ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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"The 14 animals will have two months to decide if any of the salt varieties are suitable for road use."

are suitable? is suitable? isn't "any" technically singular, being shorthand for "any one"? argh.

― CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:26 (nineteen years ago)

"varieties" makes it "are", I'd say

― RJG, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:30 (nineteen years ago)

if any of the salt is suitable

if any of the salts are suitable

― RJG, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:33 (nineteen years ago)

b-b-but "none of us is insured for this car" is correct isn't it? so that makes no sense...

― CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:35 (nineteen years ago)

I thought it was "is" but I might be wrong.

― Alba, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

none of us are insured

what an oversight

― RJG, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:37 (nineteen years ago)

but "none" is a contraction of "not one", therefore "is" is correct!

No? Why not? *shoots self*

― CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:39 (nineteen years ago)

except none is singular

crosspost

― RJG, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:39 (nineteen years ago)

guess it depends whether you predict only one or more than one of your salt varieties may be suitable!

― RJG, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

i guess they could all be ok...oh bollocks.

― CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:44 (nineteen years ago)

'none of us is' is correct

― braveclub, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 11:53 (nineteen years ago)

Cuz "none" is "not one," right?
I don't know about the road salt thing. It would seem that the "is" or "are" would be referring to (modifying?) the "any" and not the "varieties," thus making "is" correct, but it sticks in my craw. Perhaps moving away from this hyper-correctness in conjugating the "to be" verb is an area where the language is evolving.
Also fading into extinction, most probably, is the word "whom," use of which I can never figure out on the fly, that is, when speaking.

― Beth Parker, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

I saw Amazing Grace last night and Wilberforce saying "to who" about three times in the space of a minute really grated! Also, he kept saying "bored of" instead of "bored with". Slack git.

― Alba, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

AP style says that proper names ending in "s" just get an apostrophe to show possession, and that's it - I like it cause it's more efficient innit

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

I'd have gone with Prince Charles' ears on instinct.

― Madchen, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

"All," "any," "most," "none," and "some" can be either singular or plural, depending on what they're referring to.

"All of the milk is gone" vs. "All of the candy bars are gone."

"None of the crowd was left" vs. "None of the fans were left."

― jaymc, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

not one of the fans was left

vs

none of the fans were left

― CharlieNo4, Thursday, 12 April 2007 09:18 (nineteen years ago)

Madchen you tart!

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 12 April 2007 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

i wish 'imaginary' could mean 'pertaining to imagery'.

― That one guy that quit, Friday, 13 April 2007 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

make it so!

― CharlieNo4, Friday, 13 April 2007 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

I suspect there's nothing wrong with "This information is believed accurate," but why does it bother me without "to be"?

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

I think dropping the "to be" is a Scottishism. They're fond of saying things like "These shirts need washed" instead of "...to be washed" or "...washing".

― ledge, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:04 (nineteen years ago)

well, some MD from Wilkes-Barre likes to do it too.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:08 (nineteen years ago)

I think the original phrase is "all information believed accurate at time of printing", ie, headline style abbreviation with articles and auxiliary verbs removed. I'm not sure "believed accurate" really is grammatical outside that convention.

― underpants of the gods, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:12 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, I can't think offhand think of any other instance where you can have believed + adjective. "The woman is believed to be blonde" - you couldn't say "The woman is believed blonde".

― underpants of the gods, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:15 (nineteen years ago)

thanks, that's what I was feeling.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:18 (nineteen years ago)

You hear "believed missing" or "presumed dead" a lot too.

― NickB, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

Hmmm, that's true...

― underpants of the gods, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

Both most common at police press conferences though, so I blame the goddamn fuzz.

― NickB, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:26 (nineteen years ago)

"shitties are presumed whipped"

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:31 (nineteen years ago)

"Found guilty" or "found dead" are also the same thing aren't they?

― NickB, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

meh, I'll query it at most. Fortunately it's in a loose line that can use extra words.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

"illnesses for which more than one treatment method exist"

I understand the conecpt of "two or more," but still ugly.

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 16 April 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

It looks ugly because of the numerical weirdness, surely -- plural illnesses usually have more than one treatment, because there are more than one of them. Technically that clause could be referring to two medicines that both treat a whole group of related illnesses, rather than various illnesses each with multiple treatments.

Also, "exists."

― nabisco, Monday, 16 April 2007 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

'Found dead' is an interesting one - it implies the person was dead when you found them. 'Found to be dead' implies you weren't sure and had to investigate before coming to your conclusion.

― Madchen, Monday, 16 April 2007 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

I am so sick of seeing and hearing the words 'select FROM ONE of the following'. Wrong wrong wrong.

― braveclub, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:16 (nineteen years ago)

anyone have a concise explanation of when to use "poor," and when to use "bad"?

― 69, Friday, 20 April 2007 15:40 (nineteen years ago)

NABISCO

― 69, Friday, 20 April 2007 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not sure I understand the issue -- could you give an example of where you can't decide which is right? I don't know of any grand grammatical distinction between "poor" and "bad": they're adjectives with similar connotations, but mostly you just use poor when you mean poor (suggesting a lack, deficiency, poverty, or inadequacy) and bad when you mean bad (suggesting something just flat-out negative).

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 16:59 (nineteen years ago)

it sounds clunkier to say (about a baseball player, for instance) "he played badly" than "he played poorly."

like OH why does it seem to me to be IMPORTANT that the dude in last crusade say "he choose... poorly," instead of "...badly"?

― 69, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

Some of the books I'm reading for this hellish essay I'm doing cap up the words Dada and Futurism but then don't cap up the word Modernism. Should I cap up modernism? I checked over my lecturers emails to see what she did. She did both Modernism and modernism. Maybe she was typing quickly or something.

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:15 (nineteen years ago)

i don't think you should.

others would disagree, and have good cause to do so.

you should check with yr tutors as to what they expect.

― grimly fiendish, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:27 (nineteen years ago)

ie this is style, not grammar. next!

― grimly fiendish, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:29 (nineteen years ago)

I think that deliberating over modernism vs Modernism is a way of delaying writing your hellish essay. I suggest you at least pick a more productive avoidance tactic, like doing the washing up.

― Alba, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:30 (nineteen years ago)

I can't do the washing up. I am in Egham. The washing is in Hounslow.

I'm going for Modernism.

But that leaves me wondering what to do about modernity.

I'm going to get some chocolate.

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:38 (nineteen years ago)

okay, picky pedants. hanging hyphens. how do we feel about them?

eg "a range of two-, three- and four-bedroom properties" or "two, three and four-bedroom properties"?

the former is certainly more precise (and, i'd argue, gramatically correct); the latter, however, is still clear and is more aesthetically appealing.

comments welcome.

xpost: surely modernism (see why i don't post using caps?) is a movement and modernity isn't? so you can cap one and not the other without too much grief.

― grimly fiendish, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:38 (nineteen years ago)

a more pedantic detail there is not. i use them with pride :)

― mitya, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

yes, grimly, I agree it should be Modernism and modernity. I will now have to (pretend to be) pondering something else as I go for chocolate.

two-, three-, and four-bedroom properties looks AWFUL! So awful it's worth not being quite so precise in order to PROTECT THE PAGE from the awful -, -, -, -, -, and - making the place look untidy.

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:43 (nineteen years ago)

Gah. I mean I will now have to be (pretending to be) pondering something else.

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:45 (nineteen years ago)

I agree with Ms Espera, though I don't think my mistress does. The sentence reads more clearly. It's not as if the reader is sitting there thinking: "Huh? Are they talking about twos and threes and four-bedroom houses?" - one's eye can naturally groups the "one", "two" and "three".

Related problem: what if your style is not hyphenate the prefixes "pre" and "post" but you have a phrase like "His budgets, both pre and postwar..." Can prefixes just become words on their own?

― Alba, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:54 (nineteen years ago)

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