ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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

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

"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 (seventeen years ago) link

not one of the fans was left

vs

none of the fans were left

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

Madchen you tart!

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

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

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

make it so!

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

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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

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

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

thanks, that's what I was feeling.

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

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

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

Hmmm, that's true...

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

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

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

"shitties are presumed whipped"

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

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

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

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 (seventeen years ago) link

"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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

'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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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

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

NABISCO

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

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

ie this is style, not grammar. next!

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

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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

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

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 (seventeen years ago) link

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

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

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 (seventeen years ago) link

Typos and spazzed-out missing words on this thread - oops.

― Alba, Monday, 23 April 2007 11:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Surely it would be even odder if your style was to hyphenate the prefixes. To me, 'pre- and postwar' looks odder than 'pre and postwar'. Dunno, the hyphens just slow the flow of the reading, man.

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 12:13 (seventeen years ago) link

(Also, I'm going loads of work.)

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 12:14 (seventeen years ago) link

doing

blimey

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 12:16 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm doing to Morrisons.

― Alba, Monday, 23 April 2007 12:19 (seventeen years ago) link

You do go that.

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

pronunciation pedants: "mah-DERN-ity" or "moe-DARE-nity" ?

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 23 April 2007 12:54 (seventeen years ago) link

I think either pronunciation is acceptable.

― Nathan, Monday, 23 April 2007 12:56 (seventeen years ago) link

"mah-DERN-ity" or "moe-DARE-nity"

Why do I hear Loyd Grossman speaking when I read this?

― Madchen, Monday, 23 April 2007 13:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Whichever's right, I think Grossman would say both.

― Zoe Espera, Monday, 23 April 2007 13:38 (seventeen years ago) link

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

great! because they are right.

― CharlieNo4, Monday, 23 April 2007 13:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I would hang the hyphens

― RJG, Monday, 23 April 2007 13:43 (seventeen years ago) link

I would have hangs with all these hyphens

"pre and postwar" reads awful

― bernard snowy, Monday, 23 April 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Note: it's perfectly okay to use a hanging hyphen like that on a non-hyphenated word like "prewar"; it doesn't necessarily suggest hyphenation of the word, any more than (say) hyphenating a line break does.

Concessions to "looking better" on the bedroom one are reasonable enough, I guess. But I'd probably use them anyway, just because I get that lame pedant's thrill out of making sure everything goes together right. The words meant, after all, are "two-bedroom," "three-bedroom," and "four-bedroom."

― nabisco, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:00 (seventeen years ago) link

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