By Conversations, Plurals

Re: lion

The reason I asked #1 is that sometimes, in conversation, I hear people change from singular to plural to generalize the statement. Is it a common mistake? Thanks for the correction. Of course they are different but I sometimes call one the other. :(

conversation: mistakes

Dear teachers, Would you please help me correct this sentence? He has an appropriate knowledge and way of thinking that helps him have a sensible conversation. These are my views: vocabulary: a) is "appropriate" wrong here and should be replaced by "sufficiant" ? b) is...

Re: Possessive adjectives and pronouns, object pronouns for words such as "person, one, who"

English really needs another pronoun for cases like this! Traditionally, if the gender was unknown, the masculine pronoun would be used. In a grammar book from 50 years ago, your examples would most certainly use "his." Today this would still be considered grammatically correct, but...

Re: Everyone does their jobs

Clive -- I agree that "everyone" is often treated as plural in casual conversation, and I might well say "everyone does their best" myself. But technically, shouldn't it be "everyone does his job and everyone does his best," at least in formal writing? I...

Re: Kindly explain the verb usage

Hi,I would not say 'talk' is inappropriate. It depends on what the speak/writer wants to convey. If there is a dialog or conversation between your inner voice and you, talk is fine. We use speak instead of talk to indicate one-way communication.In regard to the structure of the sentence,...

Re: two broad questions

A is often used with plural nouns when there is an adjective before the noun and an amount is thought of:He spent a happy five days in Cairo.An adjective becomes a plural noun when the is placed before it:The illiterate can't read. (= Illiterate people can't read.)The rich like money. (= Rich...

Re: Contractions again (I am sorry)

I agree that it's useless to add apostrophe-s to indicate is when the word ends in a sibilant (i.e., would take -es to form a plural). In these cases the apostrophe-s looks very strange, and nothing is gained where pronunciation is concerned. But in all other cases (regardless of whether...

Re: How can't you know that?

I've been thinking more about "how can't you know", and tonight I discussed it with my daughter, who is very good at analyzing language. She had an interesting interpretation that made sense to me once I gave it some thought. Here it is: "How can't you know what 'dude' means" has a different...

Re: comprehension: Rene

Hello Hela, 1) Could I describe a crusty old woman as being surly, churlish, bad-tempered? — to my mind, those adjectives might coincide with "sullenness", but not necessarily with "crustiness". However, other members might disagree! 2) nonplussed = puzzled, perplexed ? — that's it! 3)...

Re: Neither of us

Neither ... has is the formal way to write this. Nevertheless, in informal conversation, many people use the plural. CJ