Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 19:32:50 +0000 From: Ceri Davies <ceri@submonkey.net> To: John E Hein <jhein@timing.com> Cc: cvs-doc@freebsd.org, John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>, Daniel Gerzo <gerzo@micronet.sk>, cvs-all@freebsd.org, Daniel Gerzo <danger@freebsd.org>, Max Laier <max@love2party.net>, doc-committers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: www/en about.sgml Message-ID: <20061108193250.GX83597@submonkey.net> In-Reply-To: <17746.2024.626683.557869@gromit.timing.com> References: <200611071654.kA7GsWbj097708@repoman.freebsd.org> <200611072054.30906.max@love2party.net> <947574552.20061107211608@micronet.sk> <200611071700.27822.jhb@freebsd.org> <20061107222022.GI83597@submonkey.net> <17746.2024.626683.557869@gromit.timing.com>
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On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 09:38:00AM -0700, John E Hein wrote:
> Ceri Davies wrote at 22:20 +0000 on Nov 7, 2006:
> > On Tue, Nov 07, 2006 at 05:00:26PM -0500, John Baldwin wrote:
> > > These directions are all you need.
> > >=20
> > > These directions is all you need.
> >=20
> > Those two sentences invert the subject and object.
>=20
> The basic structure of the sentence being discussed is this:
>=20
> <Subject> is/are <predicate nominative>.
>=20
> The rule is that the verb should agree with the subject.
>=20
> If the subject is plural, use 'are'.
> If the subject is singular, use 'is'.
>=20
> In order to determine which sense of the verb to use in the original
> sentence, you need only determine if the subject is singular or
> plural. Simple, right? Maybe not.
>=20
> "All you need is/are these directions."
>=20
> The problem is that in this sentence, it's not entirely
> clear whether the subjective clause (All you need) is
> plural or singular.
>=20
> It could be either. "All you need" may be one thing (a cookie) or a
> few things (the following ingredients: flour, brown sugar, butter and
> chocolate chips). Other pronouns with the same property as "all"
> include "any" and "some".
<snip>
> So my conclusion was that "these directions" are plural, and thus
> "are" is better. But one could claim that "these directions" is
> singular (as in "the list of these directions" where "the list of" is
> implicit), in which case it could be argued that "is" is a better
> choice. If the sentence were, "All you need is this list of
> directions", it would seem to clearly point to using "is". But that's
> really a different sentence.
Yep. I hinted in my reply to Max Laier this morning that I might be
backing down on this one. Not saying that I am, or nuthin'... :)
Ceri
--=20
That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all.
-- Moliere
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