Test your grammar

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Given the discussions on the language used in subtitles that crop up from time to time, I was wondering how familiar those who comment are with English grammar. Most of these are relatively easy constructions, so even a perfect score doesn't guarantee that you're an expert on grammar You get one point if you correctly determine whether or not the sentence is grammatical. You get an additional point if the sentence is ungrammatical and you correctly identify the problem. Note that the sentences are intended to stand on their own and should be evaluated as such.

His singing in the shower vexes me.

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Grammatical

I'm visiting mom and dad over the weekend.

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Ungrammatical—capitalize mom and dad.

No one is above using their power for personal gain.

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Ungrammatical—no one is singular whereas their is plural.

Were it up to me, I'd do it myself.

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Grammatical

Me having been to Japan made it easier for me to understand her.

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Ungrammatical—should be possessive + gerund, i.e., "My having been to Japan" rather than "Me having been to Japan."

You need to be careful John.

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Ungrammatical—direct address, so it should be "You need to be careful, John."

Jenny and I are going to the theatre.

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Grammatical

Who do you love?

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Ungrammatical—use the objective case, i.e., "Whom do you love?"

Having finished the job, we returned home.

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Grammatical

There's a lot of Finns in Sweden.

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Ungrammatical—compare there are.

There are less calories in this, though.

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Ungrammatical—fewer calories.

He's performed well in the past, however I don't think it'll be enough tonight.

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Ungrammatical—however cannot be used to join two independent clauses. A possible solution would be "He's performed well in the past; however, I don't think it'll be enough tonight."

I bought a beautiful Japanese small vase.

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Ungrammatical—incorrect order of adjectives. Compare "I bought a beautiful small Japanese vase."

The house is different from how I remember it.

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Grammatical

We took shelter from the storm in a small cabin, and were pleasantly surprised to find it rather comfortable.

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Ungrammatical—don't separate a verb phrase from its subject. Remove the comma or reword the sentence using a participal phrase, e.g., "Taking shelter from the storm in a small cabin, we were pleasantly surprised to find it rather comfortable."

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Five grammatical and ten ungrammatical sentences, for a total of twenty-five points.

P.S. I scanned through this quickly, but if there are any problems, feel free to point them out

[zougou1]

My gramma died many years ago, so I can't test her...   

[newy]

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1. ok

2. mom and dad -> Mom and Dad

3. above sounds awkward <- false

4. ok

5. Me -> My

6. careful, John

7. ok

8. ok <- false

9. ok

10. There are

11. ok <- false >_> stupid mistake...

12. ok <- false I was not sure about this one since I learned that however is normally at the beginning/end of a sentence seperated from the sentence with a comma

13. ok <- false

14. ok

15. I think the comma is unnecessary

[macros74]

You'd better be right, Newy...
(oops...)

[harpy]

Well I can not manage grammar (commas, we have loads of them) in my native language (thou it is much more complex and so on...and I can never understand when you put a comma in English...well I can not do that properly in my native as well, but then again its still much more complex then English )

already sorry for my horrible grammar anyhow have been sorry for ages now... (got something like 8 points in this test me suck...)

oh oh oh - and why does Mom and Dad have to be with capital letters? It's not like mom and dad is proper noun, its just the title....em does all the titles in English have to be written with capital letters? Like - President Mambaza and not president Mambaza ? We write things with capital letters only if they are proper noun or if you show a respect to a person like you and You (just that we have 2 different words to express this thing in English that is done by you and You )

and and and  - why does all the words in titles of books usually are written with capital letters?

AND why do one needs to write the name of the language with capital letter and citizenry with capital letters as well? Yeah you do write the name of the country with the capital, but why the citizens and the language should also be written with the capital letter? its not like its The Citizen, it's just a citizen or The Language but just language....

I mean I understand that in German you write all nouns with capital letter (always the same, kind of makes sense, at least its the same for all words), but English just do not make sense most of the time..... I don't even understand why "I" always should be written as capital letter.... it is just a pronoun, why is it so special that should be written with a capital letter? Is there some kind of meaning behind it. In my language you can do both way and if you actually write it with capital letter it means something


Can please someone explain to me what's the deal with the usage of capital letters in english

[AoG]

Well I can not manage grammar (commas, we have loads of them) in my native language (thou it is much more complex and so on...and I can never understand when you put a comma in English...well I can not do that properly in my native as well, but then again its still much more complex then English )

already sorry for my horrible grammar anyhow have been sorry for ages now... (got something like 8 points in this test me suck...)

oh oh oh - and why does Mom and Dad have to be with capital letters? It's not like mom and dad is proper noun, its just the title....em does all the titles in English have to be written with capital letters? Like - President Mambaza and not president Mambaza ? We write things with capital letters only if they are proper noun or if you show a respect to a person like you and You (just that we have 2 different words to express this thing in English that is done by you and You )

and and and  - why does all the words in titles of books usually are written with capital letters?

AND why do one needs to write the name of the language with capital letter and citizenry with capital letters as well? Yeah you do write the name of the country with the capital, but why the citizens and the language should also be written with the capital letter? its not like its The Citizen, it's just a citizen or The Language but just language....

I mean I understand that in German you write all nouns with capital letter (always the same, kind of makes sense, at least its the same for all words), but English just do not make sense most of the time..... I don't even understand why "I" always should be written as capital letter.... it is just a pronoun, why is it so special that should be written with a capital letter? Is there some kind of meaning behind it. In my language you can do both way and if you actually write it with capital letter it means something


Can please someone explain to me what's the deal with the usage of capital letters in english

You capitalize the first word and proper nouns such as names(Jim, John, and Jack) and places (Atlanta, Phoenix)

[harpy]

Well I can not manage grammar (commas, we have loads of them) in my native language (thou it is much more complex and so on...and I can never understand when you put a comma in English...well I can not do that properly in my native as well, but then again its still much more complex then English )

already sorry for my horrible grammar anyhow have been sorry for ages now... (got something like 8 points in this test me suck...)

oh oh oh - and why does Mom and Dad have to be with capital letters? It's not like mom and dad is proper noun, its just the title....em does all the titles in English have to be written with capital letters? Like - President Mambaza and not president Mambaza ? We write things with capital letters only if they are proper noun or if you show a respect to a person like you and You (just that we have 2 different words to express this thing in English that is done by you and You )

and and and  - why does all the words in titles of books usually are written with capital letters?

AND why do one needs to write the name of the language with capital letter and citizenry with capital letters as well? Yeah you do write the name of the country with the capital, but why the citizens and the language should also be written with the capital letter? its not like its The Citizen, it's just a citizen or The Language but just language....

I mean I understand that in German you write all nouns with capital letter (always the same, kind of makes sense, at least its the same for all words), but English just do not make sense most of the time..... I don't even understand why "I" always should be written as capital letter.... it is just a pronoun, why is it so special that should be written with a capital letter? Is there some kind of meaning behind it. In my language you can do both way and if you actually write it with capital letter it means something


Can please someone explain to me what's the deal with the usage of capital letters in english

You capitalize the first word and proper nouns such as names(Jim, John, and Jack) and places (Atlanta, Phoenix)

well I get that, but this "test" shows that you have to capitalize words like Mom and Dad as well. And grammar fixing thing in Firefox and in MS Word also try to make "english language" into "English language" and so on as mentioned above. Also I do not get why all the words in titles starts with capital letter ( well not words like of and and so on) and why "I" is written as capital not "i"....
I do not get that part.....

[shabutie]

I think the capital Mom and Dad are because those are suppose to be 'formal' titles in place of names...  I dunno... You don't capitalize sister or brother...  Maybe it's an elder thing   /shrug


And yes, harpy, formal titles are capitalized.   (Like:  Doctor Brown,  Mr. Park,  President Oasis).   I think it's go something to do with it becoming part of their defining name, which is always capitalized.


No clue why titles are capitalized... maybe to distinguish it from the rest of the text?  No clue... No one ever taught me why, just that it should

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^  Please note:  I've never gotten higher than a D+ in any of my English classes.

[Path]

well I get that, but this "test" shows that you have to capitalize words like Mom and Dad as well. And grammar fixing thing in Firefox and in MS Word also try to make "english language" into "English language" and so on as mentioned above. Also I do not get why all the words in titles starts with capital letter ( well not words like of and and so on) and why "I" is written as capital not "i"....
I do not get that part.....

You misunderstand the rule; here, mom and dad are taking the place—substituting—of proper nouns. In "I'm visiting Mom and Dad over the weekend," mom and dad replace proper nouns, i.e., the actual names of your parents. If you were to say "I'm visiting my mom over the weekend," you wouldn't capitalize.

Any word derived from a proper noun is to be capitalized. English is derived from England and is therefore capitalized.

I is capitalized because, well, it is. No one truly knows why, but the dominant theory among linguists is that the solitary i simply didn't work very well, especially not with the methods of writing available at the time. It wasn't always capitalized; it was only after the pronoun was shortened to I that the practice began.

I think the capital Mom and Dad are because those are suppose to be 'formal' titles in place of names...  I dunno... You don't capitalize sister or brother...  Maybe it's an elder thing   /shrug

No. You should always capitalize words such as brother, daughter, grandmother, and father when they are used in lieu of a proper noun, i.e., the name of that person. Normally, these words follow a possessive pronoun, however, and then you don't capitalize them.

"He is my brother."
but
"Where have you been, Brother?"

[shabutie]

No. You should always capitalize words such as brother, daughter, grandmother, and father when they are used in lieu of a proper noun, i.e., the name of that person. Normally, these words follow a possessive pronoun, however, and then you don't capitalize them.

"He is my brother."
but
"Where have you been, Brother?"

Gotcha.  So you capitalize it when you're using in place of their name, but not when you're defining them as such?

(For example:  Where is my brother?  /  Where is Brother?*)


*Sounds like a line outta FFVI: Advent Children >.>

[harpy]

..

And yes, harpy, formal titles are capitalized.   (Like:  Doctor Brown,  Mr. Park,  President Oasis).   I think it's go something to do with it becoming part of their defining name, which is always capitalized.

..

oh I see...we don't do things like that here. We use things with capital letters only if it is a title of something but not a person. We would write doctor Brown, because there are loads of doctors, the name is the important part not profession or age or what ever else. As for organizations its the same the capital letter is not used in the title if the words can be attached to any kind of other place that is the same, for example Riga Music school or Jāzepa Mediņa Music school, there are loads of schools as well, but you have to write the capital letter for the kind of establishment it is, like you can not write Ministry of Education with regular letters. Makes more sense like this...well for me at least

well I get that, but this "test" shows that you have to capitalize words like Mom and Dad as well. And grammar fixing thing in Firefox and in MS Word also try to make "english language" into "English language" and so on as mentioned above. Also I do not get why all the words in titles starts with capital letter ( well not words like of and and so on) and why "I" is written as capital not "i"....
I do not get that part.....

You misunderstand the rule; here, mom and dad are taking the place—substituting—of proper nouns. In "I'm visiting Mom and Dad over the weekend," mom and dad replace proper nouns, i.e., the actual names of your parents. If you were to say "I'm visiting my mom over the weekend," you wouldn't capitalize.

Any word derived from a proper noun is to be capitalized. English is derived from England and is therefore capitalized.

I is capitalized because, well, it is. No one truly knows why, but the dominant theory among linguists is that the solitary i simply didn't work very well, especially not with the methods of writing available at the time. It wasn't always capitalized; it was only after the pronoun was shortened to I that the practice began.

..

we don't do any of these things
If one speaks of mother its obvious that its his/her mother not someones else, if it would be someones else mother one would say who's mother it is. Like:
"I'm visiting mom and dad over the weekend" (my parents - that's obvious)
"I'm visiting Billy's mom and dad over the weekend" ( not mine...obviously)

I bet capital letters have to do something with the history after all. I mean the English version. As it was quite normal for children not to call their parents just mom and dad, but respectfully Mother and Father, Doctor, President and so on. I mean if we put a capital letter in non proper noun it means respect or "The" not "a" something, it's emphases the meaning.

My native language is rather young (the written one) and was never used in all big historical mess. It's language used by peasant not noble. Noble formed language (written one) according to their cultural traditions and long lost social norms.
Thou mine is still considered to be one of the hardest languages to learn...not quite sure why, because its rather poor language, nothing even close to Russian, I just love Russian language, it's so rich....well we do have quite a messy grammar and quite a lot case ending (used for almost all words in both genders) and so on and we actually have both gender words, and quite a few declination and conjugation...and it wins over English because you can just change the case ending and you do not need to use all these messy little words so we can say the same thing a lot faster and  it sounds really nice. It's supposed to be phonetic language and there are only 2 living language in this class The I love my language, you can actually play around with it, well I bet all non native English speakers love their native languages

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for some strange reason I felt like this belongs here

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(For example:  Where is my brother?  /  Where is Brother?*)


*Sounds like a line outta FFVI: Advent Children >.>

There's a reason why this construction is avoided

St. Peter hears a knocking at the Gates of Heaven and calls out, "Who's there?"
"It is I," a voice responds.
"Oh no, not another English teacher," sighs St. Peter.

No one likes the grammar police :'(

[fohfoh]

Wow... I just ate shit and got 6. I guess my mind just works on a different wave length not to mention I'm tired. Mainly issues like I would have the correct answer, but for the incorrect reason and vice versa.

Stuff like, "Were it up to me"
I personally would revise it to "If it were up to me"

or stuff like that.

Idk, when I get confused at grammar, I revise sentence structure to make it easier to figure out whether or not it's "correct".

I've also gotten used to stuff like revising "their" with "his or her".

[kureshii]

Re-did this one again just to double-check myself, and missed 2 and 3 on a quick look-through. I should avoid doing any editing right after dinner.

A pet peeve of mine:
He is the kind of person that ensures things get done

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Ungrammatical. The who possessive is used in reference to individual persons. That and which are used with reference to non-human objects. That is used to introduce essential clauses (clauses which uniquely identify the object). Which is used to introduce non-essential clauses (clauses which add on to the description of an identified object). Which may also be used to introduce further clauses if that has already been used earlier in the sentence.

Hence,
1) He is the kind of person who ensures things get done.
2) He is the kind of person who ensures things which that are important get done. (What things? Important things.)
3) He will ensure that today's tasks, which include fixing the roof, are completed. (Today's tasks, by the way, include fixing the roof.)

Not differentiating between who/that will not affect the logic of the sentence, since that also encompasses the range of usage seen by who. However, if you decide not to follow this, you might as well use it to refer to people, and skip the personal possessives altogether.

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...

This is where we discuss the differences between American and British English just to confuse the poor souls

Come to think of it, the vocative O is also capitalized. Then again, it's not something you're likely to come across very often.

[shabutie]

Funny thing about the word "that".

Most the time, you can remove it from the sentence and the sentence will still make sense.  (Sometimes minor word order needs to be changed, but it's overall a pretty useless word)

2) He is the kind of person who ensures things which that are important get done.

For example, with this sentence:

He is the kind of person who ensures important things get done.


Another example being:

He told me that you guys were going out tomorrow.
He told me you guys were going out tomorrow.


The sooner we stop using the word 'that' needlessly the better ^_^

[kureshii]

Funny thing about the word "that".

Most the time, you can remove it from the sentence and the sentence will still make sense.  (Sometimes minor word order needs to be changed, but it's overall a pretty useless word)

Of course. I coined the example sentences that way to illustrate the proper use of the who/that/which possessives; they're not shining examples of concise construction.

Other useless phrases that need to go: "the fact that", "off of", "in order to". Those are off the top of my head. Redundant words in phrases must go, in the case of "advance planning", "past experience" and "I personally", among other examples. Use words such as "just", "exactly" and "very" sparingly (I removed them from this post in the course of self-editing, and was very tempted to add "in fact" at the start of this sentence too. Invitation to pointless redundancy lurks everywhere ;_;).

[shabutie]

I agree.


The blame has to lie with schools...   It's so much easier to write a 500 word essay when you use nothing but fluff words.  I don't see how teachers can deal with reading the extra fluff thrown into papers.  A little fluff is ok, but when one sentence drags on and on for no reason other than to add to the total word count.

[Rebs]

Well put kureshii.

As I read your post I began to think of the same thing posted by Shabutie. I have fallen victim to using "fluff" words to lengthen an essay. I would realize how useless these words were when, instead of an essay, I was required to do a short summary. After the first draft I would seek out the fluff words and phrases. This significantly reduced the word count.

However, sometimes these fluff phrases are the easiest way to place emphasis on the topic at hand. Also, when used in exaggeration , they simply serve the purpose of annoying readers. The latter is often applied by me in forum games

Edit: I treid to make this post grammatically correct and "non-fluffed", but I fear I have failed...

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The zero relative pronoun works in restrictive clauses as long as the pronoun isn't the subject of said clause's main verb. In informal and/or colloquial writing, that and other relative pronouns are often omitted in relative clauses with prepositions, e.g., "This is the garden (that*) I used to play in."; this isn't done in strictly formal syntax—specifically, it can't be done, since the placement of the preposition necessitates the presence of the pronoun—e.g., "This is the garden in which I used to play."

Zero copulae are more interesting, but I digress.

* Technically, one could use either that or which, but in formal American English which is considered incorrect here. In British English it doesn't matter.