Community Discussion
Topic: More fun with Grammar...

#	Author	Message
1	X-san Sun 6/1/2008 5:51a	Okay, so I seem to be getting harder and harder questions I can NOT seem to answer from Japanese folks who are not native English speakers but speak pretty well. Here are a couple of questions that really threw me... 1) The sentence in question was "Ten people were killed when the aging aircraft they were flying in crashed". My friend, apparently, learned that it should be "the aging aircraft IN WHICH they were flying crashed" or "the aging aircraft which they were flying in crashed". For some reason, she thought "which" was very important, and thought the original sentence was very confusing and not grammatically correct. The same friend had another question about another sentence (she was reading this stuff in "the Japan Times"). 2) This sentence was something like "The treaty to ban cluster bombs has activists cheering". She thought the correct grammar to "has" would be "cheer". She tried to explain to me that "has" means "to have" or something like that. I really suck at grammar. I must be missing something. I tried to explain in this case that "has" refers to "has caused" or something along those lines, for example "the recent uprising has local residents fleeing the city". (the uprising HAS CAUSED residents to flee, in other words). Again, she thinks this is "incorrect grammar" and wants an explanation as to why it's correct. Any grammar buffs able to tackle these (it's always useful to me, these topics, because although I believe I speak pretty well I totally SUCK at understanding and explaining the finer points of English grammar, a real challenge when you live abroad and often have people asking questions about "the rules" of English and why certain things are the way they are!)?
2	mawnck Sun 6/1/2008 7:48a	The first is a preposition in a post position. It's legal in modern usage. See "prepositions at the end" on this page: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~...g/p.html The other one's right, but dang if I can find a reference proving it. The entire phrase "crowds cheering" is being used as the predicate. I can think of other examples of the same construction. ("The pollen has me sneezing.") It's amazing how many grammar sites use this construction on practically every page, but don't ever explain it. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? (<------- not a grammar nut nohow, but you're queries has me intrigued and stuff.)
3	mawnck Sun 6/1/2008 8:11a	crowds = activists. Please for to get edit function, such as.
4	X-san Sun 6/1/2008 8:18a	mawnck...excellent comments, thanks! You've got me on a quest to figure this out too now (well, it's my quest to begin with anyway right lol)... I really hated grammar in school. I don't much care for it now. :p But I feel compelled to at least SORT of figure this out (and thanks TONS for explaining the first question so well!). Off to research more about predicates, gerunds and their history in society, and intransitive adverbial gobbledygook. :p
5	Mrs ElderP Sun 6/1/2008 9:27a	My only comment, and this is hurried, is that the first sentence is missing commas arround the prepositional phrase. I think. And I know that you are typing in a sentence you hear orally, so there may have been commas in the original. Or I could be totally wrong all together, I'm always liberal with my commas.
6	X-san Sun 6/1/2008 9:49a	Actually, we were looking at the article in question together and I don't recall any commas at all, Mrs. Elder... Do appreciate the comments...I'm never quite sure how appropriate all, my commas, are when I'm, writing stuff either. :p
7	mawnck Sun 6/1/2008 11:58a	I disagree about the commas. The original sentence is written correctly. YMMV.
8	X-san Tue 6/3/2008 12:43a	What's YMMD?
9	Mrs ElderP Tue 6/3/2008 7:17a	YMMV=your milage may vary
10	X-san Tue 6/3/2008 7:26a	Thanks Mrs E! **The other one's right, but dang if I can find a reference proving it.** Anyone else have any thoughts into this? Very frustrating to not be able to come up with an answer (especially in these wiki/google days where the answer SHOULD come up somewhere right? lol).

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