A challenge for you: what question of style, grammar, usage or punctuation would you like me to cover in a future Writer Magazine column? Just read the columns I've written so far to make sure I haven't already answered your question, and remember it has to be a somewhat larger issue or a cluster of related issues.
Please post requests in the Comments section. If it's a topic that is too brief or if I like the idea but it's rejected by the editors, I'll answer the question in a post.
If your question does indeed become the basis for a column, I'll mail you a free signed copy of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier! (And later I'll quiz you on it. Just kidding. Maybe.)
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11 comments:
I want to know why you ended your question with a preposition.
No, what I really want to know is where you categorize verbals, with the parts of speech or the parts of a sentence.
Hi. I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate please?
Verbals - gerunds, infinitives, and participles - do you consider them the 9th part of speech or do you consider them a part of the sentence? For instance, in the sentence "Writing is hard work," "writing," is a verb behaving like a noun (gerund) and functioning as the subject. A friend and I had this discussion and reached no conclusion, so I was just wondering what you thought. In essence, the parts of speech are forms, and their behavior in a sentence is their function. So, a verbal would truly be a form, hence, a part of speech, and its function (gerund/subject) would be a part of the sentence. A friend and I had this discussion and reached no conclusion, so I was just wondering what you thought.
Part of the sentence.
Thanks. That is the verbal's traditional category. I'm probably just overthinking again, creating a conumdrum where none exists. :-)
I'd like to know more about the subjunctive mood -- especially sources I can consult about it. I know we don't use it as much as languages such as Spanish, and I know that we native speakers often use it unconsciously, but I'd really like to have a conscious understanding of it.
That's an interesting question about subjunctive. I took Spanish, too, and it was much more of a big deal there. It's not really a problem in English, though. My column needs to be about problems that a lot of people have. I would refer you to Garner's Modern American Usage for a clear discussion of the uses of subjunctive.
Still on the subject of "which". At, in, for, with, on which, etc. Sometimes it's not so obvious to know which preposition to use before which. Is there a trick or rule for knowing?
Hi, Tricia. The way to tell is to figure out how you would word the sentence without "which." For example, "I met him in Tahiti" becomes "Tahiti is the place in which we met" (if you wanted to be wordy). Both use "in." "That is the dog I shouted at" becomes "That is the dog at which I shouted."
Hope that helps!
It does. Thank you.
How about irregular verbs?
I decided to refresh my grammatical skills before starting university this fall, and I forgotten about those annoying irregular verbs and using some of them correctly...
Especially lie, lay, lain, laid, and etc... I tested some of my friends (and these are people with MBA, PhDs, etc) and I couldn’t believe how many of them didn’t know the difference or how to use them properly.
I don’t blame them though, because I was using the present tense of lie as lay until last week.
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