Archive for the 'Grammar Notes' Category
By Mary W. Ng
Subject-verb agreement errors are common in writing, and they reflect poorly on the writer. If you do not want to make any such error, you must not only understand the mechanics of subject-verb agreement but also be aware of some special cases of subject-verb agreement.
Today I'd like to talk about two cases of subject-verb agreement, both involving the pronoun each.
Look at these two sentences:
• Each of you are a part of history.
• Each of you is a part of history.
Google shows 85 million results for the search term 'each of you are' and 13 million results for 'each of you is'. So, who is correct, the majority or the minority?
Well, the subject is the pronoun phrase each of you; the simple subject is the pronoun each (meaning each one), which takes a singular verb. In case you forgot or didn't know, the simple subject is the noun or pronoun that remains when the subject is stripped of other words. The majority is not always right.
Now look at these two sentences:
• They each have something special.
• They each has something special.
Google reports 34 million results for the search term 'they each have' and 11 million results for 'they each has'. So, who is correct this time, the majority or the minority?
Well, this time the majority is correct, but there is a reason for it. The subject they is plural and takes a plural verb. The pronoun each has no effect on the number of the subject; each functions as an appositive, giving additional information about the subject.
When you proofread your writing to check for subject-verb agreement errors, remember that the verb must agree with the subject or the simple subject. In most cases, interrupting words, that is, words between the subject and the verb, are mere distractions.
Mary W. Ng is the author of two grammar e-books, Focus on Grammar: Subject-Verb Agreement and Focus on Grammar: Parallel Constructions. Sample reads are available at www.aimpublishing.com. The website also provides information on spelling rules of verbs, word usage and grammatical errors.
Either there's a collective ignorance spreading or people are afraid to use the pronoun me to refer to themselves.
I hear a lot of people say dumb, ungrammatical things like "between him and I" and "Sally and myself went downtown."
The first-person accusative form of the singular pronoun I is and always has been me.
One cannot substitute a reflexive pronoun such as myself for a regular pronoun such as I or me. It has to be coupled with one of those to reflect upon it.
For instance, "Sally prefers spaghetti, but I myself would rather eat lasagna." You can leave out myself in this sentence if you like, but you cannot substitute it for I.
A Marist poll (don't they have better things to do?) has revealed that Americans find whatever to be the most annoying word used in everyday English.
Nearly 39 percent of 1,020 Americans questioned in the survey deemed it the most irritating word, followed by like with 28 percent and the phrase you know what I mean at 15 percent.
I guess whatever can be viewed as dismissive if not downright disdainful depending on the manner in which it's spoken.
However, I nominate awesome, which is overused, abused, and basically meaningless. It's more like a grunt than a statement.
Whatever, I guess it doesn't matter what I think.
(Stolen shamelessly–and corrected grammatically–from a Reuters report)
Vuvuzela (the ubiquitous plastic trumpet ever-present at the recently concluded World Cup) is among 2,000 new words and phrases added to the third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, published on Thursday, Aug. 20. The dictionary is compiled from the analysis of two billion words used in everything from novels to Internet message boards.
The credit crunch features heavily in this year's additions, with terms such as "overleveraged," having taken on too much debt, and "quantitative easing," the introduction of new money in to the money supply by the central bank, among those included.
"Staycation," a holiday spent in one's home country, and "bargainous," costing less than usual, also reflect the hot topic of belt-tightening among consumers during the economic downturn.
The rise of "social media," itself a new term, has spawned several additions, including "defriend," removing someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site, and "tweetup," a meeting organized via posts on Twitter. Other words include:
- Bromance: a close but non-sexual relationship between two men
- Buzzkill: a person or thing that has a depressing or dispiriting effect
- Cheeseball: lacking taste, style or originality
- Chillax: calm down and relax
- Frenemy: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry
- Interweb: the Internet
- Wardrobe malfunction: an instance of a person accidentally exposing an intimate part of their body as result of an article of clothing slipping out of position.
0 Comments
