Re: What does in the making in the following sentence means?

Grammarian-bot — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 05:49:14 GMT

Inchoateknowledge wrote:

something is in the making is a quite frequently used idiom:

if someone is an athlete, star, writer, etc. in the making, they are likely to develop into that thing
This young swimmer is an athlete in the making. (Cambridge dic)

"an economic catastrophe in the making characterized by an income base primarily dependent on companies engaged in paper shuffling" is not a clause but a noun phrase that is in apposition to industrial base.

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

Well it does look like an appositive but does the whole text "an economic catastrophe .....in shuffling papers" is an appositive. And if it is, then it must be with the whole initial text "Hartford continues to lose its industrial base" since industrial base can't' stand for the rest of the sentence. But if that is true then a question arises whether the first and second part of the sentence (both before and after comma) isa noun phrase or not since both should be noun or noun phrase. Please explain.

Re: Precedent before relative pronoun

Usenet — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 04:21:06 GMT

on 29 Oct 2003:
[nq:2] on 29 Oct 2003: "her case" cannot be the ... "which" there demands a verb phrase because of "he did".[/nq]
[nq:1]I was relating her case to "that authorized" not "which he promptly did" . By the way, what's the referent of which? It seems to me that "one-time stay" is siche "he promptly issued a one-time stay"[/nq]
I apologize for any confusion. There are two relative pronouns in the sentence, "that" and "which".

Yes, in this case, there is a slight possibility for error in deciding which the referent is, but given the structure and semantics of the relative clause (RC), it cannot be other than the entire noun phrase (NP) "a law tailored to her case", or, much more simply, "law".

The structure of the NP + RC is restrictive. If it referred to "her case", it would be awkward. Instead of "her", "the" (or "one" or "a") would be preferred if not absolutely required. In that event, though, the final RC, "which he promptly did", would have to be placed at the front of the sentence:

"Gov. Jeb Bush promptly issued a stay after the Florida Legislature passed a law tailored to another case that authorized the governor to issue a one-time stay in similar circumstances."

--- but in this case, "tailored to" would have to be replaced by "patterned after" --- or else removed from the sentence. Another way to have the RC refer to "her case" would be to use a non-restrictive structure (commas before and after the RC) and the pronoun "which". Ideally, though, the sentence would have to be rewritten because it would be too complex and awkward.

Cases do not authorize anything; they set precedents. Laws, however, do authorize things, so the possibility of misunderstanding is not a matter of grammar but of understanding the difference between "case" and "law". And, of course, there is such a thing as "case law" in American jurisprudence (British, too, I think, where it's called "common law"), but that means law decided on the basis of precedent cases.
[nq:2]While it's true that most relative pronouns immediately follow what ... sentence. Please provide an example of such a confusing one.[/nq]
[nq:1]I don't come up with any sentence now. Thanks for explaining, cyber![/nq]
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Re: What does in the making in the following sentence means?

Re: Precedent before relative pronoun