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Expression: "This gives me strength to face the busy day that lies ahead."

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Mr. Tom  #362816  Thu, 10 May 07 10:52 AM

Hi

Could you please tell me if all the following sentences are correct and natural?

This gives me strength to face the busy day that lies ahead.

This gives me strength to face the busy day  lies ahead.

This gives me strength to face the busy day lying ahead.

  
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Feebs11  #362836  Thu, 10 May 07 11:15 AM
#1  and #3:  yes; #2:  no
  
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Mr. Tom  #362885  Thu, 10 May 07 12:30 PM

 Feebs11 wrote:
#1  and #3:  yes; #2:  no

I am grateful, Feebs, but I would take this opportunity to understand such usages better. Please explain to me why the following sentences are correct when "that" is missing and the object and verb come together.

1- The room was filled with familiar ghosts come to help celebrate her birthday. ("that had" is understood)

2- The hospital was filled with terrified people come to find out whether their children were alive.

Keeping this in mind, how can I make sentence # 2 correct?

  
Feebs11  #363144  Thu, 10 May 07 11:51 PM
1- The room was filled with familiar ghosts come to help celebrate her birthday. ("that had" is understood) 

2- The hospital was filled with terrified people come to find out whether their children were alive. Here I would insert a comma after "people".

In both sentences, I think  "who" is the understood word : "ghosts [who have/had] come" /  "terrified people [who have] come"



  
CalifJim  #363185  Fri, 11 May 07 01:57 AM
This gives me strength to face the busy day lies ahead.
This is not correct.  The relative pronoun that (or which) cannot be omitted when it is the subject of its clause.  It has to be "busy day that lies ahead".

However, if the relative pronoun subject is followed by a form of the verb to be, both the relative pronoun and the form of to be may be omitted.  (This is called Whiz-Deletion.)

This is not the package that was sent yesterday.  >  This is not the package sent yesterday.
Jerry is the man who is sitting next to Joy.  > Jerry is the man sitting next to Joy.
These are the flowers which were picked by Gina this morning.  >  These are the flowers picked by Gina this morning.


The examples below are exceptions.  They are cases where both the relative pronoun and a form of to have is omitted.  This occurs very rarely, and, as far as I know, only with a few intransitive verbs of motion, like come and go.  Both of these examples use come, of course.  Note that it is the past participle come that is used, not the present tense come.  By coincidence, both forms are spelled the same way.

1- The room was filled with familiar ghosts come to help celebrate her birthday.

2- The hospital was filled with terrified people come to find out whether their children were alive.


In the case of go, then, we would have to use the past participle gone in a sentence something like this:

The town was nearly deserted because of all the people who had gone away for the summer. >
The town was nearly deserted because of all the people gone away for the summer.

And even this is only borderline acceptable.  Applying the model of these exceptions to your sentence about the busy day that lies ahead would be wrong.  Even if you use the past participle lain, and change the tense appropriately, giving

This gave me strength to face the busy day that had lain ahead. >
*This gave me strength to face the busy day lain ahead.

it would still be wrong, because to lie is not a verb of motion that allows the deletion of that had.

CJ

  
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Anonymous  #363250  Fri, 11 May 07 05:50 AM

I am very grateful to you all.

My regards...

  
Mr. Tom  #363252  Fri, 11 May 07 05:52 AM

I am very grateful to you all

My warm regards

  
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