Dear LS:

You wrote:
> Is “The worm went” a sentence?
>
Yes it is. It has a subject (“worm”) and a verb (“went”). Of course, most of the time you would include information about where or how the worm went, but it is a bona fide sentence.

Dear GC:

You wrote:
> Which is proper? There are approximately 150 linear feet in the project.
>
> Or
>
> There is approximately 150 linear feet in the project.
>
The first is correct. The subject is “feet,” which is plural. There is no reason to treat it as a collective noun (as “group”). “Are” goes with a plural subject.

Dear RB:

You wrote:

Dear Englishplus.com

I work for this Management Company in FL and my boss wrote a report which contains the following sentence:
“However, saying you have teams of 8’s, 9’s and 10’s and really having them is what sets A apart from other companies. ”
I think the verb is in the sentence is wrong it should be plural are. His partner who is an English Major and president of a major corporation also agrees with him. I think they are both wrong. I told him that sentences with plural subject must have a plural verb but he doesn’t agree with me. He says “saying” and “really having” requires a singular verb.

In my opinion the sentence should read:
“However, saying you have teams of 8’s, 9’s and 10’s and really having them are what sets A apart from other companies.”
What is the correct verb to use?

This is a good question and a bit of a tricky one. In modern American English both can be correct. The problem is that the predicate nominative is singular, in this case “what.” In English when we have a singular predicate nominative with a plural subject, a lot times we do make the verb singular. That has become common usage especially if you want to emphasize that the two items in the subject belong together. Note that people say “2 and 2 is four” just as much as they say “2 and 2 are four.”

However, you are in the most technical sense more precise because the subject is plural. If you want to emphasize the two parts to the subject, say “both saying and having.” Then the subject is unambiguously made up of two parts and the verb “are” should be used. However, you can just as easily reverse the order of the subject and predicate nominative and say “what sets us apart is saying and having.” In that case the verb “is” makes sense.

There is also another factor. Who is your audience?

If you are writing to an American audience, “is” should work fine, though there is nothing wrong with “are” here. However, if your audience is international and includes people from the UK, Ireland, or Commonwealth countries like India, then you should use “are.” This is understandable to Americans (just as “2 plus 2 are four” is) and follows the British practice using plurals with collective expressions. (Remember, in England they say “the government are.”)

I hope this helps.

Dear D:

You wrote:

> Dear Sirs:
>
> Can you please tell me which is the correct pronoun usage below?
>
> “Dear Joan: it was a pleasure to meet with Dan, Dennis and yourself last
> week”
>
> OR
>
> “Dear Joan: it was a pleasure to meet with Dan, Dennis and you last
> week”
>

There is no reason to say “yourself.” “You” is sufficient. “Yourself” is used either reflexively (when you do something to yourself as “I gave myself a bath”) or intensively (when you want to emphasize the individual
accomplishment or status as “He did it all by himself”). Also, any pronun with “self” needs an antecedent. “You” does not have one here.

For more see https://englishplus.com/grammar/00000027.htm “Pronouns Ending in -Self.”

Dear A:

You wrote:

> Hi there.
>
> I contacted your website a while ago regarding how to address a former Vice
> President of the U.S. You were very helpful then and I hope you can help
> me now.
>
> I argue that the following is correct:
>
> 1) “It is she who will be involved in the major event.”
> OR
> 2) “This is she.” (as one would respond on the phone when asked for by name)
>
> A staff member argues differently (against this). They seem to think we
> should use “her” in these situations.
>
> WHO IS CORRECT?…. if either. Thanks.
>
The grammatically correct versions in both cases are those written here. “It is she who will be…” and “This is she.”

In both cases the position calls for the nominative case pronoun since it is a predicate nominative. Having said that, in everyday speech, both in the US and the UK, people do commonly say “This is her” without any ambiguity.
If I were quoting a conversation, I would not change it. But if I was in a situation where my grammar might make a difference in how I am perceived, I would say “This is she” or “It is she.”

Dear H:

You wrote:
I came across your website while I was searching for some tips on English Grammar.
There you said something very interesting, which I quote below,

A basic grammar exercise we all had to do as children or students learning English was to identify the subject and verb of a sentence. Look at the following sentence:
Seeing is believing.
Each of the three words is a verb. Seeing is a participle used as a noun and is the subject of the sentence. Is is a tense and is the simple predicate. Believing is another participle used as a noun and is the subject complement (or predicate nominative).
“Oh, no!” you may be saying. “Seeing and believing are gerunds.” Yes, we have used that useless term for ages merely because people tried to make English (the round peg) fit into the square hole of Latin grammar. They declared that a participle was a verbal adjective. Period. Case closed. So they had to call it something else when it was used as a noun: gerund.

Now I want to ask u a q.

How do you teach, or explain, to the students that some verbal forms ending in -ing will have the genitive case of a pronoun, some having the nominative, while others having the objective case, as their “functional(?)” subject?

Examples are as follows.

1) I suggest your going to the party.(genitive)
2) I recollect his/him saying that.(both)
3) It being fine, we’ll go on a picnic this weekend.(nominative)

I teach these all quite differently. I still teach gerund and participle because that is what is standard. The article suggested we re-think this, especially since participles in English can sometimes act as adverbs.

Example #1 is nonstandard. I, along with the grammar text we use, tell students avoid using the possessive with a gerund when the possessor is taking some action in the sentence. I change it to “I suggest you go.” In #2 for the same reason use “him” instead of “his.” “Him” is the subject of the gerund. #3 Is a nominative absolute. Here “being” is a participle, and the phrase beginning with “it” is a noun phrase not otherwise grammatically related to the rest of the sentence.

That is is how I teach it. I hope this helps.

Dear L:

You wrote:

> My question is which version is correct and why.
>
> 1. To whom it may concern
> or
> 2. To who it may concern
>
“To whom it may concern” is correct.

“Whom” is the Objective Case; just like “him” and “them” it ends with an “m.” It serves as an object– direct object, indirect object, or object of a preposition. Here it is the object of the preposition “to.” In the same way we say “to him” rather than “to he” or “to them” rather than “to they,” we say “to whom” rather than “to who.” A teacher once said that “to who” is what an owl says, “to whom” is what an Englishman says.

Having said all that, back in 2001 Time magazine had an article which was trying to predict what kind of things would happen in the next century. One of the things it predicted was that whom would disappear from the language.

Dear N:

You wrote:

> In my workplace we are currently creating a template of a common fax sent by
> all members of our department. We have a question on the use of the word
> “that.” Below are the two options we are considering but we are not certain
> which one is more grammatically correct.
>
> “Please confirm that our code will be printed on each label.”
>
> OR
>
> “Please confirm our code will be printed on each label.”
>
> Your advice regarding which sentence is correct would be appreciated.
>
Both sentences are grammatically correct. However, when writing, the first is preferred because it is less likely to be misinterpreted. The presence of the “that” indicates a subordinate clause, while dropping that might appear
ambiguous to some readers who are trying to read the first part of the sentence as “please confirm our code” or “please confirm our code will.”

Dear Ms. G:

You wrote:

> Just for your information, I saw a spot in the Run-on Sentences section that
> misused which/that. In the second sentence: “Sometimes even sentences which
> are technically correct …”, the “which” should be a “that.” On a grammar
> web site, that may be something you’d like to correct. Thank you!
>
May I ask why? It seems that either is OK here. Either word can refer to
things.

You wrote:

> Hello James!
>
> “That” is technically correct in the given sentence. It’s a matter of
> nonrestricive clauses vs. restrictive clauses, also known as nonessential
> and essential clauses.
>
> Restrictive/essential clauses follow and limit the words they modify. They
> are essential to the meaning of the main clause and are not set off by
> commas. Nonrestrictive/nonessential clauses are not essential to the meaning
> of the main clause and may be omitted. These clauses ARE set off by commas.
>
> The clause in the given sentence is important to its meaning: “Sometimes
> even sentences that are technically correct …” It is an essential clause
> because it determines the meaning of what comes next in the sentence.
> Therefore, the word “that” should be used, and the clause should not be set
> off by commas.
>
> If the clause is nonessential, and is thus not important to the sentence but
> just mentioned as an aside, it would use “which” and be set off by commas.
> In that case, you’d be talking about all sentences, and interjecting “which
> are technically correct.” However, in the sentence we’re talking about, the
> whole point is that a sentence can be technically correct and still
> [whatever the next part of the sentence is].
>
> The following links provide good explanations. Let me know if you think I’m
> incorrect on this. Thanks!
> http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhVt.html
> http://www.odyssey.net/subscribers/english/engcons4.html
>
Yes, the comma is helpful to distinguish restrictive from nonrestrictive modifiers, but using “that” for one and “which” for the other does not appear to be a pattern that is followed regularly by anyone. It’s like the
“no adverb in the middle of an infinitive” pattern; it might serve a purpose in understanding grammar, but it is not anything that serves a useful purpose in communication and is often honored in the breach. And frankly, it can be an annoyance when it pops up on certain grammar checkers because the checker cannot make the subtle distinction you make here.