In one of the grammar forums on the net, someone had asked the following question:

"Nearly one in five Prince George's public school students are Hispanic."

I understand why the writer used the plural verb in this sentence; it is the equivalent of saying: "Twenty percent of students are. . . ." But is the use of the plural verb in the subject sentence grammatically acceptable?

To the above, a contributor said, "I would say plural. If you think about it, if there are 500 students in the school then we are talking about 100 being Hispanic."

When I was at school, I was never taught Randolf Quirk's "proximity rules", hence, in the following types of sentences, we were told that only singular verbs are grammatical:

i) No one except his own supporters agrees with him,

(ii) One in ten takes drugs".



I would appreciate it if I could have your learned views.

I remember my days in literature class: we were told that the plural of 'scenery' was not 'sceneries'. The teachers said though the plural of 'scene' is 'scenes', 'sceneries' is not the plural of 'scenery'.

But, now it looks like American Heritage and Merriam Webster dictionaries have accepted 'sceneries' as 'scenery's' plural. Is this Americanism?

If so, what about in British English?

[Ring . . . . ]

Hello? AnswerMan here!

I* a g**** o* A******* i****** c*********** w****** o* l***** w***** c***** a "d*******"?

Wrong, bareback breath. A group of American indians collectively working on losing weight is not called a diatribe.

But thank you for calling The AnswerMan.



They could be thindians, Claws!

[Ring . . . .]

Hello? AnswerMan here!

I* "i**** t***" a p****** w******?

Wrong, pneumatic breath. Inner tube is not a popular website.

But thank you for calling The AnswerMan.

Hello.

Would you take a look at the following?

1. Those who speak logically in their mother tongue also speak logically in a foreign language.

Does #1 make sense?
If so, how about the following?

2. Those who speak logically in their mother tongue do so in a foreign language.

Is #2 correct and does it mean the same thing as #1?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

koichiro

A lady wrote a diary, and a native speaker corrected her mistakes.

The first two sentences are correct, but is the last sentence correct?

I am interested to see Niagara Falls from the American side.

And I would like to see some musicals on Broadway.

They are one of my dreams what I would like to do in America.

After it was corrected, "Those are one of my dreams of what I would like to do in America."

Either they or those is plural, but "one" is singular, so I just wonder if it's OK.

TTOTW shows up here about as frequently as snow in central Texas, or memebers of grammarboard.com. Still sponsored by spell-check software (motto: "We find typos that could cost you honey"), this week's TOTW is from a letter to the editor of our local, twice-weakly newspaper, The Phony Express, responding to Texas Representative John Carter ( R ) and his recent mail piece, a diatribe bashing Democrats for waste.
_____

"Congressman, where was your outrage while Republicans were in change, tripling the national debt and passing unfunded programs?"
_____

Republicans have always been in the money, Claws. They just can't stand change -- as in new ideas and being on the outside looking in.

I'm taking a class on "Chicago in Crisis," which covers key events in Chicago's history, like the Great Fire and the '68 Democratic Convention. We're currently on the 1886 Haymarket Riot, which was largely over labor issues. This event probably gives us the stereotyped picture we have today of "bomb throwing anarchists." See http://www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/act1/...mbTalking_f.htm for a picture of the classic round bomb. The Riot did involve the throwing of what was probably a pipe bomb, which did kill some police. (In the 70s, the Weathermen twice blew up a local memorial statue to the police.)

I don't really understand "anarchism" as a philosophy. Wikipedia offers us: Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy.

It's hard to understand how such a state could function without falling into chaos, so it's easy to dismiss anarchists as Utopian fools. Here are my questions:

To what extent do we still have anarchists around today? Has anarchism influenced any modern movements or political philosophies that we'd recognize today? Libertarianism, perhaps? Or, oddly, perhaps ultraconservative free-market capitalists? I think the removal of a lot of government regulations from the financial sector has lead to an "anarchy" of sorts, but capitalism seems quite distant from anarchism. The word seems to have lost its philosophical meaning and devolved into a synonym for political and social chaos. I'm trying to get back to some connection between the philosophy and some modern offshoot of it, if there are any.

Has anyone else noticed this? I probably read more animal-related news than most folks, so you may not have come across this, but I keep finding "pet" used as the past and past participle of "to pet" (as in to stroke an animal).

That one doesn't like getting petted.
I pet him earlier.

Are people modeling it after "set" or "let" perhaps? As far as I know, "pet" is a completely regular verb, and the dictionary backs me up. Ergo, peevishness.

This may have been the longest "drought" in grammarboard history -- 72 hours.

Excuse me?

Did everybody die all at once?

Am I missing something?

Hellooooo????

Anybody home?


Claws, first in a field of one ...

Frederick T Wood, in his book English Prepositional Idioms (1976 edition) had drawn a distinction between "in possession of" and "in the possession of". Explaining the subtle difference, he says, "'in possession of' means 'having possession of', but 'in the possession of' means 'possessed by':

a. 'All the deeds are in the possession of my solicitors.'

b. 'The famous Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington is now in the possession of the National Gallery'.

Can I, therefore, say that "in the possession of" means "owned by", i.e., the possessor is the owner of the said matter, as opposed to 'in possession of', which means 'having the custody of something, but the possessor is not the owner'?

Just finished watching NBC's Olympics wrap-ups for Saturday night, during which Bob Costas and the "co-hostess," who seems classy and down-to-earth (I forget her name), were talking about an up-coming Saturday Night Live show, which, Costas said, ". . . ought to be funny."

She replied, "Not just funny ... milk-through-the-nose funny."

I thought that was rather ... funny.

Anybody 'round here heard/used that term before? I'm sure most of us have, at some time in our lives, laughed, er, liquidly.

[Ring ....]

Hello? AnswerMan here!

I* "m******" a* A******** w****** u*****?

Wrong, boulder-slide breath. Moraine is not an Amazonian weather update.

But thank you for calling The AnswerMan.


And a friendly pat-on-the-back salute from Claws's claws to the wonderul B.C. comic strip "Wiley's Dictionary" continual, may-it-never-end sequence. (This one: Sat., 02-27-2010)

I just logged in today although I registered in January. For some reason I had a problem logging in, but Joe Levandosky, forum owner, was very kind and prompt in either fixing the glitch or perhaps more likely just giving me the required login information in a form I could understand. In any event, I made it!

I am 61 years old, married, self-employed, and live in Tampa. The thoughtful character of this forum seemed like a good place to learn and improve. The many skilled contributors here were a major reason for my joining.

John
Tampa

Sign on my way home:

Anderson Dental

COSMETIC FAMILY
IMPLANT

Would that be an attractive child adopted for decoration?