Timeline for Is it correct to say: These are not homework?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 19, 2017 at 13:34 | comment | added | David Haim | enjoy yourself : youglish.com/search/%22these%20people%22/us | |
| Nov 19, 2017 at 6:42 | vote | accept | phatfingers | ||
| Nov 19, 2017 at 6:42 | comment | added | phatfingers | I don't mean to be contentious, and appreciate your answer. I agree that it's grammatically correct, or at least that the unspecified noun can be chosen in such a way as to make it grammatically correct, even if it doesn't show up anywhere in the surrounding text. | |
| Nov 19, 2017 at 5:35 | comment | added | phatfingers | Again, your instinct is to qualify "these" with the word "people". | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 15:51 | comment | added | David Haim | @phatfingers in the context you provided, yes. but what about "tell these people to go" "-these people are my family!" | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 15:49 | comment | added | phatfingers | "These are my family," would be a closer example than, "These people are my family." While it may be grammatically correct, it would still sound odd to me to hear, "Sit down and have lunch with us. These are my family." | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:46 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | But now you're involving inversion and tacitly assuming it occurs only in a single way (ie that Comp-Copula-Sub can never occur). 'Something very simple' wouldn't have had doctoral theses written on it. | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:39 | comment | added | David Haim | sorry, the examples you wrote behave exactly the same. it's again "x be y", just in question form. "the main reasons are these" -> "what are the main reasons" and "the point of this is that" -> "what is the point of this". again, over-complication for something simple. | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:32 | history | edited | Edwin Ashworth | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:31 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | 'What is the point of this?' and 'What are the main reasons for your decision?' show that 'x + be + y' doesn't always behave the same way. / But the fact remains that this has been covered before. / I've corrected your post. | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:24 | comment | added | David Haim | I think the links you guys provided are over-complicating something very simple. I don't really see the benefit of talking about agreement here where this is a simple case of "x + be + y". | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:22 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Nice examples, but the question has been covered on ELU before. | |
| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:17 | history | edited | David Haim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 18, 2017 at 10:12 | history | answered | David Haim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |