QUESTION How to diagram the sentence "See spot run." was a topic of dicussion in my English class one day. I am very curious to really figure out what that would be. If you could explain how it would be diagrammed you would do my hungry mind a favor. Thank you very much. SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Fort Worth, Texas Thu, Nov 15, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE See the section on diagramming sentences. First of all, you have an understood subject here, as in a command or directive, so the word "you" will occupy the subject spot (put it in parentheses). Then, after the object ("Spot"), you have what is called a bare infinitive (an infinitive without the particle "to"), which happens with verbs like this: "We heard him [to] leave." So I would treat "run" as an infinitive adjective under "Spot." (I suppose you could put a bracketed "to" on the diagonal line.)
QUESTION A total of 480 "Young Scientist" badges and certificates was or were awarded to our pupils? May I know the verb to use in this case is was or were? Thank you very much. SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Singapore Fri, Nov 16, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE "A total" is like many other quantitative measures ("percentage," etc.). It depends on what you're measuring. Since the badges and certificates are countable, we need a plural verb, "were."
QUESTION Is this sentence grammatically correct?Learners will strengthen their ability to incorporate both good grammar and good logic into their written communications. SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Minneapolis, Minnesota Fri, Nov 16, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE Grammatically, the sentence is fine. Can we find some adjectives that are more interesting than "good"? Also, I'm wondering if that's what a good writer does. I don't think I've ever incorporated good grammar into anything, even when I'm writing at my best. I know I'm prejudiced against this "learners" jargon, but I would be more impressed with a statement that said "Students will learn to write well, . . . . [going on to say something about writing fundamentals and principles of logic, persuasion, etc.] But that's not what you asked. . . .
QUESTION Every definition of "troop" in the dictionary refers to a military group. Nearly every newspaper use I;ve read refers to troops as individuals,e.g. "10,000 troops sent to battle."Can troops refer both to groups AND individuals? SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Santa Barbara, California Fri, Nov 16, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE That used to throw me, too. I grew up thinking that a "troop" had to refer to a group of soldiers or scouts or other folks in uniform so "troops" had to refer to an assembly of groups. I was wrong, apparently. The plural form, "troops," can refer to a collection of individual soldiers, so "a thousand troops" refers to one thousand individual men and women. It seems awfully clumsy to refer to an individual as a "troop," though, and I don't think that happens (even though it would seem logical enough).
QUESTION I have trouble with who and whom.Joseph was a civil engineer, who (or whom) his father raised to be... SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Ogden, Utah Fri, Nov 16, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE See our little section on who and whom and take the relevant quizzes at the end of that section. That sentence is going to be perplexing regardless of which pronoun you use in that clause, and it gets into trouble precisely at that point. I'm guessing, but I think the intent of the sentence is something like "Joseph was a civil engineer, but his father had raised him to be a minister" or "Joseph, a civil engineer, had been raised by his father to be a minister." Or get the "who" back up there with "Joseph" where it belongs: "Joseph, who was a civil engineer, had been raised by his father to be a minister" Or "Joseph, who had been raised by his father to be a minister, somehow managed to beat the odds and became a civil engineer, instead."
QUESTION Please help me with the following sentence:Mingling with the crowd (was, were) several Secret Agents.Is "mingling,etc." a gerund phrase acting as subject? If so, is it singular, therefore, requiring the singular verb "was"? or is "several Secret Agents" the subject requiring the plural verb "were" or is it a predicate nominative? If the subject is indeed the latter, what is the phrase "mingling with the crowd"? What is the sentence pattern here? SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Claremore, Oklahoma Fri, Nov 16, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE I don't know if there is really such a thing as a simple inverted sentence a sentence in which the verb precedes the subject but that's what you've got here. The subject, "agents," is plural and demands a plural verb, "were." You can regard "Mingling with the crowd" as a predicate nominative or as the present participle accompanied by a prepositional phrase.
QUESTION " She wore black" Is black a noun or an adjective? SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Kingston, Ontario, Canada Sun, Nov 18, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE It's a noun, meaning a black object of clothing.
Authority: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Electronic Edition, Version 1.5. 1996. Used with permission.
QUESTION My question deals with subject/verb agreement when there are 2 subjects connected by "and/or." Is the subject singular or plural? Does it depend on the 2 elements? If you have 2 plural elements connected by "and/or," the subject would obviously be plural, but what if you have 2 singular elements, or 1 plural and 1 singular, or 1 is a collective noun ..... ad nauseam? I hope you can answer this question and explain the reason for your answer. Rewriting the sentence with "and/or" is not always an option, if you are trying to edit another person's work. I've had this question for years and have never found it answered in any reference available to me. Thanks. SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Osaka, Japan Sun, Nov 18, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE Every grammar reference book I own warns against the use of this legalistic construction, and your quandary is another good reason to avoid its use. You can almost always substitute a simple "or" in its place or rewrite the sentence for greater clarity. I can't find an authoritative answer for you (if you insist on using the "and/or" construction), but I think I would treat this amorphous conjunction as a kind of or and base my choice on that. See Rule #5 on the subject-verb agreement page.
QUESTION When is the word "quicker" used correctly? Ex. I get there (quicker) (more quickly) when the traffic is light. What is the rule? SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Rockton, Illinois Sun, Nov 18, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE I don't know if there's a rule about this, but I would use "quicker" as a noun modifier: "He is definitely the quicker guard of the two candidates." And I'd use "more quickly" to modify the verb, as in your sentence.
QUESTION When the beginning of a sentence is a coordinate conjunction without a comma and it's just one sentence, what is it called in grammar books? Is it formal writing? When or in what situation we can use it? Here are some examples I read from the web:
(from the offical webpage of Scotland Yard/Metropolitan Police Service)
- "So shrouded in myth and mystery is this story that the facts are hard to identify at this remove in time. "
- "And it was the officers of Scotland Yard to whom the task of apprehending the fearsome killer was entrusted. "
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE Edmonton,AB,Canada Sun, Nov 18, 2001 GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE The second example you cite is a simple use of a coordinating conjunction at the beginning of a sentence. This is perfectly acceptable, even in the most formal writing providing it serves some legitimate transitional purpose to do so. The "So" in your first sentence is involved in a sentence inversion; it's an intensifying adverb, not a conjunction here. Turn the sentence inside out, and you'll see how it's working here: "This story is so shrouded in myth and mystery that . . . ."
Previous Grammar Log
Next Grammar Log
Index of Grammar Logs
Guide to Grammar and Writing