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Showing results for tags 'Grammar'.
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We all know that "Who did whom" is the correct Subject-Verb-Object form of a typical sentence. However, there are two cases for which I've never been quite certain what to use: (A nod to René Auberjonois, who passed away today.) As the subject of a descriptive clause (is this the correct term?): This sentence pays tribute to René Auberjonois, who played 'Odo" on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." As the object of a descriptive clause: This sentence pays tribute to René Auberjonois, whom we all know as 'Odo' on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Are these sentences correct? Is the who/whom entirely based on what occurs to the right of the comma? Restated, can you treat these as their own sentences, substituting "he" or "him?" This seems correct, but I've never seen the rule(s) defined.
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(Scroll down and read the third paragraph of Post #4) It's Attorneys General, not Attorney Generals. Now, if someone would only point me to the generally accepted rules for capitalization in titles, I would be in their debt. I don't know what they are, so I tend to capitalize most everything, sometimes making exceptions for words that are two-letters or less. The 1990 Iraq War changed the meaning of the term "decimate" forever. At least research the original etymology, and be aware that it has been bastardized within the past 25 years. This one bothered me for a long time, and is a concrete example that if you don't stand up early on and fight, things will slip away before your very eyes - forever. -
There are many words that are problematic for me, some of which I've developed my own system (a very useful system) of remembering. For example: breeches vs. breaches - potentially a very embarrassing mistake. Breeches = trousers (notice how the word "looks" almost Shakespearean - it's also the same spelling as "leeches," another old-looking word). "Leeches in my breeches! Ahhhhh!!!!" Breaches = breaking a law, a rule, or even a dam (I remember this by "Broken Reaches," as in "breaking the long arm of the law"). "Breaches" also has the same first-four letters as "Break." If anyone has developed their own rules for remembering things, I encourage you to share them with us - I have numerous ones, but wouldn't be able to think of them all at once. Though there is the Wilson-Kathkart Scandal which is *amazingly* useful in day-to-day living - I probably use it once a month for various reasons.
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I'm having a violent argument right now over the usage of lie vs. lay, as applied to one's own self. I always thought that you lay down, and then you lie there (everything in the present tense). My friend insists (and has internet examples from Grammar Girl to back it up) that if you're talking about something other than yourself, and you mean "to set something down," you use lay, but if you're talking about the act of reclining, you use lie. I always thought that there was an implied "myself" that was omitted, i.e., I'm going to go upstairs and lay (myself) down, and that *anytime* you mean "to recline" or "to set something or someone down," you use lay, even if you're talking about yourself. My friend says that when it comes to the action verb of heading towards the ground, "lie" means "to recline," and "lay" means "to place." It isn't logical for "to lie" to be used both for motion, and for stationary situations, i.e., "The cat is lying down, and the dog is lying there." We're nearly coming to blows over this - someone please help. I need to get layed (down on a sofa, and then lie there). PS - Telling me that "to lay" is always transitive, and "to lie" is always intransitive might convince me, but I honestly didn't know that.
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Unless there's a topic that specifically demands its own thread (and there may well be), this thread can be a catch-all for any questions about learning the Spanish language - either Spanish Spanish, Latin-American Spanish, or even Portuguese (although that language, of course, is different enough to be considered distinct). We also have a diverse-enough member base where similar threads could be started for any given language; I happen to be dabbling in Spanish at the moment. My question is about the pronunciation of Escobar, as in, "Season 2 of Narcos is now out on Netflix." The default accent in Spanish is generally the penultimate syllable - there are numerous exceptions, and this is obviously one of them. Why is there no "acento agudo" over the "E" in Escobar? Stated differently, given that there is no acento agudo, why isn't the second syllable accented? With verb infinitives ending in "ar," the final syllable is (usually?) accented, but I believe that with Escobar, the initial syllable gets the accent. If I'm wrong about this, then the entire question may be moot.
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Do any Spanish speakers know why certain feminine nouns (e.g., "agua") take a masculine article in the singular case? The only thing I can think of (at least in this case) is for clarity of sound - for example, "el agua" sounds perfectly clear, whereas "la agua" is more difficult to understand. If this is the case, why not simply use an apostophe, e.g., "l'agua?" Is clarity of sound the reason? If so, there's a similar thing in French to avoid connecting two potentially confusing-sounding vowels. For example, <<Il y a>> (those brackets are the French equivalent of quotation marks) means "There is." However, if you make it a question, you insert a "-t-" to avoid a confusing-sounding phrase: in order to say, "Is there?" you say <<Y a-t-il?>> as opposed to the incorrect <<Y a il?>> which is more difficult for the ears to understand - the "-t-" adds nothing whatsoever except clarity of sound. Granted, this has nothing to do with gender, but it might serve a similar purpose.
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I like "house-made." But I'm kinda of a hyphen-phile. Get it? Homemade sounds a little folksy for me, but the message is conveyed. Wouldn't it be awesome if the phrase wasn't even necessary? In a perfect world, if the laws of time, money, and labor percentages were suspended, we could make EVERYTHING ourselves. Harvest salt, grow our own veggies, slaughter our own rabbits. Including the furniture. That would be sweet. Don't get me wrong. The fact that cooks take pride in doing things themselves makes me love my work even more, and challenges us all to take more on. Just waxing the platonic (pastoral?) ideal.
