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English: 2 grammar questions | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Stassri Newbie Korea, South Joined 4043 days ago 23 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Korean* | Message 1 of 10 14 March 2015 at 10:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Usually, I find it faster and easier to search the Internet for grammatical points of English I'm curious about, rather than post these questions myself, but the following ones beat me:
a) Any + (Subject Noun - Plural) + verb Is the above construction a valid one? With my limited knowledge of English grammar, I guess that you can put the subject in singular from, as in : "Any cook can make it." (this one has been made up by myself. correct me if it's wrong.), but I'm not really sure about the plural form for the subject. In this Wordreference link: One poster whose profile says is American gave some examples that she thinks is correct : 1)- Are there any students in the room? 2)- Are any students in the room? 3)- Is there a student in the room? I think I sort of know 1) and 3), but not 2). Although I didn't thoroughly search that forum, the above post was the only one I found after searching there for questions on the English word 'any' for more than half an hour, in which a native English speaker explicitly confirmed that 'any' + 'plural subject noun' is valid. Now, I tried to fiddle with Ngram Viewer for sometime, but soon realized that I can't use it in a reliable way with my basic searching skills. For instance, "Is any child in" (which I consider is grammatically correct) returns 0 result. Next, not-so-authoritative Google search hits for some related word clusters: i)"can any student" -> 27,100 results > "can any students" -> 5,820 results ii)"should any student" -> 54,300 results < "should any students" -> 345,000 results The singular form is more prevalent than the plural one for i). It is, however, the other way around for ii). It's hard to draw a conclusion from all the above investigation. So could you shed some light on the validity of the construction in question, please? b) While searching for drivers for my father's phone, I found the following sentence on Motorola's website: - Bluetooth drivers here. If you are still having trouble, go directly to your PC Manufacturer's site and download the specific wireless/Bluetooth drivers for your PC/MAC. The part that bothers me is 'go directly to ...'. Motorola is a rather big American enterprise, so I can hardly imagine they would put in a defintely bad sentence somewhere on their website. The thing is, around a decade ago, I read the following explanation given by an American English speaker on an English language help forum (sorry, I don't think I can find the link anymore at this point):
However,
(In case someone wonders, I think my memory of the above explanation is definitely accurate. Back then, I figured that it would be useful to a beginner like me so I memorized it on spot.) It seems to me that there is a discrepancy between the two sources above. Could you please tell me what I'm missing here? c) Okay, this one is not a grammar question, but while I'm at it... :) What is the 'counter word', if you will, referring to a flat, round piece of dough(whether cooked or raw), like, pizza, pancake, or Naan(an Indian dish), in English? I searched for webpages that list such 'counter words' and found some useful ones, but none of them seem to include what I'm exactly looking for. So I searched for pages containing 'of pizza' / 'of pancake' / 'of naan', but it didn't go well. a stack of pancakes - this is quite close, but it's a 'batch' of what I'm looking for. I want to know how to call a single piece of dough. a side of pancake / a side of naan - I don't really understand what they mean... could someone tell me if 'side' is the answer to my question, by any chance? Thank you very much for reading my long post. Edited by Stassri on 14 March 2015 at 10:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7150 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 10 14 March 2015 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Are any students in the room?" sounds perfectly okay. It means the same as "Are there any students in the
room?", but sounds a bit less formal. "Go directly" is okay as well. It is used in the game of Monopoly... "Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200." That makes it clear in everyone's mind what it means. It firmly fixes a widespread example of acceptable usage. On question three. "A side" means an additional item from the menu that isn't included in whatever you have ordered. Example: Breakfast includes eggs, bacon, hash browns and coffee. You want pancakes also, so you ask for "a side [order] of pancakes". 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5253 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 3 of 10 14 March 2015 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||
You can use an asterisk (*) as wildcard. I searched "a round * of dough", and got lump, blob, disk, piece, cake, pan, patty... I think "disk" and "patty" are good. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5901 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 4 of 10 14 March 2015 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree entirely with luke.
Of the example sentences you provided, I much prefer "Go directly..." over "Directly go..." - the latter seems just slightly awkward but it is certainly not incorrect. I think smallwhite's suggestion of "piece" works well, and perhaps "lump" in relation to uncooked dough, but with respect the other suggestions seem a bit awkward. For naan, I would suggest the counter word you may be looking for is simply "piece": "I would like a piece of naan, or two pieces of naan". You could use "side" as in "a side of naan" if you are also discussing some other more substantial component of a meal in situations where naan is also being ordered or presented, but that is not something I generally hear. A "side of vegetables" or a "side of french fries" is more common (and in restaurant ordering in North America, I would guess far more sides of french fries are ordered than of vegetables). For pizza, there is no counter word or qualifier word I would suggest if you are referring to the whole pizza. Simply: "I would like a pizza; we would like two pizzas". If less than a whole pizza is referred to, I would suggest either "piece" or "slice". "Would you like a piece of pizza?" "I ate three slices of pizza" For dough, there is nothing in particular I would suggest. You could use "lump" but generally cookbooks will simply refer to doing something with "the" dough, or rolling out a "piece of dough". Edited by Spanky on 14 March 2015 at 4:22pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3867 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 10 14 March 2015 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Stassri. Your English is excellent! you asked
some very good questions, and you have gotten some very good replies. The only things I want to add are in regards to your last question. Cookbooks usually refer to a "ball of dough". So if you are making naan, you might separate your dough into eight balls. Pancakes are made of batter, so it's harder to count something that is more liquid. So you could make two batches of batter, or you could use 1/4 cup of batter. Is that what you mean, the uncooked portion? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stassri Newbie Korea, South Joined 4043 days ago 23 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Korean* | Message 6 of 10 15 March 2015 at 6:03am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, that is what I was looking for. Thanks! luke, smallwhite, Spanky and nancydowns, Thank you all for your helpful answers! Edited by Stassri on 15 March 2015 at 6:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5004 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 10 16 March 2015 at 3:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Note that while it is correct to say
Are any students in the room? as a question, it is NOT correct to say *Any students are in the room. as a statement. Correct answers to the above question are Some students are in the room/There are some students in the room/There are students in the room. The meaning of "any" can be confusing. For example, "Does anyone know how to make pancakes?" is asking whether at least one person knows how. But "Anyone can make pancakes" means that all people can make pancakes. "Can anyone do it?" can mean "Can at least one person do it?," "Can all people do it?," or "Can each person be the one that does it, as long as no one else does?" depending on the context and the intonation. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 5080 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian* | Message 8 of 10 16 March 2015 at 4:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Maybe it's irrelevant to the topic, but your post reminds me to my confusion about "may" and "must" years ago. "You may..." means "You are allowed to...", but "You are not allowed to..." equals "You must not...". "You must..." means "You are obliged to...", but "You are not obliged to..." equals "You may not...". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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