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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 24 29 June 2011 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'd say it's option 1. Consider: Who is there? It's us. Not "*we are us", not "*it are we", but "it is us". Basically, because there is little-or-no agreement in English, the English-speaking brain doesn't learn what agreement is, and so agreement is being evolved out of English. The last remnants of agreement is "There is" vs "there are", but increasingly people just say "there's" for both, and "there are" is only used in writing. "What I've experienced" is singular, so it's "is". 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 10 of 24 29 June 2011 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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According to Fowler's Modern English Usage both singular and plural verb forms are acceptable in the following similar sentence:
a) What upsets me most is his manners. b) What upsets me most are his manners.
Do native speakers actually perceive this shift in focus or is it just a feeble attempt by the editors of Fowler's to explain two possible forms? Edited by Doitsujin on 29 June 2011 at 3:07pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5283 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 11 of 24 29 June 2011 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
This may be true of northern dialects, but is it really true of southern spoken English? I would say that most (educated) people where I live still speak a "correct" and standard form of English. Edited by Romanist on 29 June 2011 at 4:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5116 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 12 of 24 29 June 2011 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm generally ok with language evolution, but "there's" as plural makes me shudder. I really hope we don't evolve away that much agreement. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 24 29 June 2011 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
Even in parenthesis and inverted commas, words like those have a massive potential for offence. Anyway, consider what happens if we replace the "I've considered" with a different contruction. Let's take "what annoys me" and the like, because they prove my point quite nicely. "what annoys me is the weather" "what bothers me is being told to shut up by someone who is talking too loud himself" etc. Let's stick a plural object in "people who annoy me". So: what annoys me is people who annoy me or what annoys me are people who annoy me ? To every native speaker, the second will look immediately wrong. To any non-native speaker we have two verbs (annoy, be) that should be agreeing with the same subject (what), but yet don't agree with each other. (The second "annoy" agrees with people, and has no link to "what".) So what about what annoy me are people who annoy me ? Well that's every bit as objectionable to a native-speaker, and it shows us that we view the pronominal "what" as singular. So in this case it has to be what annoys me is people who annoy me Even though Jinx's sentence uses "what" as an object, "what" is still intrinsically singular. Many of the things that we're told are "correct" are utter abuses of the language set forth by teachers who are quite simply too attached to Latin to remember that English Is A Different Language. Many of the things people call "correct" are nonsense. They are not English. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 14 of 24 29 June 2011 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm relieved by the fact that these kinds of constructions are causing problems for native speakers as well.
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| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5283 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 15 of 24 30 June 2011 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
In my opinion, anyone who chooses to take offence where plainly none is intended must have even bigger personality-issues than Gordon Brown! (However I'm quite sure that no member of this forum fits into this miserable and dour category...)
I agree that the second would look wrong, but I find your analysis to be fundamentally incorrect. It seems clear to me that the subject in the above example is the subordinate clause (i.e. "what annoys me"). Something like this constitutes a singular subject. It could only be plural if it related back to a plural noun. e.g. "The things which annoy me are...etc" Here the subject of the verb is "the things" - hence a plural subject. But on its own, a subordinate clause constitutes a singular subject. "What really annoys me is victories by Andy Murray" "Victories by Andy Murray" is plural, but it is not the subject of the verb. Edited by Romanist on 30 June 2011 at 3:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5309 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 16 of 24 30 June 2011 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What you need are these three words: Nominal Relative Clause
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