ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

The fact that the mountain was able to withstand having five corries ripped out of its east-facing slops made me admire it all the more.

(btw this is a corrie)

"I admired the mountain; five corries had been ripped out of its eastern slopes."

Is that not implying too heavily that the corrie-ripping was why you admired the mountain?

"I admired the mountain, from the east-facing slopes of which five corries had been ripped out"

(replacing 'whose')

Is that not implying too heavily that the corrie-ripping was why you admired the mountain?

Possibly. I mean, the assumption is that the corrie-ripping is part of the reason why you're admiring the mountain in the first place, otherwise why mention it?

I am with Que; put the corries in another sentence.

That's interesting. I reguarly leave such asides in sentences, rather than make them into new ones.

if you're going to leave an "aside" like that in the sentence, it's probably not a good idea to begin the sentence with it.

"I admired the mountain, pockmarked with five corries on its eastern slopes."

Alba I have the same queasiness over using "who" for non-humans too.

Who the fuck admires a mountain is what I want to know.

LOL I was just about to post that! I mean, what the hell did the mountain ever do that's so admirable? Give up some corries? Well, la-di-fucking-da!

admired visually, guys

MF admirer "to marvel at"

Admirable Mountain:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/pauldoyle/Mountain-TheBestOfMountain-1973.jpg

Admiration! The mountain! Five corries — GONE!

The sentence I posted wasn't the actual one I was dealing with. I changed some words and truncated it, to protect the innocent.

"I admired Alfie, from which five barely pubescent sperm have been ripped out of his just-dropping nuts."

Please leave the classroom.

yeah I deserve a lot of scorn for that one

Ok, this one always seemed clear to me, but apparently some others in my area disagree. Paraphrasing:

- Your cancer risk will be half that of your father.
- Your cancer risk will be half that of your father's.

It seemed obvious to me that the first one was right. "That of" is possessive. "Your cancer risk will be half (the cancer risk of) your father."

The second statement seems to me to have a double possessive -- making it say, non-sensically, that you're half as likely to get cancer as your father's chance of getting cancer is of getting cancer.

Some people seem to have the opposite preference -- am I missing something here? Can you detect the reasoning behind the second way?

Your cancer risk will be half that of your father's (cancer risk.)

??

hahaha maybe i shouldn't post on this thread but they both read equally clumsy and horrible to me?

I'm with PP here; the assumption you're making re: the first instance doesn't scan for me.

I'm with Nabisco -- although the first one may sound odd, it doesn't make sense any other way.

in the first one it sounds like "your cancer risk is half of your father," which makes zero sense

I'm late to the pockmarked mountain game, but strongly advocate ". . . ripped from its eastern slopes" (instead of "out of").

also Mr. Que OTM. Second is correct.

"that of" is possessive, Que -- "your cancer risk is half (the cancer risk) of your father" ... since "that" = "cancer risk"

the second version has two possessives, so it breaks down like "your cancer risk will be half (the cancer risk) of your father's (cancer risk)" -- and abstract likelihoods never get cancer

"Your cancer risk will be half that of your father's (cancer risk.)"

^^ this seems like where the writers must be coming from, but then what is "that of" doing in this sentence anyway? if that were your goal, you could just say "your cancer risk will be half your father's," and only have one possessive

the double possessive would only make sense to me if something else were possessed -- "your dog's cancer risk will be half that of your father's (dog)"

"that" shouldn't even be there

your cancer risk will be half of your father's cancer risk

it's still horrible phrasing and should be rewritten ;)

I think maybe why the first one sounds weird is that this construction is usually phrased as "The cancer risk of Bob is half that of his father." No one would bat an eye at that, I'm guessing, but since we don't say things like "the cancer risk of you," we have to phrase it as "Your cancer risk" and suddenly we expect the "your" to have an obvious parallel on the other side. But it doesn't need one, since "that of" is doing the same work.

Haha yes yes, Que, we are in agreement on that last post! Either you use "that of" as the possessive or you use apostrophe-S as the possessive, but not both!

And yes, Jaymc is looking at this exactly as I am

okay you know that everyone under the sun is going to read "your dog's cancer risk will be half that of your father's" as "your dog's cancer risk will be half that of your father's (cancer risk)"

haha well sure, nobody would leave a grammatically implied "dog" in that sentence, but the example should still make sense

Dogs make for good examples here, actually, because these two both at least make sense:

- Your dog is bigger than your father's
- Your dog is bigger than that of your father

But it would make no sense to say:

- Your dog is bigger than that of your father's

My instinct tells me to agree with Dan, but if I flip the sentence around completely, "You father's cancer risk is double that of yours" makes no sense at all, and I conclude that it has to be " . . . of you." Which reads poorly, and leads me to believe this is a bad sentence. Just express it as an equation: "Your cancer risk = 2x your dad's cancer risk."

there are much better ways to phrase it, though, is what i am saying:

Scruffy is bigger than Nabisco Junior.

etc

ultimately I agree with Que; if the "correct" construction still reads so clunkily, it's time to reword the whole sentence

that is not an option

But it would make no sense to say:

Your dog is bigger than that of your father's

I almost don't want to mention this because I agree with you, but I think we have talked on this thread before about the weird redundancy within perfectly acceptable phrases like "this friend of my dad's."

haha anyway I'm not asking because I think can do anything about it -- if lawyers and the government are fine with something, what do I care -- but just to get a sense of the logic behind the second choice

(which I'm still not sure I see, but I'm reassured to see that the second one does seem preferable to some people, and it doesn't read as a horrible error)

xpost - true, J, that's probably bearing on this one!

that is not an option

why not

My brother just asked me why the formulation 'Anybody can't do that' is wrong. I said, well, it should be 'Not anybody can do that' but he said, yes, i know, but why is it wrong.

Pesky warmint.

Anyway, I should know but I don't. When something sounds incredibly cackhanded there's usually something awry - what is it?

I've never been able to appreciate how English allows you to push a negative past a quantifier w/o flipping it.

'Anybody can't do that' -- 'Not anybody can do that'

Even if you throw out a lot of normal expectations of syntax, these would mean different things, wouldn't they? The first one seems to say that any given person cannot do it, while the second one seems to say that not just anyone can do it (but talented people or professionals can).

Well, I did consider 'Nobody can do that' but that was wrong in a different way really, so went for the second, which I think is more nearly equivalent. It is a problem of nuance (hence Orwell going on rather about double negatives getting it somewhat wrong in The Essay We Are Not Allowed to Mention).

I still think 'anybody can't do that' is ugly to the point of being unusable, partly because it is so runic.

Haha this actually might be a very good layman's explanation of why it's wrong, without having to go into rules about grammar and syntax -- I really can't tell what it means. I honestly wouldn't have thought the thrust of it was "not just anyone can do that," especially written. (Though I can imagine how you'd say it in a way that makes it clear.)

"I couldn't resist talking about it."

In this case, is "talking" a gerundive nominalization, or just your usual happy present participle?

"Off License" or "Off Licence"

?

Licence