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« on: July 25, 2013, 03:32:25 AM »
A classmate of mine, who lived in England as a child, used adverb ''presently'' in place of ''currently'' in a speech at a welcome-first-year party. I later texted him to inform him that the words were not one and the same. His response: ''There's no problem using ''presently'' and ''currently'' interchangeably. London speakers do the same thing.''
I fail to understand why you think the person who made the sentence ''It's either Europe--or bust!'' is so grammar-savvy that he or she never commits blunders. I am also keen to learn what makes you think you can defend the validity of your sentence by relying on that one sentence made by a person whose level of grammar understanding is only known to nobody except you. You've decidedly made a fallacious argument if this is what you're indirectly telling me: ''There's problem breaking the rule. Even this person violates it.'' Having not lost my confidence in your ability to solve various grammar problems for English users, I suspect such inefficient response is a result of failure to give the matter the required weight, and I very much hope you'll find time to look at it more seriously and come up with something logical and substantive for the benefit of not only myself but also all Forum members. I would be grateful if you would bring up sentences that use correlative conjunctions to join pairs of unrelated grammar elements by other grammar-competent writers, though I am aware of how impossible it is to achieve that.
With respect to appositives, let me pick up on your own definition: ''An appositive is a word or word group that defined or further identifies the noun or noun phrase preceding it.'' Controlling words here are ''define'' and ''identify.'' The main responsibility an appositive in a sentence is to define or identify, and it's a common sense that the writer shouldn't expect that job to be carried out by words that are unfamiliar to readers. If you look carefully and the sentence ''A Tanzania-based member of Jose Carillo's English Forum, Mwita Chacha, recently related this very curious incident about...,'' you will dicover that ''Mwita Chacha'' is less suitable as an appositive than ''A Tanzania-based member of Jose Carillo's English Forum. Many newspaper readers in The Phillipines, where Manila Times is published and widely sold, might have heard about the existence of ''Jose Carillo's Forum'' and even have been members of it, but surely none of them is aware of an individual in this globe who goes by the name ''Mwita Chacha.''
But you've also stated that my revision sentence ''A Tanzania-based member of Jose Carillo's English Forum, Mwita Chacha recently related this very curious incident about...'' is grammatically faulty. Your argument appears to be grounded on the wrong idea that appositives can't introduce sentences. That you're making such an assertion is highly shocking, because below are some of the sentences marked by appositives followed by subjects without commas next to them:
(1) A fine man, my husband tolerates my grammatical tirades.
(2) A vocational counselor, John Smith has agreed to help me get a job.
(3) An expert in organ-transplant procedures, the chief surgeon took her nephew on a hospital tour.
(4) A bold innovator, Wassily Kandinsky is known for his colorful abstract paintings.
(5) The popular US president, John Kennedy was known for his eloquent and inspirational speeches.
(6) A sporty red convertible with bucket seats, my brother's car is the envy of my friends,
(7) A grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, the hangman was waiting beside his machine.
You see, knowing grammar rules is one thing but applying them correctly is an altogether different activity. In my experience, grammar rules are most of the time breached by people who are expected to be knowing them very well.
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