ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

disobedience.

thought so.

Which one sounds better?

She has a plausible chance to win the nomination

She has a plausible chance of winning the nomination

2nd one (to my ear). Neither would be incorrect.

I agree. Thanks.

"Stories of the late Joseph Heller" or "stories of the late Joseph Heller's"?

I would always always use the former but I'm not necessarily sure that's correct.

The "of" negates the need for the "'s" - option 1 is correct.

But you would say "stories of his" rather than "stories of him".

Yes, but I think that's an example of where common usage has superseded technically correct grammar, in the same way you'd say "he's a friend of mine" rather than "a friend of me".

So would you actually say "stories of him"? If not, why does common usage has supseding rights with that but not with "stories of Joseph Heller's"? Because you don't consider the latter is commonly used enough?

"has supseding" = "have superseding", in a better world.

"A friend of Mike's came round yesterday."

Surely this is correct? You wouldn't say "a friend of Mike". I don't think this is a question of common usage superseding technically correct grammar. I can't put my finger on the grammatical principle but I think it's there. English is too consistent on this point: ie "those books of yours" etc, surely there was never a time when "those books of you" was correct.

Actually, I think I can see the purpose of this double possessive. It's to emphasise possession when there are other possible interpretations. Compare:

"That photo of you"
"That photo of yours"

Completely different meanings.

I've just realised something else as well, Alba: do you mean "stories belonging to Joseph Heller" or "stories about Josepher Heller"?

Language Log has info on the double posessive.

I wish I hadn't just mis-spelt 'possessive'.

great link, thanks!

although "don't sweat it" is not really the advice i'd be looking for...

do you mean "stories belonging to Joseph Heller" or "stories about Josepher Heller"?

The former, Charlie.

Thanks for that link, woofwoofwoofwoofwoofwoofwoof.

Yeah, v. interesting. I think I raised this question a while ago on this thread, as it's something that's always dissatisfied me.

The Burchfield edition of Fowler's "Modern English Usage" says much the same as the excellent Language Log article linked to above, but if anyone is unsure why the example quoted from CGEL suddenly has "that" running through it, the list of limitations from MEU may help:
"It will be seen from the examples that the appositional of-phrase must be definite (i.e. not indefinite) and human: a friend of my mother's is idiomatic, but a friend of the British Museum's is not; an admirer of hers is idiomatic, but an admirer of the furniture's is not. It will also be observed that the phrase preceding of is normally indefinite (a great admirer, a child of hers, etc.). The only exceptions are those where the first noun phrase is preceded by the demonstratives this or that (this story of Barney's)."

I hesitated over the "only exceptions" in the final sentences but can't think of any counterexamples; meanwhile I agree with the first part except that I might use it for inanimate things but only in what I suppose is an attempt at anthropomorphic whimsy, which more or less fits.

I need my own personal subeditor to stop me sounding like L. Jagger on the grammar thread. (Is a comma insisted on after "however" only to distinguish it from its comma-less "in whatever way" meaning, or should one be demanded after "meanwhile" too?)

Yes.

this is hurting my BRANE.

this is feeding my brains

The original post in this thread was a brilliant troll.

okay: on vs upon
this thing should be at this or that level, depending upon the manufacturer's recommendation
or
this thing should be at this or that level, depending on the manufacturer's recommendation

Inherently a stylistic choice. The grammar is ok either way.

It would mean something entirely different were you to say "depending from manufacturer's nose".

would it

hm, okay, i think i will go with upon!

When do you put a comma inside quotation marks? I know you do when quoting someone, e.g, "Have some pie," she said.

But what about like

When he showed me his "man purse", I blushed.

Does the comma always go outside the quotes in such a case? Thx grammar fiends.

This is largely a US/UK division (US English out, UK English in). It's probably rahed on about at length upthread.

Whoops. The other way around, rather. (US English in, UK English out).

The former sounds right to me. In fact, I wasn't aware of any variant of English chucking it outside the quotes.

"The traditional convention in American English is for commas and periods to be included inside the quotation marks, regardless of whether they are part of the quoted sentence, while the British style places them in or outside of the quotation marks according to whether or not the punctuation is part of the quoted phrase. The American rule is derived from typesetting while the British rule is grammatical (see below for more explanation). Although the terms American style and British style are used it is not as clear cut as that because at least one major British newspaper prefers typesetters' quotation (punctuation inside) and BBC News uses both styles, while scientific and technical publications, even in the U.S., almost universally use logical quotation (punctuation outside unless part of the source material), due to its precision."

blah wikipedia blah

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

My head's in a spin. Is it:

"This isn’t x, but neither is it y"

or

"This isn’t x, but nor is it y"

?

Both are correct. It's similar to:

"John doesn't watch TV. Nor do I."
"John doesn't watch TV. Neither do I."

I just told a recruitment agent that I could "obtain references for either of those posts". Was that wrong? (Grammatically, I mean. I *can* obtain the references.)

It'll do.

bit of a science-writing query here, and i've seen contradictory answers from various sources:

"the kinetics of [x and y] was determined by..."

vs

"the kinetics of [x and y] were determined by..."

kinetics were

thanks, yeah that's what i went with in the end, the OED has it as a plural in that sense only

Does [x and y] represent a combination of X and Y, or are they being considered separately (i.e., "the kinetics of X and the kinetics of Y")? (My science background is fairly limited, so forgive me if the answer to this question is obvious.)

x and y are being considered separately.

i think this is the relevant definition:
2b (usually treated as pl.) Those aspects of a process that relate to its rate; the details of the way a reaction occurs, esp. as regards its rate.

'kinetics was' would be clunky, though.

Yeah, I think that was the right choice.

If x and y are being considered separately then I don't see how it could be anything other than right.

The x and y shouldn't matter.

What about, "The kinetics of peanut butter and jelly [was/were] the focus of a recent research paper"?

were