Timeline for Why Does the Format "_____ Is" When Asking a Question Sound Correct in Some Situations, but Not in Others
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 19, 2019 at 15:02 | answer | added | zak | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jul 3, 2019 at 9:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/1146342911459696640 | ||
| Jun 30, 2019 at 16:23 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | be considered separately, as @Gustavson points out. However, I'd say that there are far trickier differences to be discovered. // In answer to the question "Is anyone else coming to the lecture on Thursday?', "Ann Smith is" is perfectly acceptable provided Ann Smith is known to the group. But if the secretary has to look the matter up in his predecessor's notes, and finds that an unknown Ann Smith has signed up, "Ann Smith" is far more likely. | |
| Jun 30, 2019 at 15:57 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | I'm a native speaker, and I'm going to say that it only works some of the time. I'm pretty good at explaining / researching things, and I'm far from a complete answer here. You certainly can't omit the correct form of be after pronouns I, he, she, it, we and they. In fact, standard informal/colloquial answers to "Who is going to the game tonight?" include "Me", "Us" and "Them". As stated in answers here (and other comments), heavy subjects resist the addition of be. But I believe the actual question may well have an effect also. Certainly copular and main verb examples should ... | |
| Jun 30, 2019 at 15:24 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | ... It's also acceptable when the weighty subject is emphasised. "I don't think there's a single novel about city life in post-war America." / " 'Catcher in the Rye' is!" // '[I]s this actually grammatically correct, but it just feels off?' doesn't acknowledge Orwell's Sixth Law. Up to a point, idiomaticity trumps rules of standard grammar (certainly, the concept that 'grammatical' = 'acceptable' is unsound). | |
| Jun 27, 2019 at 4:16 | answer | added | Jesse | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 27, 2019 at 2:00 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 30, 2019 at 18:44 | |||||
| Jun 27, 2019 at 1:55 | answer | added | Gustavson | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 27, 2019 at 1:48 | history | edited | StillStudying | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 27, 2019 at 1:39 | comment | added | John Lawler | It is off, probably because Catcher in the Rye is a proper name, Note that the is is optional in the other ones (though in the first She would have to become Her because it's not a subject before a verb). Note that it's not so bad in the past tense, where there's a reason for it: What was the previous name of the book? "Shortstop in the Wheat" (was). | |
| Jun 27, 2019 at 1:00 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 27, 2019 at 2:25 | |||||
| Jun 27, 2019 at 0:55 | history | asked | StillStudying | CC BY-SA 4.0 |