Is Anyone Good at Grammar?

[Razanir]

Passive voice. Every English professor I've asked contradicts what I've found online. I agree that "The cake was eaten by her" is passive, but I don't think "She has eaten the cake" is. From what I've read, passive is where the subject receives the action. The best argument for the latter sentence being passive is that "has" isn't the action, but I think "has EATEN" is the action. Right? Just for anyone who knows grammar, which of "The cake was eaten by her" and "She has eaten the cake" is/are passive?

[Gorgondantess]

What's so hard about "she ate the cake"? It sounds better and is indubitably not passive.

[Goosefeather]

Passive voice. Every English professor I've asked contradicts what I've found online. I agree that "The cake was eaten by her" is passive, but I don't think "She has eaten the cake" is. From what I've read, passive is where the subject receives the action. The best argument for the latter sentence being passive is that "has" isn't the action, but I think "has EATEN" is the action. Right? Just for anyone who knows grammar, which of "The cake was eaten by her" and "She has eaten the cake" is/are passive?

You are correct. 'The cake was eaten by her' is passive, while 'She has eaten the cake' is very much an active sentence. The 'has' in the second sentence is part of the perfect tense conjugation of the verb 'to eat'.

[Inglenook]

^ What he or she said. To be slightly more specific: "has eaten" is the present perfect. Compare to the past perfect/pluperfect "had eaten", conditional perfect "would have eaten" and future perfect "will have eaten".

The "perfect" tenses/aspects are used in English to show consequence, completion, and lots of other niggly details and connotations.

[Gnoman]

If you put the eater first, it's active. If you put the eaten first, it's passive. You are completely correct.

[Tavar]

Going to quote my Mom on this(English major and Editor)


"The cake was eaten by her" is a sentence in the passive construction. The person committing the action is not the subject; the subject is instead the person or object receiving the action.

"She has eaten the cake" is a sentence in the active construction, past-perfect tense. Past-perfect means the action was completed in the past: has eaten.

From half-remembered Latin classes(where I learned most of my English grammer), the passive construction would more likely be 'has been verbed by'.

[Tyndmyr]

What's so hard about "she ate the cake"? It sounds better and is indubitably not passive.

This. It's nice, simple, easy to understand, and definitely not passive.

[Yora]

I would look if it is "has eaten" or "was eaten".

She has eaten the cake.
The cake was eaten by her.

Can't say 100% for English, but in German "she has" is clearly active.

[Rawhide]

She had a cake, but she eated it.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

The cake was had by her, but eated by her. :smallfrown:

[Goosefeather]

Had she had it, it would have had been hadded by her.

[Yora]

That's what I like about Japanese. Even when half the words are dropped, these things are still obvious:

Keeki wa - cake is active subject
Keeki ga - cake is passive object

Even when you just have keeki ga tabema****a, you still know that someone ate the cake, even if there's no information at all who did it.

[Fragenstein]

I broke the dam.

[Goosefeather]

I would look if it is "has eaten" or "was eaten".

She has eaten the cake.
The cake was eaten by her.

Can't say 100% for English, but in German "she has" is clearly active.

The only thing to watch out for there is present perfect passives, i.e. "she has been Xed by Y".

As a basic rule for OP, the passive is formed by "to be* + past participle", and often comes with an agent - "by X" - but not always.

"To be" can take the form of various conjugations, e.g. 'I have been', 'She was', 'You had been', 'We will be', 'They would be', etc., but these are all forms of the same verb.

So, 'I have eaten [alligator]' is a form of the verb 'to eat', and is active. 'I have been eaten [by an alligator]' is a form of 'to be eaten', i.e. 'to be + past participle', and is passive.

NOTE, watch out for adjectives which look like past participles. For example, 'The door was closed'. This could either be an active sentence describing the state the door was in (closed = adjective), or it could be a passive sentence describing the door being shut by somebody unmentioned (closed = past participle).

*or, more rarely, 'to become' or 'to get'

[Aedilred]

"She has eaten the cake" is active. Who is telling you that it's passive?

[Archonic Energy]

"Anyone can have their cake, and then eat it. The real trick is eating your cake, and still having it. It's a common mistake." - Cptn. Dylan Hunt

[Iruka]

What's so hard about "she ate the cake"? It sounds better and is indubitably not passive.

My English teachers insisted it had a different meaning. :smalltongue:

[Goosefeather]

Well, it does, though the two do overlap. It's just the standard difference between past and present perfect.

She ate the cake/the cake was eaten by her = past tense, active/passive.

She has eaten the cake/the cake has been eaten by her = present perfect tense, active/passive.

[Eloel]

My rule of thumb is that if you can add (or the sentence already has) "by X" (where 'by' can't be replaced by 'via' without changing the meaning) to the end of the sentence, the sentence is passive.
I'm yet to see an exception.

[Mauve Shirt]

"Has Susie eaten the cake?"
[determines that cake is not in the cake box] "Yes, she has eaten the cake. Possibly over multiple days, one slice at a time."

"Has Susie eaten the cake?"
"Yes, she ate it. I watched her do it. She took it all, the greedy jerk. You may notice that as a result, I have eaten all of the ice cream."

The question could also be phrased "Did Susie eat the cake?" I think "ate" would be a better response to that question.

[Hiro Protagonest]

"Anyone can have their cake, and then eat it. The real trick is eating your cake, and still having it. It's a common mistake." - Cptn. Dylan Hunt

THANK YOU. I got confused once when someone said "so you want to have your cake and eat it too?".

[Anarion]

Keep in mind that the distinction between "she ate the cake" and "she has eaten the cake" is pretty much nil in most cases. Using "has eaten" somewhat emphasizes the completion of the action (i.e. it's over, she ate it, no going back now) and the use of the pluperfect "she had eaten the cake" implies even greater temporal distance. But perfect vs. regular past tense are very similar.


That's what I like about Japanese. Even when half the words are dropped, these things are still obvious:

Keeki wa - cake is active subject
Keeki ga - cake is passive object

Even when you just have keeki ga tabema****a, you still know that someone ate the cake, even if there's no information at all who did it.

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure, but if that were passive, wouldn't it be keeki ga taberarema****a? Keeki ga tabema****a makes me think that you're using the phrase in some longer sentence where the cake is not the subject of the overall discussion, but I'm not certain the sentence needs to be passive. Also I'm amused by changing that to keeki wa tabema****a because that would refer to a very hungry cake.

Edit: ah forum filter. sigh.

[Iruka]

Using "has eaten" somewhat emphasizes the completion of the action (i.e. it's over, she ate it, no going back now) ...

Really? I remember it the other way around. But then, my last English lesson was a couple of years ago ...

[Rawhide]

THANK YOU. I got confused once when someone said "so you want to have your cake and eat it too?".

Dylan is correct, the modern day phrase has been incorrectly reversed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_one's_cake_and_eat_it_too).

[Anarion]

Dylan is correct, the modern day phrase has been incorrectly reversed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_one's_cake_and_eat_it_too).

I had no idea the cake expression was used to "describe the development of poetic imagery in Latin didactic poetry." Thanks Rawhide/Wikipedia!

[Anxe]

Back to the grammar topic... Generally, when you have a choice you should remove as much as you can from your writing. "has eaten" is two words while "ate" is just one. Thus ate is generally better. There are some instances that have already been pointed out where either is better.

Generally you should avoid complicated verb phrases. "We should have decided to go rollerblading" is horrible because it has five different verbs crammed into one verb phrase. "We missed out on rollerblading" is a little better because it only has two verb-like things and they are separated by the "out on."

[Hiro Protagonest]

Dylan is correct, the modern day phrase has been incorrectly reversed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_one's_cake_and_eat_it_too).

Exactly. In a sentence with more than one verb, the verbs logically go in order. So "have your cake and eat it too" implies that you have a cake, then you eat it.

[Emmerask]

The only thing to watch out for there is present perfect passives, i.e. "she has been Xed by Y".


"She has been eaten by the cake" sounds perfectly valid :smallbiggrin:

[Aedilred]

Back to the grammar topic... Generally, when you have a choice you should remove as much as you can from your writing. "has eaten" is two words while "ate" is just one. Thus ate is generally better. There are some instances that have already been pointed out where either is better.
I really couldn't disagree more. For me, "she ate the cake", and "she has eaten the cake" have subtle but distinct differences of connotation. That sort of thing is really context-dependent. I'm all for hacking out unnecessary adverbs and adjectives and overly complicated sentence structure, but changing the tense of a verb just because one version produces a marginally shorter sentence seems mad.

Generally you should avoid complicated verb phrases. "We should have decided to go rollerblading" is horrible because it has five different verbs crammed into one verb phrase. "We missed out on rollerblading" is a little better because it only has two verb-like things and they are separated by the "out on."
The former phrase is awkward, although also rather artificial. Really, the only way that makes sense is in a context where you're discussing a conversation where you decided not to go rollerblading. The two phrases again have subtly distinct meanings, and there may be situations where the former is preferable. The latter is a statement that they didn't go rollerblading and they feel that they should have done, but it's relatively value-neutral. The former is an explicit statement that they erred in deciding not to go, with an implication of blame.

[Anxe]

Ahem...

Back to the grammar topic... Generally, when you have a choice you should remove as much as you can from your writing. "has eaten" is two words while "ate" is just one. Thus ate is generally better. There are some instances that have already been pointed out where either is better.

Generally you should avoid complicated verb phrases. "We should have decided to go rollerblading" is horrible because it has five different verbs crammed into one verb phrase. "We missed out on rollerblading" is a little better because it only has two verb-like things and they are separated by the "out on."

Thanks for pointing out the specific differences in mine though.

[Rawhide]

Generally you should avoid complicated verb phrases. "We should have decided to go rollerblading" is horrible because it has five different verbs crammed into one verb phrase. "We missed out on rollerblading" is a little better because it only has two verb-like things and they are separated by the "out on."

But these sentences are completely different, overtly different, not subtly.

"We should have decided to go rollerblading"
There was a decision to be made on whether to go rollerblading or not (or an open ended decision on what to do) and the decision was made not to go rollerblading (or to do something else) and now they are lamenting the fact that they (apparently) made the wrong decision.

"We missed out on rollerblading"
There was an opportunity to go rollerblading which they missed out on. How they missed out on it is not specified, they could have arrived late and it was closed, it might have been packed and they were told that there was no more room in the venue, or any other number of things. Them making the decision not to go rollerbalding or do something else isn't implied at all, it needs context from another sentence or to be expanded (e.g. "We missed out on rollerblading because..."). It also doesn't specify if they feel it was a good or bad decision/reason.

[Anxe]

Can you guys think of a better example for what I was trying to demonstrate then? It's hard to purposefully think of bad phrases like that while preserving something that is exactly equivalent without the complicated phrase.

[Inglenook]

I really couldn't disagree more. For me, "she ate the cake", and "she has eaten the cake" have subtle but distinct differences of connotation. That sort of thing is really context-dependent. I'm all for hacking out unnecessary adverbs and adjectives and overly complicated sentence structure, but changing the tense of a verb just because one version produces a marginally shorter sentence seems mad.
This. The perfect tenses have a very unique and complex connotation attached to them. Stripping them out for the sake of lowering word count is like a surgeon removing random organs and saying "They hardly used them anyway!"

Despite Hemingway's feelings on the matter, minimalism is very much a stylistic choice rather than a hard and fast rule. I can't imagine what The Lord of the Rings trilogy would be like without Tolkien rambling on forever about things.

[Anarion]

This. The perfect tenses have a very unique and complex connotation attached to them. Stripping them out for the sake of lowering word count is like a surgeon removing random organs and saying "They hardly used them anyway!"


It's only stripping them out if they were already there. One could liken the overly verbose use of language to the surgeon fixing up your arm and deciding to add that laser death ray implant he always wanted to try out. Actually, that would be awesome, so maybe a malfunctioning laser death ray or something.

Point being, when you're doing the writing, adding words without thinking is bad. Adding words because you want to make the speaker seem haughty, or to subtly alter the tone of the sentence is good. But if you, the writer, can't point to your sentence and explained why it's phrased a certain way, then there might be some cutting required.

Immediate edit: No, I do not practice what I preach. Shut up.

[Inglenook]

Very true.

Not the "practice what you preach" bit, but the rest of it. :smallbiggrin:

[Jeff the Green]

What Anarion (et al.) said.

I get very tired of people saying to avoid the passive voice, or the perfect present tense. Which voice/tense/mood you use should depend entirely on what you're trying to say.

Let's take the example of rolling dice. If I am interested in the person who rolled it, I use the active voice. Mary rolled the dice and scored a critical hit. If I'm interested in the action of rolling, I also use the active voice, since that's the default for English. (But this is not, I should note, necessarily true for other languages. Latin, for example, goes both ways.)

If I'm interested in the dice, on the other hand, I use the passive voice. The dice were rolled, and my character died. alea iacta est. Or if I want to be deliberately vague about the actor, either because I don't want them associated with the act or because I don't know who did it. Mistakes were made. Carbon dioxide is released. Virgins were sacrificed to the rain god.

It all depends on your meaning.

[Razanir]

Back to the grammar topic... Generally, when you have a choice you should remove as much as you can from your writing. "has eaten" is two words while "ate" is just one. Thus ate is generally better. There are some instances that have already been pointed out where either is better.

Generally you should avoid complicated verb phrases. "We should have decided to go rollerblading" is horrible because it has five different verbs crammed into one verb phrase. "We missed out on rollerblading" is a little better because it only has two verb-like things and they are separated by the "out on."

I'd dare to argue that the last sentence only has a single verb, with "rollerblading" being a gerund and therefore a noun.


"She has been eaten by the cake" sounds perfectly valid :smallbiggrin:

But cake always seems too friendly to eat people!


It's only stripping them out if they were already there. One could liken the overly verbose use of language to the surgeon fixing up your arm and deciding to add that laser death ray implant he always wanted to try out. Actually, that would be awesome, so maybe a malfunctioning laser death ray or something.

Point being, when you're doing the writing, adding words without thinking is bad. Adding words because you want to make the speaker seem haughty, or to subtly alter the tone of the sentence is good. But if you, the writer, can't point to your sentence and explained why it's phrased a certain way, then there might be some cutting required.

Immediate edit: No, I do not practice what I preach. Shut up.

Laser death rays are fun... And phrasing always annoys me. Some of the monstrosities people will suggest to avoid stuff like this always seem clunky and awkward.


What Anarion (et al.) said.

I get very tired of people saying to avoid the passive voice, or the perfect present tense. Which voice/tense/mood you use should depend entirely on what you're trying to say.

Let's take the example of rolling dice. If I am interested in the person who rolled it, I use the active voice. Mary rolled the dice and scored a critical hit. If I'm interested in the action of rolling, I also use the active voice, since that's the default for English. (But this is not, I should note, necessarily true for other languages. Latin, for example, goes both ways.)

If I'm interested in the dice, on the other hand, I use the passive voice. The dice were rolled, and my character died. alea iacta est. Or if I want to be deliberately vague about the actor, either because I don't want them associated with the act or because I don't know who did it. Mistakes were made. Carbon dioxide is released. Virgins were sacrificed to the rain god.

It all depends on your meaning.

(emphasis mine) Ah yes. The very same sentence I was presented with for why teachers hate the passive voice. They don't want us talking like some politicians.

In related news, before people blow that comment to dangerous proportions, one example I saw elsewhere online was "Frankenstein was originally published in 1818." -> "Mary Shelley anonymously published Frankenstein in 1818." What if I don't care she wrote it or how she published it? What if the point is that the book exists now! Oh, and my original rage made slightly more sense because it was generic politics, but it felt like toeing the line too much

[Xuc Xac]

In related news, before people blow that comment to dangerous proportions, one example I saw elsewhere online was "Frankenstein was originally published in 1818." -> "Mary Shelley anonymously published Frankenstein in 1818." What if I don't care she wrote it or how she published it? What if the point is that the book exists now!

Frankenstein has been in publication since 1818.

[Aedilred]

That implies though that it has been in continuous publication and thus never out of print, which might not be appropriate.

I've always felt that the passive comes fairly naturally in English, which is presumably why people have to be told not to use it. I shouldn't imagine many people have to be told not to use gerunds. But shouldn't that which comes naturally see some use? I'm inclined to think that it should, and that the problem with the passive isn't that it's somehow wrong - it's clearly a perfectly acceptable grammatical form - but rather that if you're not careful you can overuse it. As with adverbs, if you're told to avoid where possible, you probably end up with about the right amount.

In particular, the passive is very difficult to avoid when talking about abstract concepts or non-active nouns that have no real agency of their own to "perform" verbs. As, for instance, when one is talking about the passive voice itself.

These rules shouldn't be held absolute. If avoiding the passive means mangling the sentence into something that doesn't convey the meaning properly and reads very awkwardly, then for goodness' sake just use the passive. The same goes for, for instance, ending a sentence with a preposition, splitting an infinitive, and so on. It's not something that you want to do all the time, but it can't always be avoided.

[Rawhide]

A preposition is a perfectly appropriate kind of word to end a sentence with. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0025-preposition.htm)

[Anarion]

A preposition is a perfectly appropriate kind of word to end a sentence with. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0025-preposition.htm)

You mean "with which to end a sentence." :smallbiggrin:

[Rawhide]

You mean "with which to end a sentence." :smallbiggrin:

No, because it was a direct quote. It is something I do all the time though.

[Fiery Diamond]

You mean "with which to end a sentence." :smallbiggrin:

"Ending sentences with prepositions is one thing up with which I shall not put." :smallbiggrin:

In all seriousness, though, I agree with Elimu Marimech, historiasdeosos, and Rawhide. And to answer Anxe's question: "Can you guys think of a better example for what I was trying to demonstrate then? It's hard to purposefully think of bad phrases like that while preserving something that is exactly equivalent without the complicated phrase." No, I can't, and that's a demonstration of why I think you are, in general, wrong.

Of course, I'm a bit biased, because my natural speech and writing patterns tend to be what teachers in the English language programs think are overly verbose. I've never been fond of the idea that "more concise is better" except for things like scientific papers.

[Anarion]

One thing to keep in mind is that anyone passionate enough to be posting here is (probably) doing fine with the English language. Most of the rules were developed for lazy people that had no opinions and just wrote badly.

Also, I think if I ever taught English*, that I would definitely have my students do an exercise where passive voice and the verb "to be" were strictly prohibited. It would be an exercise to see what writing that way felt like, and I would treat it as such, not as a strict requirement on every paper they ever wrote.


*Odds of Anarion teaching English: Approximately 3720 to 1.

[Goosefeather]

Most of the rules were developed for lazy people that had no opinions and just wrote badly.


A bunch of them, like the prohibitions on sentence-ending prepositions and infinitive-splitting, seem to have been introduced by overly keen grammarians who for some reason thought English should follow Latin grammatical conventions.

[Asta Kask]

*Odds of Anarion teaching English: Approximately 3720 to 1.

Never tell me the odds!

[Iruka]

*Odds of Anarion teaching English: Approximately 3720 to 1.

So, that means either that it is super-duper guaranteed that you will teach English or that your chance of teaching math is even lower? :smalltongue:

[Rawhide]

So, that means either that is is super-duper guaranteed that you will teach English or that your chance of teaching math is even lower? :smalltongue:

I think he means 3720 to 1 against. :smalltongue:

[Anarion]

I think he means 3720 to 1 against. :smalltongue:

Correct.

If there is an error, you'll need to lay the blame on C-3PO, not me.

[Gnoman]

A bunch of them, like the prohibitions on sentence-ending prepositions and infinitive-splitting, seem to have been introduced by overly keen grammarians who for some reason thought English should follow Latin grammatical conventions.

Precisely. Of the dozens of grammar books I've flipped through (since I have to flip through them anyway, I look for this specifically), three (all from the twenties) insisted that infinitives be split never and prepositions never end a sentence. The rest ranged from not mentioning the idea at all to "That's the dumbest thing anyone has ever come up with, and anyone who insists on it should be shot." The last one was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

[dps]

Back to the grammar topic... Generally, when you have a choice you should remove as much as you can from your writing. "has eaten" is two words while "ate" is just one. Thus ate is generally better. There are some instances that have already been pointed out where either is better.

Generally you should avoid complicated verb phrases. "We should have decided to go rollerblading" is horrible because it has five different verbs crammed into one verb phrase. "We missed out on rollerblading" is a little better because it only has two verb-like things and they are separated by the "out on."

There are good reasons to prefer the use of past tense over the use of past-perfect tense, but merely reducing the word count isn't one of them. There's nothing wrong with past-perfect tense, but sometimes there's a tendency to over-use it, so what you might want to ask yourself if there's a reason you should be using past-perfect tense. If there is, fine, but if not, then you should probably be using past tense instead.

The difference between "She has eaten the cake" and "She ate the cake" is very subtle. The distinction between past-perfect tense and past tense is a bit more obvious if we use the same sentences, but take the definative article out: "She has eaten cake" as opposed to "She ate cake". "She ate cake" might be the answer to a question along the lines of, "What did she have for dessert?" whereas "She has eaten cake" would be the answer to the question, "Has she ever eaten cake?" though of course the more natural formulation would be to use a contraction: "She's eaten cake".

[Jeff the Green]

A bunch of them, like the prohibitions on sentence-ending prepositions and infinitive-splitting, seem to have been introduced by overly keen grammarians who for some reason thought English should follow Latin grammatical conventions.

The worst part is the split infinitives. They said you shouldn't split infinitives because you don't in Latin. But the reason you don't in Latin is that you can't—infinitives are a single word. So whereas in English "to jump" is two words and possible to split ("to quickly jump"), in Latin it's the single word "saltare." It's not ungrammatical to split "saltare," it's nonsensical.

Even leaving that aside, English doesn't follow Latinate grammar. It's a Germanic language, not a Romance one.

[lsfreak]

To drive you English teachers crazy when they insist passive voice is wrong because it doesn't give the actor, point out that "it broke" and "the door opened" and "the cookies are baking" are wrong then too. There are no actors in those sentences.

[Iruka]

To drive you English teachers crazy when they insist passive voice is wrong because it doesn't give the actor, ...

But why do they claim that? Isn't not giving an actor exactly the point of passive voice?

[lsfreak]

But why do they claim that? Isn't not giving an actor exactly the point of passive voice?

Yes, and that's wrong. For unspecified reasons that will likely never be divined. :smallsigh:

I really liked my high school teachers except for this. Well, and that they never actually explained what passive voice was beyond that it uses a be-verb. I'm sure I was never told that be-verbs have other functions.

Did you notice my use of passive voice? :smallamused: They are so natural to use in English you'll never notice them unless you've had it engrained in you that they're wrong.

[Aedilred]

A bunch of them, like the prohibitions on sentence-ending prepositions and infinitive-splitting, seem to have been introduced by overly keen grammarians who for some reason thought English should follow Latin grammatical conventions.
Well yes. However, just because something is grammatically correct doesn't mean it's stylistically desirable. In the case of the split infinitive and the sentence-ending preposition, I'd say that as a rule it's better to try to avoid it, because it does often look clumsy or obfuscate the meaning of the sentence or just leave a statement apparently hanging. Of course there will be some occasions where it's better to use it than not, as skewered by Churchill.

[dps]

The worst part is the split infinitives. They said you shouldn't split infinitives because you don't in Latin. But the reason you don't in Latin is that you can't—infinitives are a single word. So whereas in English "to jump" is two words and possible to split ("to quickly jump"), in Latin it's the single word "saltare." It's not ungrammatical to split "saltare," it's nonsensical.

Even leaving that aside, English doesn't follow Latinate grammar. It's a Germanic language, not a Romance one.

Heck, even the concept of parts of speech doesn't work all that well for English. In Latin, if you see a written word, even without knowing its meaning or having the rest of a sentence around it, you can pretty much tell if it's a noun, verb, adverb, etc. In English, that's not true at all (many adverbs end with -ly, but not all of them, and not all words with that ending are adverbs). If fact, many English words can be nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives without any internal changes. Conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns come closer to following Latin rules--there might be exceptions, but offhand I can't think of a, for example, a conjunction that can be any other part of speech (except that in English, literally any word can be used as an interjection).

[Neftren]

To drive you English teachers crazy when they insist passive voice is wrong because it doesn't give the actor, point out that "it broke" and "the door opened" and "the cookies are baking" are wrong then too. There are no actors in those sentences.

This actually depends on the level of English teacher. For instance, my high school English teacher (formerly an English Literature professor) basically described middle and elementary school English as a set of training wheels. Students are taught a small set of ironclad rules, and are told to never break them lest the house of English come toppling down. When students reach high school, well, at least my high school anyways, we were taught to bend (or even break) the rules of English.

There's nothing wrong with "it broke" as the subject is typically associated with the context (e.g. the pot, or the door). In contrast, "the door opened" is a bit more confusing, as doors do not simply open by themselves (unless we include supernatural phenomena). A sentence does not require an actor, but in many cases, applying the passive voice can confuse the reader (or in the case of scientific papers, be extremely clear!).

1

dps, I suppose going off the FABSONY mnemonic... I think the closest candidates to conjunctions as other parts of speech would be "So" or "Yet."

[dps]

RE: Dangling prepositions--the problem with them is that in many cases they're simply un-needed. For example, 99% of the time, "Where are you going?" is more direct and simpler, yet has the same meaning as, "Where are you going to?", so the version without the preposition at the end would be preferred--there's no need to take on the superfluous "to". There's also no reason to put the "to" at the start of the sentence: "To where are you going?"--the "to" is still superflous and "Where are you going" is much more natural and completely grammatically correct. (The only time I can think of that the "to" might be useful and therefore "Where are you going to?" would be better would be if someone said, "I'm going to go to..." and trailed off without saying where they are going.)

OTOH, not all dangling prepositions are superfluous. Consider, "What are you looking for?" You can't really just say, "What are you looking?", which doesn't even convey a complete thought. A very strict old-school grammarian might argue the "What are you looking for?" should be phrased as "For what are you looking?" but that forumulation is so un-natural sounding for a native English speaker* that if I heard someone say that, I'd suspect that either English was their 3rd language or that they were a high-functioning autistic or an English teacher. (Not meaning to suggest that non-native speakers of English have autism or any other mental defect, though English teachers being high-functioning autistics might explain a few things.)

*EDIT: that might not be true for all dialects of English, but would certainly be true for any dialect of American English that I'm familiar with.

[Rockphed]

Generally you should avoid complicated verb phrases. "We should have decided to go rollerblading" is horrible because it has five different verbs crammed into one verb phrase. "We missed out on rollerblading" is a little better because it only has two verb-like things and they are separated by the "out on."

I count a past perfect conjugation of "to decide", an infinitive, and a gerund in the first sentence and a past conjugation and a gerund in the second. You saved yourself a single verb form, for a significant drop in clarity.


(emphasis mine) Ah yes. The very same sentence I was presented with for why teachers hate the passive voice. They don't want us talking like some politicians.

In related news, before people blow that comment to dangerous proportions, one example I saw elsewhere online was "Frankenstein was originally published in 1818." -> "Mary Shelley anonymously published Frankenstein in 1818." What if I don't care she wrote it or how she published it? What if the point is that the book exists now! Oh, and my original rage made slightly more sense because it was generic politics, but it felt like toeing the line too much

Passive voice is perfect for when actors are either unknown or irrelevant. It doesn't matter who blew up the ocean so much as that the ocean exploded.


Precisely. Of the dozens of grammar books I've flipped through (since I have to flip through them anyway, I look for this specifically), three (all from the twenties) insisted that infinitives be split never and prepositions never end a sentence. The rest ranged from not mentioning the idea at all to "That's the dumbest thing anyone has ever come up with, and anyone who insists on it should be shot." The last one was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

I have a laser-not-quite-death-ray we can use to shoot the insistors. I can even almost mod it for a wrist mount.

[Anarion]

OTOH, not all dangling prepositions are superfluous. Consider, "What are you looking for?" You can't really just say, "What are you looking?", which doesn't even convey a complete thought.

I personally do like both the passive voice and ending my sentences with a preposition, but I want to play devil's advocate for a minute. While you're right that "what are you looking?" is an incomplete sentence, your example here caused me to think about other ways to say this, and I think that considering the use of a different verb, such as "what are you seeking?" comes out much more elegant than "what are you looking for?"

Obviously, the use of a verb like "seeking" is way too formal for speaking and might not be appropriate for the dialogue of some characters in a written work. If you're just looking for elegant phrasing, however, sometimes throwing in the preposition or the verb "to be" is the lazy way to do it when there's really a better verb out there, tailored just for you.

[dps]

I personally do like both the passive voice and ending my sentences with a preposition, but I want to play devil's advocate for a minute. While you're right that "what are you looking?" is an incomplete sentence, your example here caused me to think about other ways to say this, and I think that considering the use of a different verb, such as "what are you seeking?" comes out much more elegant than "what are you looking for?"

Obviously, the use of a verb like "seeking" is way too formal for speaking and might not be appropriate for the dialogue of some characters in a written work. If you're just looking for elegant phrasing, however, sometimes throwing in the preposition or the verb "to be" is the lazy way to do it when there's really a better verb out there, tailored just for you.

While "What are you seeking?" and "What are you looking for?" have mostly the same meaning, "What are you seeking?" would imply a quest or somesuch, whereas, "What are you looking for?" implies someone is searching for their lost keys or such, and someone is asking just what the item being searched for is.

[Wardog]

The worst part is the split infinitives. They said you shouldn't split infinitives because you don't in Latin. But the reason you don't in Latin is that you can't—infinitives are a single word. So whereas in English "to jump" is two words and possible to split ("to quickly jump")

They also seem (to me at least) to have subtly different meanings.

"He quickly jumped" suggests to me that the decision to jump was taken quickly (e.g. as a reflexive action to avoid an incoming hazard).

"He jumped quickly" suggests that he is moving fast.

Consider "he quickly ran" vs "he ran quickly" for (IMO) an even stronger example.

(I'm not sure where that leaves "to boldly go" vs "to go boldly").


Also, MS Word can come up with some absurd "corrections" to split infinitives. (Typically ranging from "that just looks ugly" to "that doesn't even make sense").

[Inglenook]

Also, I think if I ever taught English*, that I would definitely have my students do an exercise where passive voice and the verb "to be" were strictly prohibited. It would be an exercise to see what writing that way felt like, and I would treat it as such, not as a strict requirement on every paper they ever wrote.
This is actually a pretty famous thought experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-prime), ostensibly done to eliminate ambiguity and promote clarity of thought and speech. It sounds stilted to me, personally, but there have been several books written this way.

[Kindablue]

Personally, I'm an advocate of doubling prepositions for to heighten language artificially.

[Goosefeather]

I prefer verbing nouns. If I'm feeling naughty, I adverb them. Nounily.

[Rockphed]

I prefer verbing nouns. If I'm feeling naughty, I adverb them. Nounily.

English actually has a good system for nouning verbs and verbing nouns. Also for adjectiving both of them. Ajectating? Adjectivating? Okay, maybe not so great rules.

[Jeff the Green]

English actually has a good system for nouning verbs and verbing nouns. Also for adjectiving both of them. Ajectating? Adjectivating? Okay, maybe not so great rules.

Adjectifying.

[Asta Kask]

I love those rules because they are recursive. Invisibilify, invisibilification, invisibilificationize, invisibilificationizer....

[Rawhide]

I love those rules because they are recursive. Invisibilify, invisibilification, invisibilificationize, invisibilificationizer....

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

[Aedilred]

English actually has a good system for nouning verbs and verbing nouns. Also for adjectiving both of them. Ajectating? Adjectivating? Okay, maybe not so great rules.
"Adjectivising"?

My tutor told my class very firmly today that splitting infinitives was wrong and we would be penalised for doing it. I considered arguing.

However, as I debated whether to say anything, I realised that in context it wasn't bad advice. The sort of people to whom our submissions are made are the sort to be infuriated by split infinitives, so it's probably best to avoid them. Additionally, while they might be technically correct, I still don't like them. Lastly, a couple of people in my group who don't speak English all that well would likely have been thoroughly confused, and that wouldn't have been good for anyone.

[Kindablue]

I think of split infinitives as bad style, not bad grammar. Bad style pulls you away from intelligence; bad grammar pulls you away from intelligibility. Splitting an infinitive won't confuse someone as to what you're doing (okay, it probably won't), but it might take the punch out of that action.


Antidisestablishmentarianism.

See now you're just making words up.

[Rawhide]

See now you're just making words up.

Actually, no. :smalltongue:

It's in dictionaries and was primarily used in the 18th and 19th centuries. Now it generally only still exists as an example of a long word and/or an example of how prefixes and suffixes can make such a word.

[Mauve Shirt]

Longest word in the English language. Except for antidisestablishmentarianistically.

[Rockphed]

Longest word in the English language. Except for antidisestablishmentarianistically.

Antidisestablishmentarianisticallism. :smalltongue:

And most truly long English words are formed by mashing prefixes and suffixes onto root words.

In the case of antidisestablishmentarianism, we have 4 -fixes and a root word. The root is "establishment", in this case a noun referring to a state religion. Then we plop the negative prefix "dis-" in front to form a verb, meaning the act of removing the state religion. We add the suffix -arian meaning proponent of an idea, and we are back to a noun. Adding -ism to the end makes it a movement. Adding "anti-" to the front negates the whole thing.

[Rawhide]

Antidisestablishmentarianisticallism. :smalltongue:

And most truly long English words are formed by mashing prefixes and suffixes onto root words.

In the case of antidisestablishmentarianism, we have 4 -fixes and a root word. The root is "establishment", in this case a noun referring to a state religion. Then we plop the negative prefix "dis-" in front to form a verb, meaning the act of removing the state religion. We add the suffix -arian meaning proponent of an idea, and we are back to a noun. Adding -ism to the end makes it a movement. Adding "anti-" to the front negates the whole thing.

Did you break it down far enough? I would point out that establishment further breaks down to establish and -ment.

And it doesn't just negate it (as in charged and not charged), but reverses it (as in the case of for and against).

[Aedilred]

I believe it refers specifically to the question of whether the Church of England should be disestablished (that is, retained, but not as part of the state). Disestablishmentarianism has been a thing for a while. Antidisestablishementarianists (isn't that an even longer word?) are those who are opposed to its disestablishment. Simples.

There is an even longer (non-medical) word: floccinaucinihilipilification. However, since that contains a lot of tautology I suspect it was created largely for the purpose of being the longest word rather than to fill a linguistic gap. I've never heard it used in context.

I, too, believe split infinitives to be a question of style. However, there are a lot of people who will claim they're simply wrong grammatically (as my tutor did). In fact, it seems to be the prevailing view.

[Rawhide]

Oxford seems to think that there is no real justification for avoiding split infinitives (http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/split-infinitives), and About.com would seem to agree (http://grammar.about.com/od/grammarfaq/f/What-Is-A-Split-Infinitive-And-Whats-Wrong-With-It.htm).

[Gnoman]

It's the prevailing view among English teachers. Why? Because their English teachers taught them that way, because cheap school dictionaries about 130 years ago were published by a Latin worshipper.

[Aedilred]

The thing is, well, here are the relevant groups in descending order of size:

1. People who are alive
2. People who know that split infinitives are even a thing
3. People who think you shouldn't split the infinitive
4. People who "know" it's ok to do so.
(5. People who "know" it's ok to do so but prefer not to.)

Groups 1 and 2 are obviously redundant here and included for illustrative effect. Not splitting the infinitive remains the prevailing view among people who are aware of the principle, because the only people who believe otherwise are those who care enough to investigate further, which is really a rather small minority.

In any case, irrespective of whether or not it's actually correct (which it almost certainly is), I still think that in the majority of cases it's poor style.

[Anarion]

Oxford seems to think that there is no real justification for avoiding split infinitives (http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/split-infinitives), and About.com would seem to agree (http://grammar.about.com/od/grammarfaq/f/What-Is-A-Split-Infinitive-And-Whats-Wrong-With-It.htm).

Hehe, that second article uses the term "grammaticaster." If Final Fantasy Tactics has taught me anything, such people should be able to target their normal magic so that it hits anyone fulfilling specific conditions, such as using a split infinitive in his/her speech, or perhaps having a name with a special character or a hyphen.

Edit: Slightly more on topic. Style is derived from audience, it's not a static thing that has to be the same in every single thing you write, ever. If you're writing for someone who turns red at the thought of split infinitives, the use of a split infinitive is wrong. Why would you want to intentionally make your reader angry at your prose? If you're writing for a more casual audience, then all sorts of things, like slang, loose sentences, fragments, etc. become okay. If you're doing dialogue everything becomes altogether different again.

[Cobra_Ikari]

...I'm assuming the confusion over whether "has eaten" was active or passive might have stemmed from someone overgeneralizing in their explanation of why "has been eaten" is passive?

[Wardog]

I believe it refers specifically to the question of whether the Church of England should be disestablished (that is, retained, but not as part of the state). Disestablishmentarianism has been a thing for a while. Antidisestablishementarianists (isn't that an even longer word?) are those who are opposed to its disestablishment. Simples.


And if they were only pretending to be opposed, they would be pseudoantidisestablishementarianists.

[Harry]

How do I grammar?

[Harry]

And metaphysically would If anyone had been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like, what look to go more like would they even decide to use?

[snoopy13a]

How about comma splices?

In America, comma splices are improper, we avoid comma splices :smalltongue:

In addition, we are supposed to add a comma after an independent clause that is joined to another independent clause by a coordinating conjunction and a failure to do so is poor writing :smalltongue:

This is a nice write-up of the rules:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/598/01/

[Aedilred]

Yeah, comma splices are pretty much universally accepted as bad among English speakers, I think, they're not great. On the other hand, although a failure to separate independent clauses out with commas can make things tiresome to read I don't know if it's incorrect so much as inconsiderate.

[Rawhide]

Meh, I like the comma splice. I actually dislike the use of a semicolon in most cases (exceptions include the super comma and in legal documents). It's archaic and falling out of use, with the comma splice taking its place.

If I'm writing a formal document and require the use of a semicolon, as the comma would be incorrect and I risk losing marks with just a comma, I will actively rewrite the sentence so that it's no longer required.

[Aedilred]

The problem with comma splices is that they usually require a re-read. On a first reading, the brain doesn't recognise the start of a new passage and carries on assuming that it's a dependent clause or what have you, then a few words later you realise it doesn't make any sense. If it were just a question of propriety, that's one thing, but normally it's a question of clarity as well.

I love the semicolon and find it inordinately useful. That's probably a reflection of the way I write, of course.

[Rawhide]

The problem with comma splices is that they usually require a re-read. On a first reading, the brain doesn't recognise the start of a new passage and carries on assuming that it's a dependent clause or what have you, then a few words later you realise it doesn't make any sense. If it were just a question of propriety, that's one thing, but normally it's a question of clarity as well.

I love the semicolon and find it inordinately useful. That's probably a reflection of the way I write, of course.

Let's take an example from The Wiki:

It is nearly half past five, we cannot reach town before dark.


I have no problems with that one. It flows, they are related, it doesn't require a reread, and it makes perfect sense.

There are times when a full stop would be better, but in that instance, I prefer the comma.


(Note: I'm not saying it's good grammar based on the old rules. Only that it is falling by the wayside and still makes perfect sense as written.)

[Anarion]

I actually dislike the use of a semicolon in most cases (exceptions include the super comma and in legal documents). It's archaic and falling out of use, with the comma splice taking its place.


My Mom would like words with you about this, Rawhide. It's her favorite punctuation.


Let's take an example from The Wiki:

It is nearly half past five, we cannot reach town before dark.


I have no problems with that one. It flows, they are related, it doesn't require a reread, and it makes perfect sense.

There are times when a full stop would be better, but in that instance, I prefer the comma.


(Note: I'm not saying it's good grammar based on the old rules. Only that it is falling by the wayside and still makes perfect sense as written.)

Well, I do think the sentence would flow more naturally if you used a comma, then "and" as your way of writing it. Omitting words, however, is a time-honored practice in language evolution, especially where those words don't directly contribute to understanding meaning. In future, sentences'll prolly look like this.

[snoopy13a]

I like semicolons; they have a certain elegance. On the other hand, some writers hate them.

By "super-comma," do you mean this:

I plan on visiting London, England; Paris, France; and Madrid, Spain.

Sentences that contain lists with internal commas--like the one above--are perhaps the only instances where a writer should use a semicolon. For normal semicolon use, a writer could substitute a period (although this can result in short, choppy sentences), a coordinating conjunction, or a rewrite.

[Rockphed]

Let's take an example from The Wiki:

It is nearly half past five, we cannot reach town before dark.


I have no problems with that one. It flows, they are related, it doesn't require a reread, and it makes perfect sense.

There are times when a full stop would be better, but in that instance, I prefer the comma.

To indicate that those clauses are related but not causal to each other, a semicolon works best. To indicate causality, or some other close relationship, a conjunction works best. Whether you start with "As" or put a "so" or a "thus" in the middle, adding a conjunction would aid clarity.

As to evolution of languages, isn't punctuation a recent development? I could have sworn that a thousand years ago punctuation was unheard of.

[Rawhide]

I like semicolons; they have a certain elegance. On the other hand, some writers hate them.

By "super-comma," do you mean this:

I plan on visiting London, England; Paris, France; and Madrid, Spain.

Sentences that contain lists with internal commas--like the one above--are perhaps the only instances where a writer should use a semicolon. For normal semicolon use, a writer could substitute a period (although this can result in short, choppy sentences), a coordinating conjunction, or a rewrite.

Yup. When I learned that use of the semicolon, I reversed my decision and decided that they aren't all bad.



To indicate that those clauses are related but not causal to each other, a semicolon works best. To indicate causality, or some other close relationship, a conjunction works best. Whether you start with "As" or put a "so" or a "thus" in the middle, adding a conjunction would aid clarity.

As to evolution of languages, isn't punctuation a recent development? I could have sworn that a thousand years ago punctuation was unheard of.

You're right. If I was actually writing it myself, I'd generally use a conjunction ("so", in particular).

[danzibr]

Here's a question:

Is the sentence, "I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener" grammatically correct?

[Anarion]

Here's a question:

Is the sentence, "I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener" grammatically correct?

I believe so. It's a wish, meaning that it takes the subjunctive, so it uses "were" even in the singular.

[danzibr]

I believe so. It's a wish, meaning that it takes the subjunctive, so it uses "were" even in the singular.
So is Taylor Swift wrong when she say, "You wish it was me"?

[Inglenook]

Technically I think it might be "You wish it were I." :smalltongue:

But the English subjunctive is going the way of the dinosaur, I believe. You hardly ever hear anyone using it, and when they do it almost always sounds a little stilted and archaic. Except for set phrases, like "Wish you were here!", "If I were you …", "Be that as it may …", etc. etc.

[Aedilred]

I think it's "you wish it were me" but I always get a bit fuzzy about subject-object when the verb in question is "to be".

It's definitely subjunctive, though, so "were".

(I am a fan of the subjunctive and use it a lot. But then I would.)

[Inglenook]

I thought the rule for pronouns around the copula ("were", in this case) is that you should be able to flip them around without issue?

Flipped around: "You wish me were it" is definitely incorrect. "You wish I were it" is awkward but at least makes grammatical sense.

Not that it matters, really; using "I" instead of "me" would sound horribly pompous, grammatically correct or no.

[Anarion]

I thought the rule for pronouns around the copula ("were", in this case) is that you should be able to flip them around without issue?

Flipped around: "You wish me were it" is definitely incorrect. "You wish I were it" is awkward but at least makes grammatical sense.

Not that it matters, really; using "I" instead of "me" would sound horribly pompous, grammatically correct or no.

This is right. It gets messed up because casual usage with contractions almost never follows the rule anymore. But correct grammar is to answer the question "who's there?" with "it is I."

[dps]

I thought the rule for pronouns around the copula ("were", in this case) is that you should be able to flip them around without issue?

Flipped around: "You wish me were it" is definitely incorrect. "You wish I were it" is awkward but at least makes grammatical sense.

Not that it matters, really; using "I" instead of "me" would sound horribly pompous, grammatically correct or no.

I think that the pronoun you're supposed to be flipping with me/I is "you", not "it". "You wish it were I" and "I wish it were you" are technically correct. But I agree, that using "I" in the former sounds pompous--in casual usage, almost everyone would use "me". For that matter, "were" instead of "was", while also technically correct, sounds stilted.

[SaintRidley]

As to evolution of languages, isn't punctuation a recent development? I could have sworn that a thousand years ago punctuation was unheard of.

English manuscripts from a thousand years ago do have punctuation, but it's very infrequent and seems to be used largely demarcate sentences.