ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

pertains to students who have completed high school and are 18 years or older as of July 1

I'm fairly sure "or" is better, though I'm still working on a response to the plural-students issue

I guess I could say "over 17," but I'm still curious about this.

"and were born on or before July 1, 1991".

(Basically what's messing with you is that if you broke this down into units you'd actually get "students who are 18" AND "students who are over 18," both of which groups are eligible, right?)

I think the plural issue is already sort of out the door because you're already saying students are 18 years old--it's already clear that the age is referring to the age of each individual student, so you're free to use 'or', I think.

Isn't "These students are 18 years old" really saying
"These students are (each) 18 years old"?

The more I think about this, I am actually coming around toward "and" (though I'm not there yet) -- it's unusual and probably less likely to be understood, but it's smelling more and more technically correct

students who have completed high school and belong to the age group "18 years and over"

^^I'm not honestly suggesting that as a fix, btw, just trying out ways of understanding this.

"those students who can legally buy a pint in a British pub"

Both sort of make sense to me:

"students who are 18 years and (students who are) over (18 years)"
"students who are (either) 18 years or over (18 years)"

But "or" reads a little more smoothly to me because you don't have to implicitly reach back toward the subject again.

"or" definitely reads better (though to be honest no one's gonna blink much at either) ... it's just interesting that after "completed high school and" we start reading these as criteria for individual students, because in the collective sense I think one would normally use a version of, like, "students aged 18 and over"

"...pertains to students who have completed high school and are at least 18 years old as of July 1"

Ha, I think I might go with that, actually.

but if you substitute "more" for "over" in a similar sentence, e.g. "household income is $25,000 or more" you wouldn't put "and" in that sentence - or at least it would look weird. However, in the sentence in question both "or" and "and" look fine to a casual reader.

xp Hi Dere - best way of putting it

I need some help in identifying parts of speech, e.g. "Do you like chocolate?" = auxiliary verb + subject pronoun + main verb + object (uncountable noun).

The one I'm struggling with a bit is 'used to' (used to talk about past habits which are no longer continued), e.g. "He used to smoke". It behaves a bit like a modal verb, but isn't one (not in the way that 'can' or 'must' or 'will' are). It's not really an auxiliary either, but it's not the main verb. It seems to be a 'special case', but that's not terribly helpful.

It's a normal verb plus an infinitive: He (subject) used (verb) to smoke (infinitive).

It's only a special case in that it only has that meaning in the past.

It's just a verb pattern. It needs a complement, and the complement has to be an infinitive.

Or is it a semi-modal like "ought to"?

But is habituality the kind of idea that a modal verb expresses?

You have sown doubt where once there was certainty.

Isn't the idea with semi-modals that they can still be used to form questions and negatives without auxiliaries (the same as other modals)?
So we say You mustn't go instead of You don't must go and Can he swim? instead of Does he can swim?.
'Ought to' kind of conforms to this: you could say You oughtn't to go and Ought I to stay?(although these both sound very formal).
'Used to' doesn't conform to this: you'd say He didn't use to swear instead of He usedn't to swear and Did you use to have a beard? instead of Used you to have a beard?

bit of a digression here, but an entertaining one: a takedown of strunk & white. (and here's where i admit that despite dutifully keeping it on my shelves since college, i've barely ever cracked the elements of style. now i don't feel so bad about that.)

If you had cracked it you would've given it a takedown yourself.

the reason the elements of style is great is that it is beautifully written and engaging to read - no one thinks of it as a bible

and i'd much rather read it that this guy's stilted, stuffy and self-satisfied takedown

Exactly.

"pre-madonnas" beats "for all intensive purposes" as my new favorite

That's a personal favourite of mine - it appeared in my (otherwise quite good) student paper at Uni.

it's a deep-seeded mistake

Is this OK?

"The Morbius Institution is issuing a statement that President Obama is a failure."

Or should it be something like "a statement that claims that" (or "a statement claiming that")?

Even "a statement to the effect that" sounds better than the original.

why not

The Morbius Institution issued a statement that President Obama is a failure

something (conservative?) in me would definitely add the claiming/averring/opining verb

mostly because "statement" in that sentence refers to a formal statement -- I would be less bothered by talking generically about "the statement that X is true"

The verb tense wasn't confusing me, I don't think. It just seems like the construction "object + 'that' + _____" requires a full predicate. But I suspect that the word "that" is functioning in a different way here.

Maybe "...a statement calling President Obama a failure." "Claiming that" implies a disputed factual claim that could be proven or refuted.

That's a good point, although I think the actual sentence I'm copyediting (which I disguised for the purposes of posting on a public message board) is more within the realm of a factual claim.

the Morbius Institute isn't a real thing? ;_;

it's affiliated with the Coolio Society

but yeah they lost their funding

Unless it's pretty clearly a verifiable/refutable factual issue, I wouldn't use "claiming."

C'mon, it's the Morbius Institute, all their opinions are factual claims

'is issuing' sounds wrong because it implies something that takes a fair amount of time (eg. 'is playing tennis'), but to issue a statement takes seconds.

issued should be past tense

OK, guys, I made that part up, too -- don't worry about it.

how would u go about salvaging

Print is the original media

Original sentence: "At a meeting in Tr0ms0, N0rway, representat1ves 0f the U.S., Canada, Russ1a, Denmark, and N0rway issue a jo1nt statement that the greatest l0ng-term threat t0 the surv1val of p0lar bears is cl1mate change."

Depends on the context, really.

Print is where the media began
The media was once all print

?

x-post

For starters, you've got a bunch of 1's and 0's instead of i's and o's!