its operative subject is actually the plural noun “effects” and not the singular form antecedent of the possessive pronoun “its,” which, of course, is the noun phrase “outsourcing jobs to a consulting firm in another country.” 

As I point out in Chapter 71 of my book Give Your English the Winning Edge, one of the clear and present dangers when we construct inverted sentences is the higher probability of our verbs failing to agree in number with the subjects of our inverts. I therefore gave the following advice about inverted sentences (an advice that I myself obviously overlooked in this case): 

“So always remember this rule: the number of the subject must follow that of the verb, not that of the noun or pronoun that intervenes or comes before it. Take, for instance, this somewhat poetic invert: ‘To the dark recesses of public office go the scoundrels for their last refuge.’ 

“At first glance it would seem that the plural verb form ‘go’ should be the singular ‘goes’ instead so it can agree with the singular ‘public office.’ A closer look, however, shows that the true subject of the invert is not ‘public office’ (nor even ‘dark recesses’) but the plural ‘scoundrels.’ 

“The price of using inversion, it turns out, is eternal vigilance in our grammar.” 

So now, if this is the case, would answer choice A be a wrong answer for that test? I don’t think so. The inverted clause construction “overwhelmingly negative are its effects on customer satisfaction” turns out to be grammatically and semantically airtight and thus meets the grade as a correct answer. However, its use as a coordinate clause in that sentence may seem unnatural, disruptive, and discordant; to the English learner, in fact, it wouldn’t look and sound in sync with the scheme of things in that sentence. (This is probably what was meant by the cryptic explanation given to computer chair that answer choice E “corrects the unnecessary reversal,” but that reversal actually isn’t grammatically wrong but is only stylistically different). I think it’s only because of this stylistic discordance that although grammatically correct, answer choice A is beaten by E—“its effects on customer satisfaction are overwhelmingly negative”—as the best answer for that test. I would wish, though, that the makers of standard English-proficiency tests would avoid crafting tests that allow for such ambiguity in the answer choices. It’s so tricky and cruel to foist them on both native and nonnative speakers of English!

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“I hope you’d get well soon” or “I hope you’ll get well soon”?

Question from Isabel S. (June 8, 2010):

In a note to me recently, Isabel S. mentioned that she was having some health problems, so I made this wish in the closing of my reply: “I hope you’d get well soon.” To this, she made the following rejoinder:

Between us grammarians, would you consider it pedantic on my part to wonder why you used the indeterminate verb “would” in your second sentence: “I hope you’d get well soon”? Was that a typo? 

Surely the correct, more positive way to say it is “I hope you get well soon” or “I hope you’ll be well soon”?   

Saying “I hope you would be well…” sounds awkward, wouldn’t you say? Have you done a piece for your Forum on when to use “will” and “would”?  

My reply to Isabel S.:

You are not alone in thinking that the modal auxiliary “will” instead of “would” should be used in the sentence “I hope you’d get well soon.” Many people actually use “will” habitually in such constructions, and I get the feeling that this has actually become idiomatic in modern speech. But as I explained in a column that I wrote in The Manila Times in response to the same question in June 2008 or practically two years ago, the grammatically correct modal auxiliary in such cases is “would,” and the same is the case for sentences with verb phrases of uncertainty like “wish,” “expect,” or “pray.”* The modal auxiliary “will,” on the other hand, is used for sentences with verb phrases of certainty like “am sure,” “are certain,” and “are positive,” as in these sentences:  “I am sure [that] you will get well soon!”  “We are certain [that] you will get well soon!”  “They are positive [that] you will get well soon!”  

It’s idiomatic and widely acceptable, of course, to use the form “I hope you get well soon,” but we need to remember that this is simply an elliptical form of the sentence “I hope that you would get well soon,” which, of course, consists of the main clause “I hope” and the relative subordinate clause “that you would get well soon.” To streamline the sentence for easier and quicker articulation, the ellipsis routinely gets rid of the relative pronoun and the modal auxiliary “would.”

Click this link to read my column “The choice between ‘would’ and ‘will’” now!

P.S. Just an afterthought: I forgot to mention to Isabel that in informal usage, we can actually sidestep the modal distinction between “would” and “will” by simply saying “Get well soon” or “Do get well soon.” Of course, such informal usage will depend on the relationship between the speaker and the person being addressed, taking into account the seriousness of the ailment, seniority and age difference, their relative positions in society or in an organization, and various other social or professional distinctions. For instance, you don’t write your ailing boss “Get well soon”; it would be polite and good form to say “Please get well soon” or “I hope you would get well soon.” There will often be hairline distinctions in degree of politeness for every situation, and sensitivity to these distinctions in language is part of the social graces.   

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*This is based on Definition 5b of “would” by the Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, as follows: 5b — used in auxiliary function in a noun clause (as one completing a statement of desire, request, or advice) <we wish that he would go>

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Two English grammar questions from the SAT Reasoning Test

New Forum member computer chair sent me two SAT grammar questions, the first last June 15 and the second last June 17. Below are the questions and my answers to them.

Question #1:

I came across this question in a prep book and was wondering if you could explain the answer and the grammar behind the answer.

* the underlined part is the part which needs to be corrected

“___________ the orchestra for six concerts, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was scheduled.”

(A) After conducting
(B) After his conducting
(C) While conducting
(D) Although he had conducted
(E) After he had conducted

I was able to exclude A, C, and D. However, I was not able to decide between B and E. 

*the correct answer is E

My answer to Question #1:

The answer could only be E; it is the only answer that’s both grammatically and logically correct. In the sentence in E, the pronoun “he” is properly supplied as the doer of the action of conducting the orchestra, and the past participle “had conducted” is the correct tense for the repeated action in the indefinite past. The sentence works properly as a whole because both the main clause and the subordinate phrase are properly constructed and linked by the subordinating conjunction “after.”   

It couldn’t be B because the pronoun “his” in the subordinate phrase “after his conducting the orchestra for six concerts’ doesn’t have a proper antecedent or referent noun. That antecedent or referent noun should be a musical conductor, but nowhere in the sentence is there any reference to that person. The possessive “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” which might seem to be the antecedent or referent noun, actually doesn’t qualify because it is not a person but an inanimate object. 

A and C are wrong answers because each of them doesn’t have a referent noun doing the action; for the same reason already given above, the noun form “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony” doesn’t qualify as that referent noun, being an inanimate object.

D is a wrong answer because its subordinating conjunction, “although,” is illogical and inappropriate to the statement.

Question #2:

In the following sentence, one has to find the error in the sentence. The error in this sentence is answer choice A. 

The more scientists learn about subatomic particles, the more closely they come to being able to describe the ways in which the universe operates. No error

(A) "the more closely"
(B) "to being able"
(C) "the ways in which"
(D) "operates"
(E) No error

*I thought the answer was B because "to being able" sounded awkward and was not a typical infinitive as it had a -ing ending. I am still confused about this.

Furthermore, the answer is A. The correction is "more close" instead of "more closely." However, I the comparative form of close is closer, and isn't more close the incorrect way of saying closer? Please help me in sorting out this confusion! Thank you!

My answer to Question #2:

About this SAT test:

“The more scientists learn about subatomic particles, the more closely they come to being able to describe the ways in which the universe operates.”

(A) “the more closely”
(B) “to being able”
(C) “the ways in which”
(D) “operates”
(E) No error

I don’t think the error in the sentence is answer choice A. The phrase “the more closely” is perfectly grammatical to me in much the same way as “the closer.” All of the other answer choices likewise have perfectly grammatical and logical phrasing except (c) “the ways in which.” The correct phrasing is “the ways by which,” where the preposition “by” is used to mean “through the agency or instrumentality of.” The preposition “in," which typically indicates inclusion, location, or position, doesn't denote such agency or instrumentality for how the universe operates.

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“I hope you’d get well soon” or “I hope you’ll get well soon”?

Question from Isabel S. (June 8, 2010):

In a note to me recently, Isabel S. mentioned that she was having some health problems, so I made this wish in the closing of my reply: “I hope you’d get well soon.” To this, she made the following rejoinder:

Between us grammarians, would you consider it pedantic on my part to wonder why you used the indeterminate verb “would” in your second sentence: “I hope you’d get well soon”? Was that a typo? 

Surely the correct, more positive way to say it is “I hope you get well soon” or “I hope you’ll be well soon”?   

Saying “I hope you would be well…” sounds awkward, wouldn’t you say? Have you done a piece for your Forum on when to use “will” and “would”?  

My reply to Isabel S.:

You are not alone in thinking that the modal auxiliary “will” instead of “would” should be used in the sentence “I hope you’d get well soon.” Many people actually use “will” habitually in such constructions, and I get the feeling that this has actually become idiomatic in modern speech. But as I explained in a column that I wrote in The Manila Times in response to the same question in June 2008 or practically two years ago, the grammatically correct modal auxiliary in such cases is “would,” and the same is the case for sentences with verb phrases of uncertainty like “wish,” “expect,” or “pray.”* The modal auxiliary “will,” on the other hand, is used for sentences with verb phrases of certainty like “am sure,” “are certain,” and “are positive,” as in these sentences:  “I am sure [that] you will get well soon!”  “We are certain [that] you will get well soon!”  “They are positive [that] you will get well soon!”  

It’s idiomatic and widely acceptable, of course, to use the form “I hope you get well soon,” but we need to remember that this is simply an elliptical form of the sentence “I hope that you would get well soon,” which, of course, consists of the main clause “I hope” and the relative subordinate clause “that you would get well soon.” To streamline the sentence for easier and quicker articulation, the ellipsis routinely gets rid of the relative pronoun and the modal auxiliary “would.”

Click this link to read my column “The choice between ‘would’ and ‘will’” now!

P.S. Just an afterthought: I forgot to mention to Isabel that in informal usage, we can actually sidestep the modal distinction between “would” and “will” by simply saying “Get well soon” or “Do get well soon.” Of course, such informal usage will depend on the relationship between the speaker and the person being addressed, taking into account the seriousness of the ailment, seniority and age difference, their relative positions in society or in an organization, and various other social or professional distinctions. For instance, you don’t write your ailing boss “Get well soon”; it would be polite and good form to say “Please get well soon” or “I hope you would get well soon.” There will often be hairline distinctions in degree of politeness for every situation, and sensitivity to these distinctions in language is part of the social graces.   

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*This is based on Definition 5b of “would” by the Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, as follows: 5b — used in auxiliary function in a noun clause (as one completing a statement of desire, request, or advice) <we wish that he would go>

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Precisely when is the present or past conditional used?

Question from curious cat, Forum member (May 25, 2010):

Hi,

Here’s the situation:

A buyer hands a large bill to two old folks selling Christmas trees by the roadside. Husband realizes he left his fanny pack inside the trailer, says that he’ll be getting it, comes back out with it in hand, finds out that the buyer had already left, and the sale has been lost. Wife, who is upset, says to him: 

”If you had had your fanny pack around your waist where it belonged, they wouldn’t have enough time to change their mind.”

(1) Does the second phrase sound awkward? 
(2) Since he now has a fanny pack with him, does the present conditional apply or, because he didn’t have his fanny pack with him then, should the past conditional be used instead?

My reply to curiouscat: 

Not only does the second phrase of the sentence sound awkward but, along with the main clause itself, it is grammatically flawed. The correct construction of that conditional sentence should be as follows:

“If you had your fanny pack around your waist where it belonged, they wouldn’t have had enough time to change their mind.”

As corrected, the conditional modifying phrase is in the simple past tense, and the main clause is in the negative form of the past conditional. The main clause couldn't be in the present conditional because the condition of “not having the time to change their mind” no longer subsists up to the moment of the wife's speaking; in fact, the buyers had already changed their mind and had left by the time the husband came back with his fanny pack.

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Which of the ESL sentences below are grammatically correct?

Question from curious cat, new Forum member (May 19, 2010):

Hi! May I ask a favor? Which of the following ESL sentences below are grammatically correct? I’d also appreciate it if you could include your thoughts behind your answers as well.

(1)
May I ask a favor of you?
May I ask a favor from you?

(2)
He is smarter than any boy in class.
He is smarter than any other boy in class.

(3)
I will be there by next Friday.
I will be there on Friday next.

(4)
I prefer tea to milk.
I prefer tea over milk.

(5)
Completing the race, he collapsed.
On completing the race, he collapsed.

(6)
While sitting in the restaurant, he was attacked by the criminals.
While he was sitting in the restaurant, he was attacked by the criminals.
While he sat in the restaurant, he was attacked by the criminals.

(7)
She shall answer my question.
She will answer my question.

(8)
This is he.
This is him.

(9)
You shout at me as though I were deaf.
You shout at me as if I were deaf.

(10)
I told myself to stay calm.
I said to myself, “stay calm.”

(11)
People seemed to have known the use of fire in those days.
People seem to have known the use of fire in those days.

(12)
Regine and myself thought it best to leave.
Regine and I thought it best to leave.

My reply to curiouscat:

I have set in boldface the grammatically correct construction in each set of sentences:

(1)
May I ask a favor of you?
May I ask a favor from you?

The phrasal verb “ask a favor from” is the accepted conventional usage. Also a generally accepted alternative is the following construction that drops the preposition:
May I ask you a favor?

(2)
He is smarter than any boy in class.
He is smarter than any other boy in class.

“Any other boy” is correct because it excludes the boy being compared to the rest of the boys in the class; “any boy” is incorrect because it includes the boy being compared to himself, which is an absurd way of comparing.

(3)
I will be there by next Friday.
I will be there on Friday next.

The first one is the generally used construction, but the second one—even if not generally used—is also grammatically correct and acceptable.

(4)
I prefer tea to milk.
I prefer tea over milk.

The phrasal verb “prefer tea to milk” is the accepted conventional usage; on the other hand, “prefer tea over milk” is also grammatically correct but sounds very officious and formal.

(5)
Completing the race, he collapsed.
On completing the race, he collapsed.

Since the collapse happened after completion of the race, the second sentence is the correct one. On the other hand, the first sentence indicates that the collapse happened while the player was still in the process of completing the race, so he or she couldn’t have completed the race.

(6)
While sitting in the restaurant, he was attacked by the criminals.
While he was sitting in the restaurant, he was attacked by the criminals.
While he sat in the restaurant, he was attacked by the criminals.

All three are grammatically correct, but the first is the smoothest, most streamlined, and most idiomatic construction. The second and third uses the pronoun “he” in both the main clause and the subordinate clause, revealing less familiarity with the more advanced English grammatical forms.

(7)
She shall answer my question.
She will answer my question.

The second sentence is American English; the first, a British English construction. Both are grammatically correct.

(8)
This is he.
This is him.

The first is the scrupulously grammatically correct construction, but the second—although grammatically flawed because “him” is in the objective case—is more  idiomatic and more commonly used..

(9)
You shout at me as though I were deaf.
You shout at me as if I were deaf.

The second sentence is the generally accepted conditional usage.

(10)
I told myself to stay calm.
I said to myself, “stay calm.”

Both are grammatically correct. In the second sentence, however, the “s” in “stay should be capitalized to indicate that “stay calm” is a quoted sentence in a sentence, as follows:

I said to myself, “Stay calm.”

(11) 
People seemed to have known the use of fire in those days.
People seem to have known the use of fire in those days.

Since the supposition was made by people in the past, “seemed” is the appropriate tense for the verb.

(12) 
Regine and myself thought it best to leave.
Regine and I thought it best to leave.

The first sentence is grammatically wrong because it wrongly uses the reflexive “myself” for what should be the nominative case “I.”

NOTE: My comments about Items #11 and #12 have been corrected after my attention was called by Forum member maxsims through e-mail. For a more detailed explanation of the changes, please go to the discussion thread for this topic.

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What are the differences between the 4 major linguistics theories?

Question from vizvonvan, Forum member (May 12, 2010):

Hello Mr. Carillo! It’s been quite a while since I logged in to take part in the forum. I’m confused by these terms—transformational generative grammar, comparative-historical grammar, traditional grammar, and structural grammar. What are their differences?

My reply to vizvonvan:

The four terms you are asking about—transformational-generative grammar, comparative-historical grammar, traditional grammar, and structural grammar—are actually four distinct theories or schools of thought about language. They are far too advanced to be discussed with sufficient rigor here. From a layperson’s standpoint, however, we can get a general idea of their differences by starting with the more familiar theory and proceeding to the unfamiliar or more complex ones.

Traditional grammar is the prescriptive approach to language that’s normally taught in English-language schools from kinder to college; it is, of course, also the grammar used by the English-language mass media and books as well as the primary basis for the discussions of proper and improper English usage in this Forum. The prescriptive rules and concepts used by traditional grammar are primarily based on Latin grammar, and in the case of the English used in the Philippines, traditional grammar follows the American English standard.

Structural grammar is a descriptive approach to linguistics that focuses on the mechanics and construction of sentences. It is more concerned with how the sentence itself is constructed rather than with the implications of individual words. This structural approach, which is the basis for the creation of most written documents, assumes that what is seen on the surface is also the straightforward meaning behind the words of the sentence.

Comparative-historical grammar is an approach to linguistics that seeks to establish an explanation for the relationships between languages, and it’s one that assumes that linguistic change is largely systematic and rule-based. Early work in this linguistics approach focused on relationships between languages and groups of languages primarily in terms of a common ancestry or the same root-language.

Transformational generative grammar, a relatively new theory of linguistics popularized by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s, postulates that all languages have the same deep structure, but that their respective surface structures differ because of the application of different rules for transformations, pronunciation, and word insertion. This theory asserts that when words and pronunciations are added to the surface structure of a particular language, what emerges is identical to an actual sentence in that language.

These are only bare-bones, nonspecialist descriptions of the four linguistic terms you listed, and they focus primarily on the characteristics that can best distinguish them from one another. A deeper study of linguistics is needed for a fuller understanding and appreciation of the theories of language behind these terms.

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Which is the right usage, “on TV” or “in TV”?

Question from paul_nato, Forum member (April 16, 2010):

I’ve always wondered...

Which is the right usage, “on TV” or “in TV”? I hear both used by different people. That goes for radio, the Internet, and whatnot.

Thanks!

My reply to paul_nato:

The well-established usage is “on TV” rather than “in TV.” Native speakers of English would say “I saw you on TV last night” rather than “I saw you in TV last night.” The same is true when “TV” is spelled out as “television,” as in “The beleaguered candidate appeared on television last night to appeal for sobriety in the election campaign.” This idiomatic preference for “on” is in keeping with the general rule that the preposition of place and location to use for surfaces is “on,” and it is conceptually intuitive and logical to consider the TV screen as a surface.

Some people, of course, mistakenly think that it’s acceptable to use “in TV” instead of “on TV.” This is likely because when the word “TV” or “television” is used as a modifier, say for such terms as “TV debate” and “TV newsroom,” the appropriate preposition for linking such terms in a sentence is “in.” This, for instance, is the case in such sentences as “The candidates became violently adversarial in their TV debate” and “There was chaos in the TV newsroom when the derogatory document against a candidate turned out to be spurious.” In these cases, however, the true object of the preposition is not “TV” but the nouns “debate” and “newsroom,” respectively, and these nouns require “in” and not “on” to link them to the sentence.

This explanation for “on TV” as the preferred usage also applies to “on radio” and “on the Internet,” which are the accepted idioms for these two other communication media. It doesn’t apply to “the movie,” though; the widely accepted usage is “in the movie,” as in “The child star appeared in the movie as the young Rizal.” There could be other instances  similar to this that may require the preposition “in” rather than “on,” so it’s advisable to knock off the phrase “and whatnot” in the last sentence of your question above.

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Is “brownouts” the correct word for the outages we’ve been having?

Question from Maria Balina, Forum member (April 10, 2010):

Hi, Mr. Carillo!

Is “brownouts” the correct word to use to refer to the outages we’ve been having lately?

My reply to Maria Balina:

The term “brownout” is defined as a period of reduced voltage due high demand for electric power, resulting in reduced illumination. Technically, during a brownout, the electric supply isn’t cut off, but because of the reduced voltage, lamps don’t give off enough light and electric appliances malfunction. In this sense, the outages we’ve been having lately are not brownouts at all. They are “blackouts,” which means periods of failure of electric power in particular areas, whether planned or inadvertent. 

In the Philippines, however, the term “brownout” has become the widely accepted idiom for blackouts. This is probably because the term “blackout” doesn’t seem to apply in general when power failure occurs during the daytime; the darkness isn’t total and the exteriors of buildings remain well-lighted. When power outages happen at nighttime, of course, people become more comfortable describing them as “blackouts.”

A better term for “brownout” is, of course, “power outage.” This term would free us from having to correlate the absence of electricity with the sensory feeling of darkness. But the public’s level of comfort in using “brownout” is quite high, I think, so I doubt if “power outage” could supplant it in the lingua franca within one or two generations.

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Shouldn’t verbs in “there was” clauses be singular all the time?

Question from dantreys (March 23, 2010):

Hi, Joe! An opinion writer in one of the major broadsheets wrote an article yesterday that contained this sentence:

“There was once a time when there was more than one exchange existing all at the same time.”

I feel a bit queasy about the sentence because something tells me the correct verb right before “more” should be “were” since it refers to “more than one exchange,” which, notionally, is a plural subject. What do you think?

Thanks and good day!

Danny

My reply to dantreys:

“There was once a time when there was more than one exchange existing all at the same time.”

The sentence above, Danny, is an example of a construction that uses the so-called “anticipatory ‘there’ clause” twice. The pronoun “there” is, of course, the anticipatory subject in each case. In such constructions, “there” carries little or no independent meaning but simply points forward to the notional subject which is placed later in the sentence for reasons of end weight or emphasis. In the particular sentence above, the notional subject is the noun phrase “once a time” for the first anticipatory “there” and “more than one exchange” for the second anticipatory “there.”

Now, your question is: Since the operative verb “was” refers to “more than one exchange,” which is a plural subject, shouldn’t that verb take the plural form “were” instead to ensure subject-verb agreement?

My personal preference is to use the singular “was” rather than “were”; in effect, I’m saying that the use of “was” by the broadsheet’s opinion writer is grammatically correct. This is the descriptivist position in a usage that continues to be debated until today, a position explained by one of its proponents as follows: “Since the ‘there is’ combination is followed in the great majority of sentences by a singular subject, it has become a standard way of introducing a subject, whether singular or plural, another example of the victory of usage over logical grammar.” I might also add here that in American English, when a compound subject follows the verb in a “there is” construction, the verb very often takes the singular form, as in this sentence: “There is shame and dishonor in being found to be unfit for public office.” See and feel how badly that sentence sounds when “there are” is used instead: “There are shame and dishonor in being found to be unfit for public office.”

The prescriptivist position, on the other hand, recommends that after the expletive “there,” the verb is singular or plural according to the number of the subject that follows. This is the position you have taken; you are more comfortable constructing that sentence as follows: “There was once a time when there were more than one exchange existing all at the same time.” It looks and sounds a little bit awkward to me, but I’m not saying that it’s grammatically wrong. So long as you are consistent with the usage and you know and can explain your position about it, I don’t think there should be any problem.

Having said that, however, let me say that English teachers of the traditional bent discourage the use of the expletives “there is” (and “it is” as well) among students, arguing that this usage fosters lazy thinking. My own position is that expletives are tolerable when used sparingly and judiciously—perhaps no more than once or twice every one or two pages of the standard manuscript page. But when the anticipatory “there” is used twice in a row in the same sentence, as in the case of that opinion writer’s sentence, the resulting construction is decidedly awkward and convoluted. So, as an editor, I always suggest to my clients to routinely avoid “there is” constructions because of its needless and oftentimes confusing complexity.

Indeed, we can actually eliminate the second anticipatory “there” clause in that opinion writer’s sentence by reconstructing it as follows: “There was one time when more than one exchange existed all at the same time.” And although the folksiness would admittedly be lost, we can actually make this bare-bones version of that sentence with both anticipatory “there” clauses dropped: “One time, more than one exchange existed all at the same time.”

At any rate, some writers prefer take recourse to the anticipatory “there” clause to make their writing sound folksy and informal. This is intended to make the exposition or narrative sound more spontaneous; indeed, it’s meant to give the reader the feeling that the writer is talking off the cuff and isn’t really on the alert about what should follow in what he or she is saying (and that being the case, he or she really won’t be bothered with ensuring perfect subject-verb agreement and such grammar things). When the writer overuses the anticipatory “there” clause in an essay or novel, however, I would get the nagging feeling that here, indeed, is one more lazy thinker whose laziness has gotten out of hand and is about to ruin what would otherwise be a good expository or narrative performance.

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If “none” means “nothing,” isn’t saying “none of them are” wrong?

Question from Forum member vinzvonvan (March 25, 2010):

There’s this example from an English book using the word none in a sentence. It says there: “All the women are fat, none of them are thin.” There’s no explanation from the book and I’m also confused myself. To say “none” means “nothing” but why "none of them are”? Shouldn’t it be none of them is? Thank you so much for your solution to my problem! 

My reply to vinzvonvan:

Although a lot of people think that the pronoun “one” is singular and as such should
be followed by a verb in the singular form, it has always been either singular or plural in construction since the beginnings of English. Specifically, when the sense of the statement is “not any persons or things,” the plural usage is more commonly used. This is precisely the sense of the example you presented from that English book, “All the women are fat, none of them are thin.” We can therefore be confident that the plural usage here, “none of them are thin,” is correct—with practically every major grammar authority backing that usage.

In contrast, the singular form of the verb is used when “none” is intended to mean “not one” or “not any,” as in the following example: “Of the four leading candidates, none is a clear winner at this time.” To avoid being needlessly challenged in your usage in such sentences, however, it would be wise to use “not one” instead of “none is”: “Of the four leading candidates, not one is a clear winner at this time.” It’s absolutely no contest for the singular usage of “none” here.

Of course, it could also be that your idea is that more than one of the candidates are not clear winners. In that case, that sentence could very well use the plural form of “none,” as follows: “Of the four leading candidates, none are clear winners at this time.” It would be foolhardy for anyone to challenge your plural usage of “none” in this case.

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Can the article “the” be dropped if it refers to a specific noun?

Question from Babing20, new Forum member (March 18, 2010):

Hi! I don’t know the section for which my question is most suitable so I chose to send you a personal message instead. I think this has something to do with articles.

Is this sentence correct?

“A request is already indicated in FedEX system.”

As far as I know, the said statement should have the article “the,” since the speaker is referring to a specific system by FedEX, so it should read as follows: “A request is already indicated in the FedEX system.”

My reply to Babing20:

Strictly speaking, the sentence “A request is already indicated in FedEX system” is grammatically incorrect. As you say, the article “the” should precede the noun “FedEX system” to indicate that it’s a specific system rather than a generic one. The sentence should then be corrected to read as follows: “A request is already indicated in the FedEX system.”

In journalism and lately also in SMS messages, however, there’s a prevalent “telegraphic” practice of eliminating linking verbs and articles in sentences for brevity’s sake; in some cases, even prepositions are eliminated. We often see this in newspaper headlines, which need very brief, catchy statements to fit limited space; and we are also constrained to do it in composing text messages in a hurry. Even so, this practice has rules and a discipline of its own to indicate to the reader that the practice is indeed being used.

In particular, in the sentence “A request is already indicated in the FedEX system,” both the verb “is” and the articles “a” and “the” would all be dropped, such that the bare-bones statement will read as follows: “Request already indicated in FedEX system.”

In this sense, telegraphic statements like the following would be considered sloppy because they break those rules and that discipline:

“Request is already indicated in FedEX system.”
“Request already indicated in the FedEX system.”
“A request already indicated in FedEX system.”

In the same token, when we come across a sentence like “A request is already indicated in FedEX system,” it’s clear that what we have isn’t a “telegraphic” sentence but a grammatically erroneous one.

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