For you and Tom as well, the same question about question eight.
Joel Send a noteboard - 05/10/2011 08:33:39 PM
Since I noticed you both (in effect) cited the same objection: Subject/verb agreement. I (perhaps incorrectly) took "Twitter and texting" to be examples of a single general phenomenon suspected to have "eroded proper grammar for today's youths" and so thought nothing of introducing the question with "has." My logic is expounded at better length here, in an About.com entry written by one Richard Norquist, whose bio there states him to be a Doctor of English with 35 years experience teaching composition:
Bolding is mine, for emphasis (and yes, I noticed that he mispelled "effect." Several of the examples here, the first especially, are similar to the language in question eight: "Everything on the table" and "everything in the cupboard" are clearly and wholly distinct groups, but a singular verb is used to reference the singular destruction of both groups.
Normally a subject made up of more than one element takes a plural verb ("The President and Congress are at loggerheads"), although occasionally, when the elements add up to the same idea, the verb is singular ("The wear and tear on the car was tremendous"). But focus an eye on these compound subjects followed by singular verbs, all of which are correct:
Everything in the cupboard and everything on the table was smashed.
Everybody favoring the plan and everybody leaning toward it was interviewed.
Nobody in my house and nobody on my street has been robbed.
Anyone who has read the book and anybody who has even heard of its ideas agrees with the author.
Strange, eh? . . . The explanation would seem to be that in each instance the second 'particularizer' is superfluous and has no grammatical efect; it could just as well be omitted, and in some of the instances the and would change to or. . . .
"An odd quirk that proves nothing aside from the fact that some rules do have exceptions."
(Theodore Bernstein, Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, 1971)
Everything in the cupboard and everything on the table was smashed.
Everybody favoring the plan and everybody leaning toward it was interviewed.
Nobody in my house and nobody on my street has been robbed.
Anyone who has read the book and anybody who has even heard of its ideas agrees with the author.
Strange, eh? . . . The explanation would seem to be that in each instance the second 'particularizer' is superfluous and has no grammatical efect; it could just as well be omitted, and in some of the instances the and would change to or. . . .
"An odd quirk that proves nothing aside from the fact that some rules do have exceptions."
(Theodore Bernstein, Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, 1971)
Bolding is mine, for emphasis (and yes, I noticed that he mispelled "effect." Several of the examples here, the first especially, are similar to the language in question eight: "Everything on the table" and "everything in the cupboard" are clearly and wholly distinct groups, but a singular verb is used to reference the singular destruction of both groups.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Grammar junkies
- 05/10/2011 06:46:31 PM
1126 Views
I'm not always sure that I'm correct, but....
- 05/10/2011 07:04:13 PM
816 Views
I didn't see any errors 
- 05/10/2011 07:24:27 PM
804 Views
- 05/10/2011 07:24:27 PM
804 Views
Must ... have ... grammar.
- 05/10/2011 07:53:34 PM
996 Views
For you and Tom as well, the same question about question eight.
- 05/10/2011 08:33:39 PM
1277 Views
Tom can probably give you actual terms and correct rules, but here's my take on it.
- 05/10/2011 08:43:47 PM
768 Views
Er...yes I meant them as a singular idea...
*NM*
- 05/10/2011 08:47:34 PM
466 Views
*NM*
- 05/10/2011 08:47:34 PM
466 Views
Use them together, and only together, for fifteen years and we can discuss this again. *NM*
- 05/10/2011 09:32:30 PM
400 Views
That makes sense as far as it goes.
- 05/10/2011 09:02:42 PM
806 Views
But do you actually regard them that way?
- 05/10/2011 09:08:36 PM
790 Views
Yeah, pretty much.
- 05/10/2011 09:25:18 PM
747 Views
No, Joel. You're just wrong. Again. Get used to it. We have. 
- 05/10/2011 09:31:21 PM
691 Views
- 05/10/2011 09:31:21 PM
691 Views
I can live with being wrong, at least in the sense of technical error.
- 05/10/2011 10:06:30 PM
790 Views
Let's just pare this down to the bare bones.
- 06/10/2011 01:37:30 AM
649 Views
He made a mistake that I did not recognize as a mistake because I read his words as he intended.
- 06/10/2011 04:43:39 AM
797 Views
You bring up a point that I was researching the other day
- 05/10/2011 08:53:40 PM
841 Views
You guys mean a hyphen, not a dash. 
- 05/10/2011 09:00:25 PM
803 Views
- 05/10/2011 09:00:25 PM
803 Views
You're right of course!
- 05/10/2011 09:13:44 PM
867 Views
I frequently am.
- 05/10/2011 09:16:38 PM
868 Views
So I've noticed.
- 05/10/2011 09:19:38 PM
787 Views
Achtung! Grammatik! :insert Nazi-saluting smiley as the Wehrmacht marches by:
- 05/10/2011 08:10:45 PM
894 Views
Good poll, especially for this site.
- 05/10/2011 08:11:10 PM
903 Views
Re: Grammar junkies
- 05/10/2011 08:33:06 PM
799 Views
People should talk in a way that can be understood, else they are not communicating.
- 05/10/2011 09:17:37 PM
842 Views
Re: "everyone's". ~winky~ *NM*
- 05/10/2011 09:22:18 PM
389 Views
Is it time for my lecture on superfluous apostrophes again?
- 05/10/2011 09:43:47 PM
750 Views
- 05/10/2011 09:43:47 PM
750 Views
Unsurprisingly, I don't really agree with you at all on this point. :p
- 05/10/2011 10:29:59 PM
838 Views
I do not really think I am "right" on this one so much as "not wrong."
- 06/10/2011 12:01:36 AM
755 Views
But contradictions are inherent in the entire English language!
- 06/10/2011 01:25:39 AM
751 Views
Ghoti. Also, this is why Rebekah and don't argue this any more. *NM*
- 06/10/2011 04:44:42 AM
349 Views
*NM*
- 06/10/2011 04:44:42 AM
349 Views
Sure, but not deliberate ones created by grammarians who know better.
- 06/10/2011 05:40:58 AM
760 Views
I'm going to listen to the others.
- 06/10/2011 06:17:18 AM
770 Views
Like I say, I appreciate exceptions when justified (and again, only claiming to be "not wrong." )
- 06/10/2011 07:26:18 AM
658 Views
But you are wrong
- 06/10/2011 02:17:40 PM
792 Views
- 06/10/2011 02:17:40 PM
792 Views
I disagree.
- 07/10/2011 12:15:14 AM
734 Views
- 07/10/2011 12:15:14 AM
734 Views
How utterly unsurprising 
- 07/10/2011 02:21:38 PM
716 Views
- 07/10/2011 02:21:38 PM
716 Views
"We want to be nothing if not persistent."
- 07/10/2011 02:39:19 PM
761 Views
Doesn't matter.
- 07/10/2011 03:12:14 PM
773 Views
Perhaps not, but it should, and I am not above being a lone voice crying in the wilderness.
- 08/10/2011 05:17:35 PM
862 Views
What.
- 06/10/2011 06:17:41 PM
838 Views
Those cases are not the same, because those words are already possessive in their own right.
- 06/10/2011 10:52:06 PM
827 Views
if you have trouble understanding my post it is more likely do to typing skills than grammar
- 05/10/2011 09:31:42 PM
750 Views
Likely so; I have the same problem, but usually when writing by hand.
- 05/10/2011 09:53:08 PM
721 Views
#1) I do not use NetSpeak while playing games, texting or using social media.
- 05/10/2011 11:34:12 PM
738 Views
What about NateSpeak? *NM*
- 06/10/2011 04:01:08 PM
360 Views
I did use that once to tell the story of you and CNRedDragon going to see Ice Princess. *NM*
- 07/10/2011 01:46:50 AM
374 Views
I freebase split infinitives on a regular basis.
- 06/10/2011 01:53:36 PM
665 Views