73
votes
Accepted
What's wrong with constructions like "Dragons are big, green, and eat people."?
This pattern is called a series out of control (Bryson, 2004, p. 13) or bastard enumeration (Fowler, 1926, p. 22). It belongs to the broader class of failures of parallel structure such as "Mary ...
- 1,915
28
votes
Origin and grammaticality of "I like me ..."
The phrasing is grammatical within the dialects that use it but seldom used in published writing.
Scholar Lawrence Horn, in a paper on the subject (1), calls this usage the "personal dative" ...
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27
votes
Not sure if "combined 90 men’s years experience" is right usage as opposed to "combined 90 man years worth of experience"
I would omit the word "man" and simply say that our current team boasts of a combined 90 years' worth of experience.
This is the way I've seen it written many times.
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Not sure if "combined 90 men’s years experience" is right usage as opposed to "combined 90 man years worth of experience"
As has been said by Mr. Ashworth in a comment, the standard term to unambiguously express this concept is man-year (hyphenated), which is analogous to the more familiar man-hour. Many people will ...
12
votes
Accepted
What is the grammatical role of the last line of Gray's 'Elegy'?
The bosom of his Father and his God.
is in (somewhat ironic) apposition to "their dread abode", which is a euphemism for "death".
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11
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Is "I'm fine to [verb]" grammatically correct?
The syntax of "I'm fine to wait" is the same as that of "I'm happy to wait," which is obviously correct; in the terminology of Huddleston & Pullum (2002), happy is an adjective ...
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10
votes
What is the grammatical role of the last line of Gray's 'Elegy'?
tl;dr: Greybeard’s apposition analysis is correct.
But here, perhaps, is everything you could have hoped for . . .
Gray’s Elegy, with Literary and Grammatical Explanations and Comments, and ...
- 18.4k
10
votes
"Intra": can it be used just like "sub" or does it have extra nuance?
The prefix "intra-" means within, which works with your examples:
intra-group dialogue: dialogue within a group
intrastate highways: highways within a state
intramural sports: sports within ...
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10
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What's wrong with constructions like "Dragons are big, green, and eat people."?
The break-down in parallelism can perhaps be more clearly seen if bullet points are used as follows:
• big
(a) Dragons are: • green
...
- 85.8k
10
votes
On the use of overtly
I'd say that overtly is a malapropism as you're using it. The idiomatic way to say that surprise would not be written all over your face is:
I would show no surprise if she was forced to do it.
But ...
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9
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Not sure if "combined 90 men’s years experience" is right usage as opposed to "combined 90 man years worth of experience"
The traditional way of saying this was “Man-Years.” (The first time I remember seeing this was in 1986 or ’87, on the back of the box of the game Starflight, which boasted, “The equivalent of 15 man-...
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Not sure if "combined 90 men’s years experience" is right usage as opposed to "combined 90 man years worth of experience"
Part of this topic may be more mathematical notation than English Grammar.
A single "man-year" is a unit of measure, much like a "kilowatt-hour".
It is the first thing multiplied ...
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8
votes
Not sure if "combined 90 men’s years experience" is right usage as opposed to "combined 90 man years worth of experience"
As no other answer has mentioned it, I'll mention that "combined 90 men’s years experience" is not grammatical, and is unlikely to be understood at all. (I didn't understand what you meant ...
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8
votes
Accepted
The usage of the modal verb "must be"
These two people must be freelancers working hard on their computers.
is awkward but means
It is highly likely that these two people are freelancers. They are working hard on their computers.
The ...
- 85.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Can you use "in any way" and "at all" together in a single sentence?
Yes, you can use similar-meaning phrases, such as in any way and at all together in a sentence. This is heard in natural, informal conversation — and also in legalese. I can find no source calling it '...
- 3,110
8
votes
So...to structure
The second one is not only ungrammatical, but illogical.
His talent for music was so impressive as to...
but if you end it with deny him an opportunity, it has the opposite meaning to sentence 1. ...
- 26.6k
8
votes
Use of "them" in "…she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them" by Taylor Swift
Usually a relative clause has a gap in it which corresponds to the noun phrase that it is modifying:
That is the dog(i) who [ __(i) bit him ].
That is the dog(i) who [ he bit __(i) ].
The little ...
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7
votes
Is the word shocking in this sentence being used as a gerund or present participle? And why?
We heard [shocking news].
"Shocking" is an adjective here not a verb, though it is formed by conversion from the present participle "shocking".
"Shocking news" is a noun ...
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7
votes
Is "me's" a word?
Sure, you can have a clitic form of is or has at the end of a subject ending in me. It is oral English mostly.
Why didn't you just ignore me? Ignoring me's fine. (Interview with
Ridley Scott, Den of ...
- 10.4k
6
votes
Not sure if "combined 90 men’s years experience" is right usage as opposed to "combined 90 man years worth of experience"
Preamble
When questions ask whether X or Y is correct, the answer “Z is to be preferred” may be considered by some to be off-topic. However this is not a quiz site, but a site concerned (among other ...
- 12.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Is "factoral" a legitimate word, or could it be a typo?
One reason why factoral doesn't appear in dictionaries is that the suffix -al is productive — it can be added to many root words with a standard meaning:
used to add the meaning "connected with&...
- 103k
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Can you use "in any way" and "at all" together in a single sentence?
A pedantic question deserves a pedantic answer: it is not redundant to use both these terms because, strictly speaking, their meanings are different. In any way concerns the quality of what one is ...
- 8,779
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votes
This is relating to a number of posts from a few years ago that I have just stumbled upon
The claim that foods was never used in the UK is false. The Hansard Corpus, detailing speech in British parliament, has 9182 hits dating back to the 19th century. A sample:
Our imports of foods of ...
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5
votes
What is the grammatical role of the last line of Gray's 'Elegy'?
Omitting the parenthesized penultimate line:
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Seems to clarify the role of ...
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5
votes
Is "There danced a man in the hall" a grammatical alternative to "A man danced in the hall"? What verbs are possible here?
You are asking the wrong question. A sentence can be grammatically correct without being something that people would say in real life, or even without making sense.
There is nothing grammatically ...
- 26.6k
5
votes
Accepted
What exactly is "they doctor says"?
I think the examples you found are just Standard English with typos. However, "they + noun" is grammatical in some dialects where "they" is used instead of "their":
U.S. ...
- 67.1k
5
votes
Accepted
"you might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb" grammatical analysis
The two variants of the adage show different levels of deletion (as does the expanded but rarely met version), all acceptable:
You might as well be hanged for {stealing} a sheep as [be hanged] for {...
- 85.8k
5
votes
Count off to split into teams
Various dictionaries give this expression. Farlex gives perhaps the clearest explanation of the sense used here (with several other senses), with an example sentence:
count off
To count in turn, as ...
- 85.8k
5
votes
The usage of the modal verb "must be"
Yes, it is correct. The English word must has various meanings. One of them is 'be morally or legally obliged to', but it can also be used to show that something is very likely to be true (as in You ...
- 26.6k
5
votes
Origin and grammaticality of "I like me ..."
Does the word "me" in this phrase make it grammatically incorrect?
Not really, but it depends on how far back you want to go to justify its use.
The "me" is the use of the Old ...
- 45.1k
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