> >Another sentence that bothers me is, “Where is my car at?” It is redundant to use “where” and “at” together.

Dear D___:

Yes, we mention this on our page entitled “At after Where” in Grammar Slammer and online at https://englishplus.com/grammar/00000186.htm

The following refers to our observationi on “Prepositions ending Sentences” in Grammar Slammer and online at https://englishplus.com/grammar/00000195.htm.

> >I believe Churchill’s correction to his sentence that ended in a preposition was incorrect. “Up with” is part of the verb “put up with”.

>> There is a class of verbs that are constructed of a verb and a word (in this case two) that is usually used as a preposition. The way to distinguish them is through their meaning. The term “put up with” does not mean “place in a higher location with”

>>I also think the point of the rule
is not that the object of the preposition precedes the preposition but that the preposition has no object. Usually when a sentence ends in a preposition the inferred object is already the object of the verb. Saying “with which” creates a word that can act as the object of the preposition.

>>For example, “I like the town I come from.” Where is the object of the preposition, “from”? “Town” is the object of the verb. I suppose one could say, “I like the town which I came from.” This would still violate the “rule” but not its spirit.

Dear D___:

“Put up with” is a idiomatic expression meaning “to endure.” “With” is a preposition; “up” is an adverb. We can drop the “with” if there is no object, as in the expression “Put up or shut up.”

In everyday English we often drop the relative pronoun in adjective clauses. The sentence about the hometown merely illustrates this.

The whole thing is bogus. If you check our newsletters online, you’ll see that we have received more correspondence on this “rule” than anything. The most striking thing is that no one follows it. The few nineteenth century grammar texts that mentioned it did so in the way we stated—that it was a matter of style, not of accuracy in grammar.

Having said that, we also do repeat that if you think a correspondent might not like it, then avoid it for reasons of taste and harmony.

See https://www.englishplus.com/news/news0201.htm and https://www.englishplus.com/news/news0401.htm for our newsletters on this.

You wrote:
> > I was looking through your list of common mistakes. I think it is missing a section on got/have. “Got” does not mean have. “I got brown hair,” does not mean “I have brown hair.”
>
>>”You’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania,” is actually wrong for two reasons. The third principle part of “get” is “gotten”, not “got”. Since the license plate does not mean “In the past you received a friend,” it should just read, “You have a friend in Pennsylvania.”

Dear D___:

“Got” is the standard past participle in the UK. “Gotten” is standard in North America. Most authorities accept both. In colloquial speech, “got” often does take the place of “have” as you pointed out. I would certainly avoid this in any kind of formal speech, but when I see a Pennsylvania license plate, I think of that old James Taylor song, “You’ve Got a Friend.” It might not be good formal English, but they probably chose the slogan for the “warm fuzzies” that people might get thinking of that song.

Basically, we did not address the use of irregular verbs except when they
were spelling problems. We felt that most native speakers were comfortable with them, and most non-native speakers had charts or books directed for their needs.

Dear C. G.:

You wrote:
Can you tell me if the following sentence is correct?
>
> It’s a quality William Penn lauded before the founding of the republic when he encouraged citizens to show any kindness they can for their fellow humans.
>
> Some of us in the office think the word “can” should be changed to “could”. What is correct?
>
>
Either one is OK. “Could” is conditional; “can” is indicative. Using “can” would imply that you are able to it at any time. Using “could” would suggest you can do it under the right conditions. The difference is subtle, but knowing Penn (he coined the term “No cross, no crown”–the original “No pain, no gain”), “can” would work for him.

By the way, most authorities would probably capitalize “Republic” because it is specifically named. Whichever way you choose, be consistent.

Dear Rachel Lee:

You wrote:
>> Is there any difference in meaning in the following sentences and are
>> there any alternatives which convey the similar meaning?
>> 1. He washed his hands for fear that he should be contaminated.
>> 2. He washed his hands for fear that he would be contaminated.
>> 3. He washed his hands for fear that he might be contaminated.
>>
All three are pretty similar. “Should” is a little stronger than “would” in most cases; similarly, “might” tends to be weaker than “would” in terms of likelihood of the event happening, but the distinction is slight in most cases.

There are certainly other ways of saying this, e.g., “He washed his
hands for fear of being contaminated.”

I hope this helps.

Dear A__:

You wrote:

> -You have never read books by him, have you?
> 1-Oh yes, I have. When I was young I read some books
> by him.
> 2-Oh yes, I have. When I was young I read a few books
> by him.
> 3-Oh yes, I have. When I was young I read books by
> him.
>
>
> Are sentences 1, 2 and 3 all possible replies to the
> question at the beginnning?
> Is there any difference between the meanings of them?
>
Yes. All three are possible replies. There is no significant difference
among them. #3 might be a bit more vague, but they are all essentially the
same answer.

Saw this page online, thought some students of English grammar might find this a challenge. See how you do!
https://web.archive.org/web/20090405171307/http://www.theamericanmuseum.org/april.09.ninth.html.

I admit that I am old enough to have graduated from high school before grade inflation. When I was in high school a “C” was truly the average grade and nothing to be ashamed of. Now my high school students get upset sometimes with a “B”–and many of those times I think I am being generous!

Ironically, while the grades have grown higher, the output, especially in English, has diminished. A few years ago I attended a college reunion at Harvard. A friend who is about 15 years older than I counseled me that I might be disappointed. He said that many of his classmates looked down a friend who was a high school principal. His friend got very defensive: “I like kids,” he explained to his classmates who were doctors and lawyers and business executives.

I am happy to say that I did not have that same experience. Almost to a person, my classmates said, “I hope you are teaching them to write well,” or “I hope you are teaching them standard grammar” or some such similar thing. They each told me horror stories of people they had employed–many with advanced degrees–who were unable to communicate. One friend, now a history professor, said that at his school most kids take five years to graduate because it takes a year of remedial courses to get them up to a college level. Even then, he said, it is not a very high level. I got similar reports from people in business and engineering.

Regardless of what field people work in, they need to be able to communicate effectively. They could be doing some great cutting-edge research, but if they cannot tell others about it, it is useless.

Yes, my students may sometimes complain that I am not an easy “A,” but I try to be realistic and honest with them. They say that grade inflation was an offshoot of the self-esteem movement. Perhaps. But I believe self-esteem is more honest if it is based on actual accomplishments and skills.

To many people, grammar is an annoying school subject. In some “progressive” schools, grammar lessons are ignored or minimized in order not to stifle a student’s creativity. Yet others are annoyed by grammatical mistakes and even judge a person’s intelligence by his or her grammar. What is the big deal about grammar?

First of all, without grammar there is no verbal communication. The communication in any language (English or otherwise) is made up of two parts: words and grammar. Of course we understand that words are a necessary part of communication. But grammar seems a little fussy. It seems that way because for the most part people take grammar for granted.

To express a thought, we use words, vocabulary. But then we have to arrange and form those words in certain ways so that our listener or reader can understand what we are trying to say using those words. Grammar is how we arrange and form those words.

Here is a very simple illustration. We have three words: John, Mary, and loves. If we know which John and Mary we are talking about, we know what those words mean. However, if we want to say something about their love relationship, we have to use grammar. In English, we sometimes alter the form of words, but we mostly rely on word order. (Languages that rely on word order are called synthetic languages. That does not mean they are artificial, it means they are put together.) If I say, “John loves Mary,” that could be quite different from saying “Mary loves John.” The words are identical. The vocabulary is the same. It is the grammar that is different, and the grammar gives the sentence meaning. Without grammar, we would all be like infants just learning words. We could say the words, but we would have no way of communicating our ideas, how the words relate to one another.

So, yes without grammar there is no communication.

P.S. Languages that are not synthetic are usually inflected. That means that the relationship between or among words is shown by changes in the form of the words themselves. Now in English we have a few inflections–we add -s to plurals and to third person singular verbs, we add -ed or otherwise change the form of past tenses, we make a distinction between he and him or she and her. However, some languages use inflections to show all or nearly all the relationships between words.

Latin was an inflected language. For example, in Latin we would say “Iohannes amat Mariam,” for “John loves Mary”; however, if we were to reverse the order of the words to “Mariam amat Iohannes,” we would still be saying “John loves Mary.” The relationship is not based on the word order, but on the form of the words. The -es at the end of Iohannes tells us that John (or Iohannes) is the subject of the sentence; the -am at the end of Maria tells us Mary is the direct object. That does not change regardless of the order we put them in. It would not be uncommon in Latin, in fact, to say “Amat Iohannes Mariam.” If we want to say “Mary loves John,” what we change is the form of the words, not the order. We would say, “Iohannem amat Maria” to say “Mary loves John.” We could put it in any order: “Maria amat Iohannem,” “Amat Maria Iohannem,” etc. Anyway, that is a simple illustration of a non-synthetic or inflected language.

Different languages have different degrees of inflection and synthesis. English is primarily synthetic with a few inflections as mentioned above. French and Spanish are also synthetic, but they have more inflections–for example, you have to know masculine and feminine nouns and adjectives, and you have to know six forms for every tense of every verb. Latin is highly inflected, but order does matter some, especially with prepositions. Now Hungarian is inflected even more than Latin. Hungarian has no prepositions, so every noun has over twenty different forms. (I think the exact number is twenty-seven.)