Search results for 'tag:Constructions tag:Weddings' matching tags 'Constructions' and 'Weddings'

Re: forms of "be"

Mister Micawber — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 05:51:11 GMT

The uses of be are numerous, Sunilghai:

âverb (used without object)

1.	to exist or live: Shakespeare's âTo be or not to beâ is the ultimate question.

2.	to take place; happen; occur: The wedding was last week.

3.	to occupy a place or position: The book is on the table.

4.	to continue or remain as before: Let things be.

5.	to belong; attend; befall: May good fortune be with you.

6.	(used as a copula to connect the subject with its predicate adjective, or predicate nominative, in order to describe, identify, or amplify the subject): Martha is tall. John is president. This is she.

7.	(used as a copula to introduce or form interrogative or imperative sentences): Is that right? Be quiet! Don't be facetious.

âauxiliary verb

8.	(used with the present participle of another verb to form the progressive tense): I am waiting.

9.	(used with the present participle or infinitive of the principal verb to indicate future action): She is visiting there next week. He is to see me today.

10.

(used with the past participle of another verb to form the passive voice): The date was fixed. It must be done.

11.

(used in archaic or literary constructions with some intransitive verbs to form the perfect tense): He is come. Agamemnon to the wars is gone.

Re: husband hope to be

Grammar Geek — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:35:13 GMT

Hello Jan Sulc, and welcome to the forums.

The sentence you have quoted is quite ungrammatical.

There is a standard construction, soon-to-be. That person/thing will soon be whatever you write, but isn't yet. For example, when referring to your fiance the week before your wedding, you can say "soon-to-be husband."

I haven't seen that in "hoped-to-be" but I supposed you could do that, as in "Harvard, my hoped-to-be future university" -- but it seems awkward to me.

The meaning that is trying to come through is "the person that he/she hopes will be..."

So I can't give you a gammatical explanation, because it isn't grammatical. If you think it's generally used, could you give a few more examples?

Re: Be going to

Goodman — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:44:38 GMT

Using present progressive to indicate future action is very common in English. This may present some confusion to learners. âI am going to try to make it to your partyâ. This means from this minute to the whole time your party shall last, Iâll make an effort to show up.

I am leaving for Paris a week from now. Even the construction is present progressive, the tense is really in the future.

What time are you leaving your house for Toddâs wedding tomorrow? Leaving your house â¦requires no âfromâ in this context.

Issue writing - Please comment and revise

Apjack — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:53:19 GMT

Issue - "Tradition and modernization are incompatible. One must choose between them."

Must we choose between tradition and modernization, as the speaker asserts? I agree that in certain cases the two are mutually exclusive. For the most part, however, modernization is compatible with tradition. In fact, modern people usually inspire by traditions and make our life be more beautiful and comfortable.

Architecture is one of the realms that arouse serious conflicts between tradition and modernization. Basically, there are two major reasons contribute to the conflicts. First, the difference in life style: as aesthetic evolved in the history. The impact of foreign culture and industry revolution ignite aesthetic change. For example, in china, modern peopleâs housing are higher, simpler and more convenient, while tradition ones are more complicated and with structural decorations such as sculpture and a. The second cause is the developing of city, needed to meet the rapidly growing economic. The valuable land is limited, and the government should reconstruct the land with old building in order to continue the development of that region. Beyond controversy, most of the old buildings should face destruction. However, before the destruction, modern planners will consider the buildingâs value and its importance. In fact, people have done many works on the preservation of historical building. If the construction possesses unique characteristics, planners will turn around the historical buildings to tourist spot or museum. For instance, Forbidden City and Terracotta Warriors. Otherwise, they may dissemble the building and move it to new place. Either turning the purpose of building or moving to a new site, it reveals the traditional and contemporary building could exist together.

In term of clothing fashion and art, we can easily find the coexistence of tradition and modernization. Some traditions are unique and remain in our contemporary society. Chinese calligraphy and monochromatic painting technique are the traditional writing and drawing techniques in ancient china. It is quite different to nowadays writing and painting. People use computer or colorful ink for drawing, by contrast, calligraphy and monochromatic painting use feather pen and black ink. Although the popularization of pen ball and computer for writing and drawing, Chinese calligraphy and monochromatic painting are able to be found in many respects including poster and advertising media. In the area of fashion, blue jeans and Chinese cheongsam are representative examples. Blue jeans were appeared in 19^th century. Initially, they were worn by mining workers in the US. The rapidly developing of US economics does not evade these sturdy trousers. Interestingly, blue jeans became more acceptable and finally become a general fashion. And now we can find blue jeans nearly all over the world. Sometimes, traditions become rejuvenated through new adaptations and packaging. For example, giving out wedding pastries is a Chinese custom. Traditionally, Chinese bridal cakes were not packaged, but transported âas they wereâ in wooden crates. By encasing in a smart container and with its own coordinated carrier bag make these traditional pastries becoming more suitable to contemporary tastes and more acceptable to younger customers.

In addition, design for modern usage that looks to tradition for inspiration, seeking a synthesis of what is both unique and universal. In fact, many ancient constructions, sculptures and drawings are wondering and attractive. Modern designers in various respects can be enlightened when they glance through ancient artifacts. There are many cases to illustrate that appropriate combination of the tradition and modernization makes surprising result. For example, two representative buildings designed by renowned architect, Loeh Ming Pei, have become the landmark of the city. First, the Louvre pyramid in Paris. The glass pyramid is the combination of contemporary constructing materials and Egyptâs pyramid. The other is Bank of China Tower located in Hong Kong. The building is constructed in a shape that resembles the stalks of bamboo pushing skyward. More important it takes the bamboo forest allegory one step further. Bamboo is a sign for honored man, who behaves humbly, straight and well appreciated by people, in traditional china culture. Besides, if you pay attention on your surrounding, you may find many things that decorate with ancient characteristics such as living tool, street and telephone booth.

In sum, tradition and modernization exists a certain level of conflict. In most of the cases, the traditional and the contemporary are not polar opposites but exhibits together in various realms such as clothing fashions, arts, and architectures. The coexistence and mutual embracement of tradition and modernization may make the city becoming more attractive and cultural city.

Re: gerund or verbal noun

CalifJim — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:25:23 GMT

All of your examples are gerunds if we stick to modern terminology.

Forget about the terminology verbal noun. It's total garbage!

It has many different definitions, depending on the author and when the grammar book was written.
_____________

The modern definition is given at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_noun

A verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb stem, sharing at least in part its constructions. This term is applied especially to gerunds, and sometimes also to [bare] infinitives and supines [i.e., full infinitives].

That is, there are three types of verbal noun: gerunds, bare infinitives, and full infinitives.

So anything that is a gerund is also a verbal noun, because a gerund is one of the types of verbal nouns.
____________

The modern definition is echoed at

http://www.ielanguages.com/english.html

Gerunds: [Like participles,] Gerunds are also formed by adding -ing to the verb, but they function as a verbal noun [as opposed to the participle, which is a verbal adjective] and are normally preceded by articles or demonstratives. The singing was excellent.
___________

A completely different definition is found here:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-VERBALNOUN.html

VERBAL NOUN. A category of noncountable abstract noun derived from a verb, in English by adding the suffix -ing. Like the verb from which it derives, it refers to an action or state: writing in The writing has taken too long; hearing in His hearing is defective. Verbal nouns are frequently combined with the preposition of and a noun phrase that corresponds to the subject or object in a clause: The grumbling of his neighbours met with no response (compare His neighbours grumbled); His acting of Hamlet won our admiration (compare He acted Hamlet). Verbal nouns contrast with deverbal nouns, that is, other kinds of nouns derived from verbs, such as attempt, destruction, and including nouns ending in -ing that do not have verbal force: building in The building was empty. They also contrast with the gerund, which also ends in -ing, but is syntactically a verb.

Note the last (underlined) sentence. By this definition only usages like The neighbors were acting like fools are considered gerunds -- not all the other examples that preceded -- examples that we would all agree are gerunds in current terminology.
_____________

The next definition is more than 100 years old, and I've seen it quoted on this site. Note that it is classified (see the URL) under "Classic Literature". It is useful only as a historic document -- not as a guide to modern English and modern syntactic analysis.

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wmbaskervill/bl-wmbaskervill-grammar-parts-nouns.htm

An English Grammar

1896

by W. M. Baskervill & J. W. Sewell

273. It [the gerund] differs from the participle in being always used as a noun: it never belongs to or limits a noun.

It differs from the verbal noun in having the property of governing a noun (which the verbal noun has not) and of expressing action (the verbal noun merely names an action, Sec. II).

[Sec. II. is actually Sec. 11, where nouns are discussed. The discussion of verbal nouns is within a category called Abstract Nouns, so in Section 11 verbal nouns are called by their more specific name: Verbal Abstract Nouns.]

II. The VERBAL ABSTRACT NOUNS Originate in verbs, as their name implies. They may beâ

(1) Of the same form as the simple verb. The verb, by altering its function, is used as a noun; as in the expressions, "a long run" "a bold move," "a brisk walk "
[These are called deverbal nouns in modern terminology -- or 'zero-related nominals' or just 'nouns'.]

(2) Derived from verbs by changing the ending or adding a suffix: motion from move, speech from speak, theft from thieve, action from act, service from serve.
[These,too, are called deverbal nouns nowadays -- or just 'nouns'.]

(3) Derived from verbs by adding -ing to the simple verb. It must be remembered that these words are free from any verbal function They cannot govern a word, and they cannot express action, but are merely names of actions. They are only the husks of verbs, and are to be rigidly distinguished from gerunds (Secs. 272, 273). [These are nouns that end in -ing. They have acquired fixed meanings as nouns, referring to something more concrete than the action of the underlying verb.]

To avoid difficulty, study carefully these examples:

The best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks; the moon caused fearful forebodings; in the beginning of his life; he spread his blessings over the land; the great Puritan awakening; our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; a wedding or a festival; the rude drawings of the book; masterpieces of the Socratic reasoning; the teachings of the High Spirit; those opinions and feelings; there is time for such reasonings; the well-being of her subjects; her longing for their favor; feelings which their original meaning will by no means justify; the main bearings of this matter.
______________

It is debatable whether anything whatsoever is to be gained in the study of modern English by resurrecting these older definitions.

CJ

PLEASE CHECK MY ESSAY...

Rolandoc — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:41:59 GMT

SUGAR AND BLOOD: SLAVERY IN TWO WORLDS
BY: ROLANDO CASELLA

    Between the early 1790s and the early 1820s, there was a difference in the way that slaves from the US and Brazil were treated. The slaves developed lawsuits against their masters in which, they argued for their right to be free. This essay will talk about three consistent themes from those arguments of the freedom suits: First, the urban slaves who sued their masters in the two countries sharing the common concepts of justice, freedom, and rights. Second, that Brazilian and U.S. lawyers both used Roman lawyers and Roman laws concerning slavery to defend slaves. Even though slavery did not undergo in most parts of Europe after the decline of the Roman laws, capitalist desires there encouraged and grew in other areas in thrill like the U.S. and Brazil. Third, the ways that slaves were treated in different situations in both Brazil and the U.S. Slavery involves the legal state of existing rights to the norm of property rights over things. The laws in the U.S. and Brazil were different from each other and the people were treated differently.
    In the U.S., only planters and private individuals owned slaves. In Brazil, besides the planter class, large plantations were owned by such religious orders as the Benedictine and Carmelite friars, who treated theirs really well. Also, there were slaves that belonged to the government. Brazilian slavery was everywhere, instead of in a few small places. In Brazil the sale of slaves from one master to another apparently was not as common as it was in the US. Brazil was known to have an extensive slavery system.
    Slavery in North America was very different than slavery in the rest of the Americas. In the first place, far fewer slaves were brought into what became the United States. Only around 500,000 slaves were brought in, compared to around 12 to 13 million that were imported into the Caribbean and South and Central America. Most of these slave imports to North America ended by 1770, except for a burst of activity by a few southern states after the American Revolution. Secondly, the fact that the English people had little experience with slavery in comparison to the Spanish and Portuguese, mainly said that they really didn't have any past experience. Initially, the first slaves in the Virginia colony were looked upon as workers rather than as property, and some of them were treated much like white indentured servants. The enslaved Africans often worked along side the indentured European laborers in the tobacco fields of the Chesapeake region. The Africans werenât especially valued, either. It was cheaper in the early years to bring in white laborers from England as indentured servants than to pay for slaves. And most whites looked upon Africans as morally and intellectually inferior, in any case.
    Brazilâs African slaves were treated as inferior to the white man, whether they were servants or free. Slavery was involved as a legal status, it reflected and included this same act as a part of its essence, which white men had practiced against Africans all along and before any statutes, had decreed it. There were at least three major traditional safeguards, which tended to protect the free Negro against being treated as an inferior. In the U.S. the Negro slaves were treated as products not human beings. Even if a black man or woman were free they would still be treated as if they were slaves. On the eve of the Civil War, the Jim Crow idea was one of many stereotypical images of black inferiority. A white southern man who saw a crippled, elderly black man dancing and singing created Jim Crow. Thomas Rice created Jim Crow, and he charcoaled his face and sang a song and danced. Jim Crow was the stereotype of a black man described in a nineteenth century song-and-dance act.
In the United States, State legislations such as the Labor Laws continued attempts made by workers to improve their positions in society, yet dismantled previous federal attempts to improve African-Americans positions through the Black codes and Grandfather laws. Between 1874 and 1896 a number of Labor Laws were passed to lessen working hours, regulate wages, and lessen the amount of women and child laborers. In Brazilâs Congress they passed variants of a constitutional amendment that would permit federal authorities to seize land from slave owners. The law prohibited landowners from holding workersâ documents or using control over their transportation to and from remote farms to imprison them.
    In the United States there were two types of slavery, one the storied domestic slavery of the towns, and the southern country seat, where the Negro was usually feeling kindly treated and loved as though one of the family. This type of slavery was most common along the Mason-Dixon line. The other type was determined by the large-scale enterprises in the cotton and rice fields in the âsouthernâ South, where absentee ownership was often the rule. People become slaves because they are poor, vulnerable
and their basic rights are not protected. Lack of access to work, land, education and lack of enforcement of laws prohibiting the holding of people in bondage result in slavery. Slavery provides âemployersâ with a form of extremely cheap labor, which they will fight, to hold onto. The only option is to pledge their labor to repay their debt. Some resort to selling one of their children. People who are enslaved are usually unaware that they have legal rights to freedom or are unable to take action to defend their rights, because of the threat of violence. In Brazil there is 4 different types of slavery, bonded labor, forced labor, child labor, and sexual misuse of children.
Brazil never had anything similar to the Black Code and other legal prohibitions of contacts of races by marriage and intermarriage such as were very frequent elsewhere in the U.S. âIt takes a new look at the meanings slaves and masters drew from formal wedding ceremonies and celebrations, and examines marriages between slaves and free blacks as well as marriage between slavesâ(Will). In Brazil a slave who wished to marry first had to learn the requisite number of prayers, understand the confession, and receive the sacraments. Having received consent from Master, he is to be married by the vicar. In the U.S. a slave might marry a freeman. If husband was free and wife was a slave, their child would be a slave; but a slave father and a free mother produced a free child. Sacredness of marriage was more highly regarded in Brazil than the U.S. In the U.S. it was illegal for a slave to marry, own property, appeal to court, or be a witness. Black slaves and free blacks alike could not vote, testify in court against a white person, or marry a white person. Slaves were allowed neither to carry arms nor to leave their homes without written permission. The Brazilian slavesâ marriage was sanctified, had legal rights, and could appeal to court, own things, make money, and could buy freedom. The religious feeling has also favored crossbreeding, and it was very common among the colonists. The legislation and the strength of the public opinion in Brazil with reference to marriage and intermarriage is also important. In the U.S., the slave might marry on the plantation, but the very next day be sold, and separated from his wife and parents.
    In both countries, there were certain religions that the slaves had to follow. Many people in Brazil gave emphasis to the religion of Catholicism with its doctrine of essential equality of mankind and its estimation of racial principle that tends to hinder action. Many Protestant countries influenced by modern missionaries have adopted this position of Catholicism. The Church insisted that the marriage ties of the slave be respected, and that the master never forget the slaveâs status as a human being with an immortal soul. That paralleled the concern of the Church by the active interference of royal officials in matters of slave welfare. In the U.S., the Protestants had eradicated the slavesâ old religions, to control and rationalize them. It was always about race and saying the slaves were inferior. The lack of civil law slave code did not mean that the church exercised authority in the regulation of slavery. The 1705 Law stated that all blacks, mulattoes, and Native Americans, and all non-Christian persons brought into the colonies as servants (even if they converted to Christianity later) and were considered slaves. In Brazil state and religious bodies owned slaves. âThe Catholic Church tried to Christianize the blacks, looking for extirpating a tradition milenar. Even so, the black resisted to the domain of the white culture maintaining their faith, and adapting their rituals and transforming their religion in a contemporary realityâ(PARAÃSO). The Catholics in Brazil treated the slaves better since they thought their souls were equal. They believed that all people could and should receive sacraments, marriage, host, and blessings and also allowed African traditions to continue. Religion was a vital factor in slave life. In the Old South, religion was at first discouraged among the slaves. There was a reason for this, for masters knew that nowhere in Christian teachings were there provisions for enslaving Christians. Sometimes the Negroes were allowed to worship under the same roof as their white superiors, but they usually had to steal away to some secret place for this purpose. In Brazil, however, Christianization of the slaves was an essential.
    In master-slave relationship, intimacy, cordiality and the masterâs protection of the slave were maintained as long as the slave stayed in his âplaceâ. In the absence of individual juridical status, the slaves exercised their social identity through their relationship with the master, attempting to negotiate, within the context of white power, individual or collective spaces of autonomy or social promotion, or even their freedom. His master could liberate him during his life. In the U.S. the ultimate controlling factor, that is, in every relationship between white men and black will be the black manâs status as property. Hypodescent is the practice of determining what ethnicity a child of mixed race is, by assigning it the ethnicity of the minority parent. It has always been the cornerstone of the U.S. racial classification system. Hypodescent does several things necessary for the maintenance of strict and rigid racial division. First, it has effectively arranged the U.S. into easily discernable racial groups â no middle ground. Second, it eliminates African ancestry from the white population â African ancestry that in secret makes its way into the white population is unacknowledged. Third, it discourages intermarriage. This is not to say that interracial sex can involve use or simple pleasure â it does not necessarily mean respect or friendship. âIt is said that the Jews and the black slaves had a secret relationship in Brazil, though it has been ignored by bothâ(Levin).
    The women in both Brazil and the U.S. were treated differently. In the U.S. the owners raped the women. In Brazil, the women were raped but there was also a lot of marriages between Africans and whites. âWhat he labels sexual, she labels harassmentâ(Baldwin). The black slave women really couldnât say anything the people would only believe the white man. There was a shortage of white women so there was a lot of mixing. Besides the heavy work, the women slaves were forced to assist sexually with the masterâ(Florentino). If a Negro woman had brought 10 children into the world by virtue, her tenth child would become free. Because of their interests in the physical reproduction of human capital, slave-owners intervened in even the most intimate of slave family ties.
    America and Brazil had very different ways to become free. It was easier to become free in Brazil, and the liberation of slaves was widely practiced. There were different rules to become a free citizen. Among the legal restrictions placed on free blacks, there was the 1717 Connecticut Law that required aspiring black business owners to get official permission to open shop. During the Reconstruction period, reconstituted southern state governments passed "black codes" that shortened the rights of the newly freed slaves. 259,000 free persons represented 9% of Brazilâs total free population. âNo one shall be held in slavery or servitude. Slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their formsâ (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4).
In 1696 the comprehensive code outlined severe penalties for a variety of offenses committed by blacks and excused any whites that caused the death of a slave while carrying out a punishment. Legal standing of African Americans in North America has changed over time, varying according to history and place. As black laborers gradually replaced white indentured servants as the principle source of agricultural labor during the second half of the 17th century, laws were being introduced, reducing slavery as a race-based system to a code. For elderly blacks, this practice benefited the company for whom older slaves were a liability rather than an asset.
    During the turn-of-the-century, the South was funding for education. Education there had been at rock bottom and whites were fiercely opposing African-American schooling. By 1867, schools had been set up in even the most remote counties of each of the confederate states. Most children never had the opportunity to attend school with any regularity, since they begin working in the fields around the age of ten or twelve. âA child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooledâ(Baldwin). Girls were more likely to get a formal education than boys were, because of the greater demand for male field labor. African-Americans have had a respect for education since the first communities of black slaves were established in this country. Slaves and their teachers assumed frightening risks when they created secret schools where a few blacks could learn to read. By the 1830s, it was a criminal offense in most Southern states to teach a slave to read or write. âEducation is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're blackâ(Baldwin). There is an unbroken historical link between the newly freed slaves who fought for universal state-supported public schools in the South and the black mothers and fathers who from the 1950s through the 1980s sent their children in search of a better education on foot and in school buses into the teeth of hostile and sometimes violent white resistance.
    In the 20th century, most blacks in the South remained bound to whites as sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Few blacks owned, or even managed to rent land, so they remained poverty-stricken and propertyless, both dependent on and subordinate to whites. Even then, complained one planter, sharecropping "is wrong policy; it makes the laborer too independent; he becomes a partner, and has a right to be consulted." In Brazil, some of the slaves were able to own their own land. When blacks were freed in America, they really didnât have much to do since all they knew was to work in the fields.
    Much more research needs to be done concerning the concepts of race, laws and ethnicity in the United States and Brazil. Research, which ignores the class-like properties of racial classification and definition, overlooks a significant part of the social landscape of Brazil and the U.S.

Re: Disputed Usages - Urgent! Please help!

Aperisic — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:26:28 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

Can someone please help pointing out the 'disputed usages' in the following sentences:

1) He was out at a meeting and couldn't be contacted all day.

2) His second plan is not as imaginative as his first but it is more credible.

Thanks,
Eva

He was out at a meeting and couldn't be contacted all day.

Well it matters what you want to say. "He was out at a meeting and couldn't be contacted all day." Here, one of the confusions comes from the fact that it looks that "and" is just a replacement for a more standard causal construction like: "He was out at a meeting what for he couldn't be contacted all day." However, using "and", the writer wittingly or not did not want to give a reason "why" he couldn't be contacted, the writer simply states two equally important things that he was at the meeting and that he couldn't be contacted.

This for example looks OK:

"He was out at dinner and he didn't like spaghetti."

"He was out at dinner and didn't like spaghetti."

The emphasis here is "didn't like spaghetti". "He was out at dinner" is easily adjusted to a standard form: "When he was out at dinner, he didn't like spaghetti." However, because of the writer's style, or style of the novel, or for other reasons, "He was out at dinner and didn't like spaghetti." is correct. I guess in a movie script this would be a very effective style of writing.

The same could be valid in our example, but there is a problem. "Being out at the meeting" and "not being available" ARE connected. A reader expects these two to be more connected than just with a simple "and".

There are even more troubles. Try this: "He couldn't be contacted all day and was out at a meeting." It hurts, doesn't it? Trouble, besides "was" without "he", is that "He couldn't be contacted" is a passive construction. And one problem we have mentioned is now very obvious. Why we have "and" between two strong sentences? We want to say why he was unreachable, or we want to say the consequence of his meeting being outside (or none of that). Which one:

"He was out at a meeting, so he couldn't be contacted all day."

"He was out at a meeting and for that reason he couldn't be contacted all day."

None of these problems is a grave problem. It is possible to use each of them to a certain extent to achieve an effect in writing. Here, together they make sentence unclear and vague.

Problems:

1. Two independent sentences are equally strong.

2. They have (or at least it is expected to have) a logical connection of causality.

3. In between we have only a neutral "and" that does not resolve anything.

4. The second sentence is in passive.

It is possible that there are more problems here, but these four (together, not individually) are sufficient to point to the carelessness of writing. (If you try to fix the sentence you can't, because you do not know what it means:

He was out at a meeting not being available all day.

Being out at a meeting, he couldn't be contacted all day.)

His second plan is not as imaginative as his first but it is more credible.

First, I'll try to explain "so...as" "as...as". The standard is "as ... as". If you use "so" it is usually, they say, used with negatives. However, the trouble is deeper. "so...as" instead of "as...as" is officially accepted and widely used only in the conjunction "so long as" (52.000.000 Google usages) and "as long as" (277.000.000 Google usages).

They two are slightly different but are sufficiently similar to speak about stylish reasons to use one or another. "as ... as" repeats the same word, "so ... as" has two different words. It means that you can use "as long as" to reassure something ("as...as" - sounds like "listen to me") or you use "so long as" because you want to focus on the next part of the sentence, not on the pure conjunction or condition "as long as". I am sure that these were the reasons to introduce two similar instead of only one conjunction.

[American Heritage Dictionary]

as long as

1. During the time that: I'll stay as long as you need me. 2. Since: As long as you've offered, I accept. 3. On the condition that: I will cooperate as long as I am notified on time.

so long as

1. During the time that; while: We will stay so long as you need us. 2. Inasmuch as; since: So long as you're driving into town, why not give me a ride? 3. Provided that: I will give you the book so long as you return it.

Regarding other "so...as" instead of "so...as" construction, I claim that they are rare

as pretty as 1.530.000 Google usages (GU)

so pretty as 36.200 GU

as nice as 2.000.000 GU

so nice as 86.000 GU

There are two problems. For example, "so nice as" has the special usage that is different from "as nice as".

Today, you are so nice as you were two years ago on our wedding.

Your car is as nice as mine.

The second problem is that not all attributes have the same meaning with "as" and with "so". Think:

If I may be so bold as to suggest this.

The righteous are as bold as a lion.

Unless there are serious reasons within the realm of style, there is no reason in the current English to use "so <adjective> as" in place of "as <adjective> as". Though you may think of "as long as" and "so long as" as an exception, they are not. "As long as" is a conjunction, and "as nice as" is not. For example, if we take "long" as an adjective then it is again not recommendable to replace "His nose was not as long as the Eiffel tower." with "His nose was not so long as the Eiffel tower."

In our sentence we compare "second plan" and "first plan" and because of that we use "as imaginative as". If you think about "so imaginative as" I recommend you think as well about "so imaginative like". To put it simply "as nice as" is a comparison where both "as" belong to the expression. In "so nice as", "as" is for a comparison, but first "so" only emphases the adjective "nice" "so nice" - "very nice". I do not think we should mix these two. Here is an example of when "so...as" is used with no possible alteration:

The Economist, June 4 1988 - Forbidding fruit

"The definition must be wide enough to include most of the oranges on most of the trees, but not so wide as to encompass unripe fruit or other objects in the vicinity."

As you can see it has nothing to do with "as...as" and has a special usage.

Now, to other problems. The first example's omissions (meeting-contacted) were more style oriented. Here we have grave, we could say, errors, though again it could happen that they are useful under certain circumstances.

"His second plan is not as imaginative as his first but it is more credible."

"His second plan" - "his first plan". Because the second plan belongs to him, first one is his as well - they are in the ordered group of items of the same type (with no other person mentioned whom they might belong to). There is really no need to double "his", "the" is sufficient.

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first but it is more credible."

We say twice "it is": "[it] is imaginative" and "it is credible". There is no need for that either. It is the essential characteristic of English to tend compressing expressions, especially of the same type.

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first but more credible."

However "but" is now obviously not particularly pleasant any more.

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first (,) but rather more credible."

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first (,) rather more credible."

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first (,) only more credible."

Even this way, the trouble is in the fact that "but" requires something to oppose, "imaginative" and "credible" do not oppose each other, even if we correct the sentence by a comma: "His second plan is not as imaginative as the first, but it is more credible." Not only that "imaginative" and "credible" are not in opposition, the problem is worse because we have "more credible". "More" comparing to what? To his first plan? If it is really meant "more credible to his first plan" then the sentence is a total confusion. We read: "His second plan is less imaginative but more credible to the first." Why we use "but"? Because "less" ("not as...as") and "more" are in opposition. You can't do that. You can't decide to use the essential conjunction to merge two sentences based on the weakest possible elements in the sentences - comparisons. There are adjective to think about first. What I want to say is that this sentence must work even if we write:

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first but credible."

However, this does not work at all and is a complete mess. After "not as imaginative" we expect at least

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first but [it seems] as credible [as the one]."

So, if we keep on from this point, there is no "but" here, it is only "and" possible: "His second plan is less imaginative and more credible to the first" which means the "correct" sentence should be "His second plan is not as imaginative as the first and it is more credible." which is nonsense because we did not have a reason to merge two sentences at first.

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first and it is more credible [than the first]."

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first. It is more credible than the first."

In this case "but" is not only incorrect, it is superfluous all together.

However, we could say for example: "His second plan is not as imaginative as the first, yet it is more credible." and use a comma. From this point of view, "but" is incorrect from a logical point of view - why we use "but" if we have other better conjunctions?

There is no way of knowing what one wanted to say with this sentence. My best shot would probably be:

"His second plan is not as imaginative as the first, only more credible."

Problems:

1. Two "his"

2. Twice "it is"

3. Incorrect "more"

4. Incorrect "but" or wrong adjectives or wrong two-sentence merge

5. To justify "but" there is no opposition between adjectives "imaginative" and "credible" (especially because the first is negated and the second is affirmative) (or other strong elements in the sentences) only between "more" and "not as...as".

Hope this helps,

Aleksandar

Re: Later

Grammar Geek — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:34:23 GMT

Another construction could be "The wedding will be at 4, and the reception two hours later."

Re: Plural with and

equivocal — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 18:35:52 GMT

1. Janet's and David's wedding or
2. Janet and David's wedding

Both are correct Although the second construction is more common, not to say efficient.

3a. The dog's, cat's, pig's and rat's turnip.
3b. The dog, cat, pig and rat's turnip.

Try adding even more turnip-owners to 3a, gets cumbersome and begins to sound strange. S3b on the other hand is nice and elegant.

eq

Arab villages

Guest — Sun, 02 May 2004 04:05:02 GMT

EVOLUTION, NOT REVOLUTION:
A paradigm of urban upgrading in Arab villages and refugees' cores in Israel

PROLOGUE

Like most of Arab localities in Israel, Kabul village has its unique history since Canaanite period. It is located fifteen kilometers to the east of Acre at north Israel. After the 1948 war, refugees from the neighbor villages such as Damon and Mia'ar, which were depopulated, immigrated to Kabul. Those refugees were known as "interior refugees". They didn't leave Israel, but were displaced from their homes and lands to the neighboring villages. Originally, the outline contour of the village land was 1,100 hectares, but in the 70's it was reduced to 700 hectares where as the rest had expropriated by the state of Israel for the sake of its Jewish population. This is for almost, the profile in which all of Arab villages are identical.

In 1948 the refugees were forty percent of the population of Kabul which was then about 600 persons. The living standard of the majority of residents was very low and quite difficult, since more than sixty percent of the population did not own any land for cultivation. Today, the population of Kabul is a bout ten thousand, and by the year 2020 it is expected to be sixteen thousand. For these people, there is only one way of making their living; to work as hired labours in the Jewish sector for a very low income relative to the national average [1]. The situation is getting even worse now as the country is going though a period of recession. Therefore, hundreds of young providers cannot find jobs and are considered unemployed.
The last statistics showed these proportions; the labours are about forty percents of the population, the unemployment rate is twenty percents and the rate of working women only about ten percents. The whole urban system of Kabul suffers from many difficulties [2] as do most other villages, which are due to many deficiencies and limitations in so many fields and various aspects as a consequence of lack of financial supports from the governments of Israel for many decades [3].
The Arab villages and their refugees' cores as urban and architectural issues still generate a vital debate about their political, social, environmental and economical aspects of urbanism. The war of 1948 and its consequences were a "dramatic urban event", which influenced and affected the way that residents lived. Its impact was dramatic change in the physical, spatial, social, economical and environmental structures in the village leading to dramatic changes in construction and residential patterns.
For centuries, the morphology of Arab village developed in a gradual and spontaneous process as an intelligent organism. One of the consequences of the "urban event" is that this urban morphology evolved into hybrid; it stills a homogenous but simultaneously contains a slow, peaceful and primitive process of urbanization. After 1948, the Arab villages became more dependent economically and more receptive in their architectural and urban landscape; from an autarchic economy and traditional-rural life with primitive agriculture to post-event' dependent economy and conformative life with full consumer norms. Eventually, during the last decades the Arab villages had revolutionized by a sequence of planning regulations which were formed by the central planning authorities of Israel. Those regulations were infected with a total misunderstanding of the essence of the village, and the villages were treated with no encouragement of maintaining the traditional-social values of urban preservation. So the ministries interventions forced indirectly the village to a development against its nature and characteristics thus causing a brutal demolition of the historic cores, emptying and "suburbing" the village centre. In place of those old houses, new structures were raised horizontally and vertically, which did not bring or ensure any sustained improvement in the quality of life for individuals and for the community. Consequently, and in some cases, many architectural elements were vanished such as the courtyards and the orchards, at the time that they must be preserved for their traditional values.
Against those many interventions, there is one experiment that stands and highlights a new paradigm of intervention in the urban system of the Arab village with all its components; an inspiration precedent from the refugees experiment and their way of upgrading their urban environment in Kabul.

URBAN MODEL + URBAN MUTATION = URBAN SELECTION OF HUMAN NATURE

At 1951 the refugee flow to Arab villages came to end. These interior refugees were seeking shelter and security, some in the urban cores of existing villages. The majority was settled in slums opposite the indigenous existing core (the old village) as an urban mutation, on a land which classified as a state land. Apparently, such concentric tendency is close to the geographers' definition of "human focality" [4]. Maybe it was the result of the social process and cognitive perception which the refugees absorbed from their home villages. Anyway, for these villages and for their indigenous population the absorption of the refugees was an uncontrolled proliferation and uncontrolled social burden. They were settled as families far from their lands, homes and properties.
In the first decades of the state of Israel, these slums came to be known as "refugee cores" which were built and shaped by the refugees themselves. The majority of the houses were built from temporary materials; tin and waste woods. In addition to the fact that these cores do not appear on any outline contour map they are classified as illegal and informal neighborhoods, thus they were an unplanned and under served neighborhoods for many decades. At that time the original population was more fortunate and acted as an urban model in the whole space. Firstly, the mandatory building law 0f 1936 was valid at that time, and the people knew how to deal with improving their houses. Secondly, the majority of the lands were private property so the population could obtain building permits for their houses. Thirdly, the original core was more secure due to its inward urban organization in the village space and more authentic due to its homogenous and picturesque self-built houses.
The two cores were situated one opposite the other; the original (historic) core and the refugees' core. The first one realized in a freezing moment that the refugee core will not remain a guest but an essential part in the village, and simultaneously, the second core realized ultimately that the indigenous core will not be host from now on, but a big urban model for imitation.
The evolution process started; in the first decade, an urban equilibrium had nearly been achieved within the existing urban tissue, between the model (original core) and the mutation (the refugees' core). Since the mutation suffers more from needs in different areas, its inhabitants generated a process of reproduction, in which the model influences and impacts their way of organization, their architecture and their urban design. So it was a spatial phase in the whole narrative which informed us the evolution story.

URBAN SELECTION OF HUMAN NATURE + TIME =URBAN UPGRADING

The fact that these cores acted like two biological cells in one body, immediately after the 60's and the end of the military rule, they tried to evolve their environment. A new commercial array was appeared in the refugees' core which organized as a primitive imitation of the one in the old core. At this stage, only individuals were turned their slums to concrete mass houses those days, because the arrangement on land ownership still not achieved and any costly improvement will be risky. Consequently, individuals were developed their conditions for almost by minor actions.

Among the seeking for urban equilibrium, amid simplicity and order the vernacular urban upgrading was born. Between risk and trust, "mending" began to design the parting line of the two cores. Consequently, the first education system built in the cores overlap to stitch the two sides of Kabul under social and economical improvements. As a response, new primitive facilities born in the parting line like clinic and post office. Slowly this parting line transformed to seam line and for meanwhile this paradox allowed seemingly dissimilar things to exist side by side as a kind of truth.

At this social-economical phase, the vernacular upgrading of the urban environment was made in sequential grades with no leaps by the people themselves. From now on the time is an essential factor in order to guarantee success in the process, especially when the central governments and the absence of their political will made the amount of spending resources fewer from year to another [5]. In general, this was the official guide line policy of the central authorities; it was a heavy shadow on the urban village development for many decades. During that social and economical organization, the population stills lack the most governmental services, such as electricity and infrastructures. But that didn't prevent the village urban environment to be evolved.

URBAN UPGRADING + URBAN ACTIVITIES +TIME = URBAN PROGRESS

At the 70's, the vernacular urban upgrading went on, small businesses and workshops had started to accrue in the village which employed labours from the village. These workshops formed only six percent of the working hands. It wasn't a big improvement relative to the proportion of the labours who worked outside the village. However, it was another important grade in this sequential process.

At that time, if we spot the zoom in, we will explore an organic interaction that didn't reach yet its top performance in the evolution process. It contains urban dialogue, urban inspiration and even urban adoration between the two cores. Each of those cores is a self-contained urban organism with a distinctive and viable community and urban structure. This leaded to maintaining the evolutionary momentum, for example; at the 80's, the refugees tried to retain their core identity by urging the central authorities of Israel to confirm an arrangement in that settled lands. By doing so, they achieved their target in order to continue to function in their environment as well as participate in additional functions and responsibilities of the next higher evolved village, a world where systems moved towards higher organization and complexities-higher order.

This land arrangement was the biggest contribution to the process that ever made by the authorities. Consequently, the reproduction process in the refugees' core brought the urban upgrading to highly performance, for example, the slums vanished totally and were replaced with new concrete and stone houses. Apparently, we can recognize a lot of traditional elements highly reproduced from the indigenous core into urban and architectural design of the refugees' core.

In this physical phase the refugees' core completed the reproduction process which was shaped by urban activities. In order to predetermine space and time of changing urban requirements, a full knowledge of the process of urban life and its daily activities is essential. A space-time concept can produce real urban progress by relating the present-day component requirements to those of the future. So the upgrading architecture and urbanism need full mutual urban activities between the elements of the urban system, while the collective and the individual memories of the refugees are part of this process.

CRITICISM AND FEEDBACK +URBAN PROGRESS+TIME = SUSTAINABLE OPTIMIZATION

Certain events formed this mental or metaphoric phase which generated by full performance of the urban system elements, the first element was the built up mass which shaped the urban texture grid; for instance, the land arrangement was an event which encouraged the refugees to obtain building permits thus renewal of the neighborhood.
The second element was the urban activities of the quotidian life which shaped the tension grid; for instance, wedding in Arab village its kind of ritual performance in which all the villagers participate with respect to traditional event thus revitalization of the open yards.
The third element was the mutual motion between people and themselves, between urban texture and the urban activities. This element shaped the flux grid; for instance, vertical and horizontal accessibilities paths and traffic axes.
The fourth element was the memory archive. This archive can be an undeleted memory between events which occurred in the host village or in the home village and have been rediscovered for the creation of a new architectural and urban image. Some is a physical and some is a visual and maybe it is an event of place or an event of time-place; for an instance, personal experiences have become the medium through which architecture is produced, promoted, and evaluated .
Full performance of the urban system elements is nearly a natural process of evolving, self operating and irreversible but reiterative, which in its course generates novelty, greater variety, more complex organization and eventually higher levels of mental and metaphoric activities. To obtain sustainable optimization it requires a "sensible layout". But in the meanwhile the Arab villages are in the middle of transformation process which was shaped by compound of exterior and interior impacts. From the 80's the village was forced by the central planning authorities to be developed as a big one centre canceling all polycentric heritage, consequently all the master plans just supplied answers to "what to be build?" queries, But the problem is how to build?. The typical planning is suggesting rings areas around one centre. Unfortunately, recent plans and physical changes in many Arab localities illustrate the way that this planning tendency is reshaping the urban condition in which they live.

EPILOGUE

Urban upgrading consists of physical, social, economic, organizational and environmental improvements undertaken cooperatively and locally among citizens, community groups, businesses and local authorities to ensure sustained improvements in the quality of life for individuals [7]. The Architecture of upgrading is concerned only with the built-up mass and it includes all existing buildings whether residential or nonresidential, public or private. Urban upgrading is a sequential process that could not tolerate any leaps. And it has to be planned and based upon the evolution idea and the evolution concept with full public participating. Only Then, the urban system of Arab villages with the refugees' cores will turn to web of terms, associations and themes, which must be undertaken and brought as a base of any debate when architects or urbanists asked to intervene in urban tissues of Arab villages. Consequently, the whole context will desire to be a metaphor in the process of the evolution. And the evolution will come to end.

[1] Israeli Official statistics [1998], Israel. [2] Israeli Official statistics [2002], Israel. [3] Al-haj, M., Rosenfeld, H., [1990], Arab Local Government in Israel, Givaat Haviva, Israel. [4] Embacher, E., [1966], The Urban Evolution Theory. [5] Al-haj, M., Rosenfeld, H., [1990], Arab Local Government in Israel, Givaat Haviva, Israel. Tidwell, P.[2003], Place, Memory, and the Problem of the Architectural Image, winner essay in Berkely prize competition 2003, USA. [7] http://web.mit.edu/urbanupgrading/