Username
jayles
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August 12, 2010
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748
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who vs. whom
- February 12, 2014, 8:11pm
Putting the following
_ADP_ whom , _ADP_ who
in to the Ngram viewer of usage in books shows that even in writing the use of whom has been declining, although for some reason it it not matched by a similar increase in who after a preposition, which seems to have upticked only recently.
I wonder whether Hemingway would today have written "Who the bell tolls for", or whether "To whom it may concern" will one day fall into disuse or remain as a fossil.
@Jasper: correct use of "whom" is the essence of non-dysfunctional relationships.
Shall have done?
- February 7, 2014, 6:04pm
@WW I tend to agree.My understanding of Ngram is that the incidence of 'shall' is declining on both sides of the Atlantic, and American usage is no more or less than Brit, in writing at least.
Shall have done?
- February 6, 2014, 6:45pm
Often it is hard to tell whether it is shall or will as it is only 'll. I do catch myself saying things like "Sh'we go?" "Washaweedoo?" - I guess I picked this up in childhood.
The legal use of shall with the second and third person is very similar to the same-rooted German word "soll": so maybe this is the original meaning.
Pronunciation of “gill”
- January 30, 2014, 6:25pm
@HS perhaps you meant "the timely Stephen Fry" (as opposed to "late")
“The plants were withered” Adjective or passive?
- January 28, 2014, 5:55pm
It's quite interesting how we balk at "a made mistake", but not at "an easily-made mistake".
Which reminds me of finding a studente with an English grammar book entitled "Made Simple English" - I told her to throw that one away ( "English Made Simple" would have been fine).
“hone in” vs. “home in”
- January 22, 2014, 7:54pm
I seem (dimly) to recall teaching "less" vs "fewer", and disagreeing with the materials provided (Murphy/Hewings??). There are certainly bigger fish to fry when it comes to style, word-choice, and gettting the message across clearly, and whether the message is at all relevant and worthwhile.
Mr Gwynne must have been speaking "per caput" (thru his head - as in "per ardua ad astra" - hard-work will get you a Vauxhall).
De gerundivo non est disputandum.
Fora vs Forums
- January 14, 2014, 10:23pm
We do in fact take on board some non-English grammar when lifting 'foreign' phrases into English, like "al fresco", "literati" and so on.
“my” vs. “mine” in multiple owner possessive
- December 11, 2013, 1:53pm
@WW I agree. If anyone asked what a determiner is, I'd just give them a list.
BTW in Hungarian, possession is done with noun endings not separate words.
“my” vs. “mine” in multiple owner possessive
- December 10, 2013, 6:08pm
@WW perhaps I just meant "like an adjective" or "works like an adjective". One should remember that in Mandarin some "adjectives" work like verbs ; a bit like brown in ;
"brown bread", "the pies brown under the grill"; so sometimes even basic terminology doesn't get one far.
Questions
Five eggs is too many | July 1, 2013 |
“The plants were withered” Adjective or passive? | August 27, 2013 |
Which sound “normal” to you? | March 31, 2014 |
“it’s the put-er-on-er-er” | April 7, 2014 |
“The plants were withered” Adjective or passive?
"Bore" is listed in longmans and wiktionary as transitive/intransitive in its literal meaning, but only transitive in its metaphorical sense.
Thus "I am boring" (as a verb) means making a hole; but "I am boring " (as in tedious) is marked with "boring" as an adjective. [I guess because one cannot say "I bore" metaphorically without an object].
No issue with "bored" as the third form of the verb ususally picks up the transitive meaning of the verb, which here can be either.
Multo in parvo.