ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

You can use use "or" to mean "also referred to as," but that doesn't correspond exactly with "i.e."

ok, yeah, i think that might be what i was thinking of...

viz.
to wit
namely

when doing a comparative, do you need to repeat the verb? is it just a stylistic preference or is one WRONG.

My cat is cuter than your cat.
My cat is cuter than your cat is.

This cohort belongs to a higher socioeconomic class than the other cohort.

My feeling is that in cases where the specific wording COULD introduce ambiguity, keep the verb, but I don't think it's necessary?

hmm ok.

option A sounds so weird to me but maybe i have just brainwashed myself into thinking it sounds wrong?

A) The data suggest that cohort X were much more likely to complete Activity A, Activity B, and Activity C than their matched counterparts.

B) The data suggest that cohort X were much more likely to complete Activity A, Activity B, and Activity C than *were* their matched counterparts.

but then i start to think that option B is unnecessary. so i can't decide.

I'd go with A because I believe in simplicity and you don't seem to think it will interfere with comprehension.

ok. thanks you two!

http://www.ehow.com/how_2086393_use-raise-rise-correctly.html

When writing and speaking, people often misuse the words raise and rise. Raise is an intransitive verb meaning "to lift up, to exalt or to enhance," and rise is a transitive verb-a verb that takes a direct object-meaning "to move or pass upward in any manner, to increase in value or to improve in position or rank." The forms of the words are very similar but have distinct differences. Follow the steps to learn how to use the words raise and rise correctly.

last time i google grammar tips

That's similar to lay and lie, at first glance? Sounds reasonable to me?

no, raise is transitive and rise is intransitive - "they raised prices" (prices = object) - "jesus rose from the dead"

"Ethanol is a depressant, which lowers heart rate."

This is wrong, but how do I explain to a simpleton that it is wrong?

I think the thing that makes it wrong is that the writer has tried say two things (ethanol is a depressant; depressants lower heart rate) but has overstretched the word depressant to do so, trying to use it as both subject and object in two different statements. Is that accurate?

Also, can you think up a good example with the main words replaced that would really hammer home why this construction does not work (A is a B, which C)?

Relative pronoun clauses (aka adjective clauses in this instance) should be able to be separated into simple sentences and still be true.
Ethanol is a depressant. Depressants lower heart rate. If that's not the case, the sentence is a stinker.

I think those two statements are true, but still the sentence doesn't work. I think might have something to do with the singular/plural switch (i.e. you had to turn depressant into depressants in your second sentence). For example, "Some drugs are depressants, which lower heart rate" is fine. At the same time, you can say, on its own, "A depressant lowers heart rate". But I hear the original sentence as "Ethanol is a depressant. Depressant lowers heart rate" - i.e. Hulk-speak. Maybe I'm wrong.

I guess I'd have to know who the writer is - native or nonnative speaker?

Native, though uninterested in the nitty gritty of grammar. It is a caption in an educational film. I think she understands that it sounds awkward but doesn't think it's a big enough deal to change it at the moment. To me it sounds awful.

Native, though uninterested in the nitty gritty of grammar.
This is most people, tbf. I'm not repulsed by the sentence in question, but it is clunky.

"Ethanol is a depressant that lowers heart rate."
"Ethanol is a depressant, so it lowers heart rate."

The 'wrongness' you sense is awkwardness, not flawed grammar. I like the suggestion of "Ethanol is a depressant, so it lowers heart rate", in that it is clearer, more natural and, if space were a consideration, fits easily in the same space.

"Ethanol is a depressant, lowering the heart rate."

THANK YOU.

Yeah, either that or ""Ethanol is a depressant; it lowers the heart rate" (replacing semi-colon with a dash if preferred)

"Ethanol is a depressant; DRINK IT AND DIE"

Yep, we're going with that.

The comma before 'which' makes it a non-defining relative clause which refers to the whole previous clause, not just the noun. Compare:
Old Trafford is a stadium which can seat more than 70,000 spectators ('which' = stadium)
She said she found my cooking disgusting, which really took the edge off my evening ('which' = the fact that she said she found my cooking disgusting)

So "Ethanol is a depressant, which lowers heart rate." is a bizarre sentence - it doesn't mean that depressants lower heart rate, nor that ethanol lowers heart rate. It means that the existence of the fact that ethanol is a depressant somehow lowers heart rate.

Ethanol is a depressant and lowers heart rate.

The comma before 'which' makes it a non-defining relative clause which refers to the whole previous clause, not just the noun. Compare:
Old Trafford is a stadium which can seat more than 70,000 spectators ('which' = stadium)
She said she found my cooking disgusting, which really took the edge off my evening ('which' = the fact that she said she found my cooking disgusting)

In the Old Trafford example, "which" should be "that" according to the more strict US usage, which I tend to follow cos it leads to less hassle.

In the second example, you could change it to "She was disgusted by my cooking, which to be fair is bloody awful" - "which" obviously referring to "my cooking". But then again, you could have "She was disgusted by my cooking, which really pissed me off" - "which" referring to her being disgusted by my cooking. It's tricky with this stuff - it's context-led in a way that makes it difficult to explain why something feels off.

Perhaps you will enjoy this language log post about which clauses http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4165

also one of those is an adj clause and one is an adv clause afaict

The comma before 'which' makes it a non-defining relative clause which refers to the whole previous clause, not just the noun.

Weird, I have never heard of this (presumably UK) rule!

Weird, I have never heard of this (presumably UK) rule!

In the UK, you can use "which" where in the US it would be "that" (as in nasty, brutish & short's "Old Trafford is a stadium which can seat more than 70,000 spectators"). A comma indicates whether it is restrictive or non-restrictive. It works and makes sense, but it's a use that will be wiped out shortly mainly due to Word highlighting it as an error every time.

(It will take longer to wipe out the UK acceptance of dividing subject and verb by comma. For example, I could have put a comma after "It works" in the UK, but it'd be wiped out by US copy editors.)

alla these sound like bad SAT answers tbh

"alcohol, it lowers the heart rate, being that it is a depressant"

the original is fine except there is some plurality disagreement.

imo the best wording would be

"ethanol, a depressant, lowers the heart rate" or "depressants like ethanol lower the heart rate"

this thing, it is called ethanol, what does it do it is a depressant, what lowers the rate of your heart if you ingest it, and such

K3vin's first one is best, and adds the needed definite article.

What is meant by the expression "Whither (something)?" e.g. "Whither Socialism?"

Does it mean, "Where is Socialism headed?" "Where is Socialism?" or rhetorically "Is Socialism on the decline?"

I've always been confused by this phrase.

all of em

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Withers.jpg/315px-Withers.jpg

Funnily enough I just looked that up recently: whither means Where is it going?, like, physically, but also the meaning of What is the point of this thing?

i feel like sometimes it also suggests "whatever happened to?" in the where-are-they-now sense -- but this might be a strange bit of cruft from a lifetime of understanding it from context.

Weird. I thought it meant "Let us consider _____" and would then generally be followed by an opinion about the topic.

Traditionally, it is 'Where is it going?' - whither = to where, whence = from where. Whence came you? Whither go you?

Obvs these forms are obsolete/archaic outside certain expressions.

whither/whence, thither/thence, hither/hence form a nice set, I think. We should've kept them.

But then I am a fetishist for "thon" and "thonder", which are the northern/Scottish equivalents of "yon" and "yonder" and still get used in Scotland (I assume) and Northern Ireland.

And "whither" does mean "to where (is it going)?" but rhetorically does have that "où sont les ___s d'antan?" vibe to it.

(whoa I did not know that "yesteryear" was coined specifically to translate that, thought it was much older: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=yesteryear )

woof otm. Whence and whither are companions to when, why, where, how, and their ilk, but they have fallen into desuetude.

Is there a difference between "befitting" and "befitting of"? Is the latter formulation wrong?

The sentence I wrote was something like "a premise befitting of contemporary horror cinema," but the copy dept. took out the "of." It not only looks weird to me, but I feel like it changes the meaning -- I'm talking about a film that ultimately does not fit within contemporary horror cinema despite a premise that makes it seem like it would.

I guess I could just change it to "evocative of." Originally I had just plain "out of," but my editor advised against it.

Copy dept otm.

In the sense that "befitting of" is always incorrect? And does my intended meaning still work? I've been staring too long at this.

I think befitting of is an incorrect formulation but I can't prove that with science I mean grammar.