Search results for 'tag:Whom tag:Apostrophes' matching tags 'Whom' and 'Apostrophes'

Re: Memos show Clinton Turmoil Part 1

Feebs11 — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:47:13 GMT

Question: I would have written ''Clinton's turmoil''. Why didn't the author use apostrophe? It is a headline - they do not use standard grammar.

Question: Why is semicolon used instead of comma to separate the email addresses above? Addresses are better separated by semicolons - it establishes that they are different.

Question: Clinton didn't embrace Penn's approach because she did not consider it seriously. Therefore, what campaign aides were saying is redundant. They are the people to whom the journalists talked in order to find out what is happening.

Re: confusing possessive

Cool Breeze — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:15:44 GMT

Goodman wrote:
For any name ending with "s", such as Jones, Thomsons or Davids, to indicate the possesive property, we just simply add an apostrophe. i.e. I had dinner last night at the Jones' house.

Hi Goodman

This is probably none of my business but I think you would write: I had dinner at the Joneses' house.

Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones are more than one person, they are the Joneses. If just one Jones lives in the house, you have a choice:
I had dinner at Mr. Jones' house.
I had dinner at Mr. Jones's house. (This is preferred by many Brits, some of whom consider adding just an apostrophe incorrect.)

British logic has it that it's completely all right to add just the apostrophe if the name is un-British, more or less classical: Socrates' wisdom.

Cheers
CB

Re: Transformation Help Needed!

nona the brit — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 18:20:38 GMT

1) Were they told how they should do it?

2. It couldn't be last week that you saw me.

5. The only exit was through the door.

9. I asked Sheila when she had reached Mumbai.

10.It was his father to whom he owed his success. (although more natural to say 'It was his father that he owed his success to).

11.Were he to see you, he would be surprised.Should he see you, he would be surprised.

12 Never again did he see his wife.

Note that there are quite a few minor errors throughout - even in the ones I haven't shown - and particularly missing apostrophes.

Re: Is it ok without articles?

Grammar Geek — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 15:57:39 GMT

A boy met this girl. They both had a fascination with grammar. The girl's family did not approve - he was from the school that did not use the Oxford comma. But she insisted it did not matter. Until the day she saw him use his red pen on a semi-colon; this was her pet punctuation mark. She was devastated, but agreed with her family that a relationship could not be sustained amidst such differences. Sadly, she bid him farewell. He tried to woo her back. He even sent love notes with deliberate errors, to give her the excuse to correct them and send them back, so desperate was he for even one simple note. Their mutual friend, who was a professor in computer languages, decided to try to win the girl for himself. Although she was fascinated by computer syntax, she was not fascinated by him in a romantic sense. She embarked in a new direction, computational linguistics, with him as her mentor in academics, but not in love. In the IT department, surrounded by programmers who called apostrophes "those floating comma things," and who rearely used its and it's correctly in their own papers, she realized arguments over the Oxford comma mattered not at all. The boy and girl were reunited. And although he never used the semi-colon himself, he reached a state of detante over it, with peaceful co-existence. The boy and girl lived happily ever after, with a quibble of children, all of whom pursued non-literary interests.

Re: Three questions posted

Maple — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 07:38:50 GMT

Believer wrote:

1. How would you punctuate this?

You need to divide into two groups: Group A and Group B.

You need to divide into two groups, Group A and Group B.

Both OK? I don't know

Believer wrote:
2. How would you put the apostrophes?

This lane is Busan elite's lane. ????

This food is bad for students' bodies.

That symbolizes this nation's rich history.

Believer wrote:
3. Can you place the name right after the word for the position?

Let her be the one you have chosen your servant Issac.

I'd say "Let Issac, whom you have chosen, be your servant."

or "Your servant, Issac, is the one who has been chosen by you."

Re: check this out, please

MrPedantic — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 22:34:23 GMT

Hello Inchoate

I find the Cambridge definition very strange. But then, they are very strange in Cambridge (trust me).

My Oxford dictionary meanwhile defines "blue funk" as "cowering fear; a state of panic".

Apart from that, it looks fine â though I would probably use parentheses, rather than commas, i.e.

They are in a blue funk due to their country's national eleven going out to Italy in the semi-final. Their hopes of seeing Germany (who they have been rooting for throughout the championship) in the final have been dashed.

Some people might insist that you add an apostrophe-s to "national eleven" and change "who" to "whom"; but I think that would be inappropriate in a text of this kind.

MrP

Re: a question on double possessives and one on the other

Mister Micawber — Sat, 20 May 2006 06:59:04 GMT

I guess you don't get out much, Anon. Here is a sampling of respectable online sources. Doing a bit of Google research yourself will turn up many, many more.

The American Heritage Dictionary:

Grammarians have sometimes objected to the so-called double genitive construction, as in a friend of my father's; a book of mine. But the construction has been used in English since the 14th century and serves a useful purpose. It can help sort out ambiguous phrases like Bob's photograph, which could refer either to a photograph of Bob (that is, revealing Bob's image) or to one in Bob's possession. A photograph of Bob's, can only be a photo that Bob has in his possession, which may or may not show Bob's image. Moreover, in some sentences the double genitive offers the only way to express what is meant. There is no substitute for it in a sentence such as That's the only friend of yours that I've ever met, since sentences such as That's your only friend that I've ever met and That's your only friend, whom I've ever met are awkward or inaccurate.

The Columbia Guide to Standard AmE:

Although English has long and happily employed the double genitive, as in That lawnmower of Eleanorâs works fine, this construction, which wraps both the periphrastic genitive with of and the inflected genitive with the apostrophe plus s around Eleanor to make possession double, is now limited to our Informal and Semiformal writing and to the lowest levels of our speech, if we use it at all. Once again eighteenth-century argument (that one genitive is enough, and two are improper) has at least partly won out over exuberance, hyperbole, and redundancy. But only partly. A good many of us do use some double genitives and do not notice that they are double. Some language liberals argue that in Informal and Casual contexts the double genitive is idiomatic and not overkill, but few editors of Standard English will be likely to let it stand in Formal writing. Itâs either friends of my sister or my sisterâs friends; even in conversation, friends of my sisterâs may grate harshly on some puristsâ ears.

Random House:

The construction where a word is marked by two possessive indicators, the word of and a possessive case ('s) or possessive pronoun, has been in the language for at least six centuries and has been a subject of grammatical discussion for the last two. This construction is known by various names, including the double possessive, the double genitive, the appositional of-phrase, and the post-genitive.

The main thing to remember here is that this "problem" is of almost purely theoretical interest. No native speaker of the language has any difficulty understanding what "I borrowed a book of John's" means.

The genitive has several different functions in English, one of which is to indicate possession. Thus, John's picture can mean 'a picture that John owns'. However, the genitive can also indicate other associations, so that as an objective genitive, John's picture means 'a picture representing John; John's portrait'. This ambiguity is one reason the double possessive is used: it allows speakers of idiomatic English to make the distinction between "a picture of John" (that is, a portrait of John) and "a picture of John's" (a picture owned by John). Though your example, with "nephew," can work with or without the 's, the "picture" example has a distinct meaning each way.

We can also note that double possessives with possessive pronouns (rather than 's possessives) cannot be written any other way: You can say "a nephew of John" rather than "a nephew of John's," but if you start with "a nephew of his" you're stuck; it is completely unidiomatic to say "a nephew of him" (though of course "his nephew" is a possibility).

Grammarians who study the double possessive have made some useful observations. The first noun is almost always indefinite ("a picture of John's," but not "the picture of John's"; "friends of ours" but not "the friends of ours" or any other specifier). The second noun is human (or otherwise animate) and definite ("an admirer of hers" is possible, but "an admirer of the furniture's" is unidiomatic; "of Jane's" but not "of a woman's").

The combination of indefiniteness and definiteness is not possible with other constructions: rewriting "friends of ours" into "our friends" makes "friends" definite, for example. In your case, "John's nephew" means 'a specific nephew of John's', which is different from "a nephew of John's," which means 'any nephew of John's'. As former Oxford English Dictionary editor Robert Burchfield observes, "It is not easy to explain why such constructions are idiomatic: one can only assert that they are."

As noted, the double possessive goes back a long way: Chaucer has "A friend of his that called was Pandare" in the fourteenth century. The phenomenon started to get attention with the eighteenth-century grammarians, who generally disapproved of English constructions that were not possible according to the rules of Latin grammar. Some of these grammarians disapproved of the construction, while others were ambivalent.

Among contemporary language writers, most mention the construction but few criticize it; some restrict it to informal use, while others call it "needed."

The Observer:

An editor asked me which of these constructions is correct: a friend of John's or a friend of John. It is idiomatic in standard English to say or write a friend of John's. I explained that we use a possessive pronoun in this construction: He is a friend of mine. I am a friend of his. Therefore, when we use a person's name in this "of" construction, we make it possessive.

This construction is often called a double possessive, but it also is called a double genitive. "The Writer's Digest Grammar Desk Reference" and "The Gregg Reference Manual" point out that the use of the double genitive can avert misunderstanding. A painting of Jennifer shows Jennifer, but a painting of Jennifer's belongs to Jennifer.

"Working With Words" cautions that the double possessive is used only to refer to people, not inanimate objects: Joan is a friend of Tina's, but not Joan is a fan of the show's. That should be Joan is a fan of the show.

Chicago Manual of Style:

Q. A friend of John or a friend of Johnâs? Iâve heard that both are correct. A friend tossed the famous ambiguity at me this way: âA student of Einstein.â Unless itâs Einsteinâs, then it might be taken to mean a student who is working on Einstein.

A. It is best, and, what is more, perfectly idiomatic, to use the double genitive when âone of So-and-soâsâ is what you have in mind:

a student of his (that is, one of his students)

a student of Einsteinâs (that is, one of Einsteinâs students)

Then you have the liberty of writing âa student of Einsteinâ to mean by contrast either someone who is working on the great theoretical physicist as a scholarly subject or, more broadly, someone who is a close observer of Einstein and his work.

Fowlerâs notes in its third edition that such phrases as âa student of hisâ are illogicalâone of the âfreaks of idiomâ (pp. 542â43). In any case, your friendâs âstudent of Einsteinâ example is an excellent refutation of those who would avoid the apostrophe s at all costs.

Re: Second try, Please help it is URGENT

nona the brit — Tue, 02 May 2006 08:09:43 GMT

Dear (delete comma) Sirs,

I would like to apply for the masterÂ´s programme in Comparative Labour and Organisation Studies. (end sentence)Please let me explain my motivation in a few words.

I am a student in communication science and I am also taking a minor in labour studies.

Last year I participated in a bachelor seminar at the ISHSS (delete comma) and working (delete word)with international students turned out to be a great learning experience. I was very delighted to discover that the ISHSS offers (different to what) masters programmes. (apostrophes not used in plurals! Removed throughout your letter. This is a very bad habit of yours) Since I was already taking an elective course in the field of labour and organisation studies at that time (at what time - when you were on the seminar? make that clear), the COLOS programme immediately draw my attention. For this masters programme, sufficient knowledge in the field of labour and organisation studies is required. Therefore I enrolled in the specialised programme 'Labour Studies' at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies in September last year. Besides learning more about the field of labour and organisation studies, this programme offered me the opportunity to find out whether I would like to continue my studies within this field. After attending the mini lectures and programme meetings at ISHSS this year and my learning experience within the labour studies programme, I was even more convinced that the answer to (typo) this question is yes.

During my studies I have also been working for a television production company in its department of communications. The company was faced with a fast changing market and in order to maintain their competitive advantage (singular), they had to reorganize its organizational structure. I found this part of my work experience the most interesting. I was a member of the task force that was responsible for presenting a proposal for a new organizational structure. Although I was responsible for a small part of the whole organizational change process, the professional consultants with whom I was working gave me an inside look at the complete process. Through this experience I realized I was eager to learn more on this topic. Organizational change involves much more then presenting a new structure and strategy on paper. It involves redesigning jobs, the training of employees and sometimes the firing of employees. This also increased my interest in matters involving the labour market. I decided to complete my bachelors degree in communication science, taking as many courses as possible in business and communication and switch to a different masters programme that would fit my interest in labour and organisation better.

The COLOS programme offers an exciting interdisciplinary scenario, in which I will have the opportunity to expand my knowledge in the field of labour and organisation studies and to learn from recognized scientists from different disciplines. Studying with both national and international students adds a special element to the programme, which I highly appreciate. Studying at the ISHSS within the COLOS masters programme would enable me to develop a strong background of knowledge and improve my English language skills. This would make it possible for me to pursue a career as an advisor for labour organisations.

Considering my qualifications and interests outlined above and in my CV, I very much hope that you will consider me for the COLOS masters programme.

Yours faithfully, (sincerely only if letter addressed to named person, a dear 'sir' etc letter must finish with faithfully.)

Re: personnal essay

WaÃ¯ti — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 19:00:37 GMT

Febrarius,

It so happens that today is my birthday, and that I lived in Rochester NY for 2 years sometime ago... All the more reason for giving a shot at pointing out a couple of things in your essay... But bear in mind that I'm not a native so don't take every suggestion of mine for undisputable truth...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The quality of the loving care given by the parents or their surrogates has a powerful influence on the conditioning of the natural self and its relationship with the conscious self. The loving [I don't think 'loving' can be used as a name so it would have to be either 'loving care' or 'love' here] received by the child is what enables him or her to learn how to love and care for others. As the anthropologist Ashley Montagu observed, we learn how to love by being loved. If the child's needs are met consistently with sensitivity, that child will feel secure and will naturally be trusting of other humans; but if the parents or others abuse or neglect the child, then the child is likely to feel insecure and afraid of other people. Thus gentle living begins with the tender loving care of the parents for the child

Iâve always wondered why my mother lackâs [it has to be 'lacks', and also I would personally prefer : 'doesn't show interest' I think] interest in me. The relationship my mother and I share is not the typical mother-daughter relationship. Our relationship lacks affection and warmth. We have never observe [it has to be 'observed' and I've never heard it used for anything else than a bank holiday so I'd rather say 'celebrated' in this case, I think] each birthdays, mother day, Christmas or any of the holiday that brings the family unit together [maybe 'that brings unity to the family' or 'that brings the family to unite' ?]. As early as I can remember I have felt like an intruder in my mother's [you forgot the apostrophe] life. She has made me feel as if it is my fault my father has cheated on her. Sheâs blamed me for her weight gain, she has even blamed me for her unhappiness.

When I was six years old I over heard [overheard is one single word I believe] my mother saying to my grandmother " I wish I had listen to you and aborted his baby " [missing quotes for the reported speach] . I believe from that day on I began to understand my mother did not care for me she just pretended. My father and mother argue a lot. Some times [all in one word] well into the early hours of the morning you could hear my mother crying, my father always threatening her with leaving her and her kids. My father was not a very good husband or father either. He is still a very selfish man always out for what he can get for himself.

I always told myself that I would not be like my parents. But I now know [I think I would make it 'I know now' though I can't explain why] that some of their ways I have carry [carried] over into my life style. The relationship my daughter and I share is similar to that of my mother and myself. Iâm very standoffish [two words this time : stand-offish] with my daughter (Just like mother is towards me.) I feel my daughter has a follower type personality [I think I'd say 'type of personality'], this type of trait in people often gets them in trouble and my daughter was always begin expel from school. For fighting or skipping school [I'd rephrase the whole thing 'would always end up expelled from school for fighting or skipping classes]

Because my mother always rely on my father to make her happy or worthy, I told my self [promised myself maybe ?] not to rely on some one [someone] else to make me happy or make me feel good about my self [myself]. I believe when my daughter started showing these trait of neediness as I call it, I began to dislike her personality because it reminded me too much of my mother's personal life.

My mother experiences have taught me to be more resilient. I donât rely on my husband or anyone else to make me happy. I pray to God for guidance [I have remove the apostrophe 's] because I have learned that only God can make me happy. I donât need another individual to make me feel worthy. My mother lacks strength and thatâs one of the traits that I expect out of [I'd say 'from people'] people I want in my life. Thatâs another reason why I have chosen not to deal with my mother on a more intimate level. Having a weak personality has not a thing to due [I believe you meant 'not a thing to do'] with genetics or biology, [I'd add something right here to link the 2 parts of the sentence, like 'since' or 'and this is because'] moral characters are taught. And I know that my mother was taught to be weak. My mother never met her real father but my grandmother had told me that my grand father had taken his owe ['own' right ?] life because he could not deal with the demands his family put on him. And just like her father and mother my mother had try [should be 'tried'] to take her owe [own] life.

Maybe I may have some of the selfishness my fathers has, but I believe in self preservation and I believe because my mother exhibited this weak character early on in their relationship my father began to resent her for it. And in all fairness to the woman who gave birth to me. I have this to say.

In my quest for the answer as to why my mother does not care for me in a loving way, Iâve learned to except [I think you meant 'accept'] that she is an imperfect human and as an imperfect human she has no control over whom her imperfect heart chooses to love.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I have to say this is a very sad story and forgive me for asking but is this the story of your own life ? You don't have to answer that part and forgive me for my intrusiveness and curiosity...
Kindly, WaÃ¯ti.

Re: To whom/whom

paco2004 — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 05:04:22 GMT

Hello Casi

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I think I got finally what you are saying. Please let me try to rephrase with my words what you are saying and please check if it is right.

She [gave] [John^the book] Format: S (give) (X^Y) :
X^Y is the object of the verb 'gave' and the phrase 'gave X^Y' means to 'realize X's ownership of Y'. Here the sign signifies something like a possessive apostrophe (that is, X^Y ~ X's Y). As we can say 'his book', (him^the book) is a possible phrase for X^Y. But like we cannot say 'John's it' or 'his it', it is impossible to make such a phrase (John^it) for X^Y. Therefore, we cannot say "She gave John it" or "She gave him^it". Further more it is assumed that X and Y in (X^Y) are so tightly connected and so X^Y behave almost as an inseparable single constituent. It means that X and Y in X^Y can't move independently in a sentence. We can imagine a sentence "She gave whom^the book" but this "whom" cannot singly move to the head of the sentence. Therefore, it's impossible to construct an wh-question sentence like "Whom did she give the book?"

She [(gave) (the book)] [to John ] Format: S (give Y) (to X)=S (move Y)(to X)
In this sentence the phrase [to X] works as the adjunct of the action of (move Y). Here X and Y are perfectly independent constituents and X, Y can be replaced by pronouns without constraints, though X is usually an animate thing. "She gave it to him" is one of the sentences of this construct. Also "whom" can work as X and from "She gave the book to whom", one can easily make either "To whom did she give the book?" or "Whom did she give the book to?" by adopting the principles of wh-word raising.

My understanding is right?

paco

[PS] By the way is it true we can never say "his it"?