Grammar Questions Will Be Answered
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Just go to the Ask Grammar Questions page on the top navbar, or simply click on the title here.
General turnaround time should be 24 hours or less, but I am a human being who has a life outside of Notwords and English grammar, so if there’s a bit of a slowdown, just forward oodles of dough and your answer will come forthwith!
Posted by Gary McCarty

























Should the pronouon ‘you’ be ‘your’ in this sentence?
“I appreciate you taking your time to do this.”
It should be your. Taking is a gerund (noun form of a verb), and gerunds always take the possessive. If you use you, it literally means, “I appreciate you,” not “appreciate your taking.”
Should I say international relations “are” or international relations “is”.
Thanks.
Lorna
I’m still researching this issue, but it may be similar to the word “statistics,” which can be used as both a singular and a plural noun.
I would use it like this: “International relations are important,” but, “International relations is an important subject.”
When you post pictures online, how do you label the picture? I see people put Jack, Jane, and I or Jack, Jane and me. I would think the correct way is to label it “me” because it is like saying “This is a picture of me.” I am not sure though. Could you please answer?
Leslie, if there’s no verb in the caption for the photo, then “Jack, Jane and I” would be correct. Now, if you wrote, “This pictures shows Jack, Jane and me in New York,” you’d need to use the objective form of the first person singular (me, not I). Or, you could say, “Here I am with Jack and Jane in New York.” It really depends on the verb and the sentence structure, but as I said, if there’s no verb, it would be “I.”