Electricity has a velocity (that is) as high as light’s. Electricity has a velocity (that is) as high as light’s is. These two sentences both seem to be correct to me, but I am in doubt about the second one. If the latter is erroneous, could someone explain why? Answer This answer ignores the physics … Read more
I understand that when "those" is referred to as the subject of the verb we use "whom", and when "they" is the object we use "who". But consider the following sentence, This is being funded by future taxpayers, many of whom are yet to be born. Are ‘they’ the object of "are" (to be), in … Read more
A torpedo sunk the ship. The ship was sunk. The ship sunk. The first is active, the second is passive. http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/quickreference/dash/dashactive.cfm contains the frequently-cited rule: When we write in the passive voice, we add some form of the helping verb “to be” (am, is, are, was, were, being, or been) to an otherwise strong verb … Read more
Which form of this phrase is correct? for everyone who’s been waiting or for everyone who’ve been waiting I’ve heard “who’s” used more often in this context but “who have” sounds more correct than “who is” in this phrase. However, “to be” in a state of waiting seems more logical than “to have” a state … Read more
Consider these sentences The table is clean. The table is cleaned. The table is painted. As I understand, there are two types of sentences here. From the first example, we have a subject the table, the verb to be, and an adverb clean. In the second example, we again have the subject the table, the … Read more
We are arguing about the following phrase: “Being the density of the graph a common requirement, both for the regularity lemma and for meaningful metric estimators in large graphs, our experiments are addressed to answer two scientific questions: …” Our friend asserts that the correct sentence is “The density of the graph being a common … Read more
For example when pointing to a picture: Is “that am I” grammatical at all? Did it use to be grammatical? Answer It was good enough for Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, Scene 2) Sexton: Which be the malefactors? Dogberry: Marry, that am I and my partner. But bear in mind that Dogberry is … Read more
There’s no doubt that “Be happy” and “Don’t be sad.” are correct, and “They be happy” is incorrect. But is it correct to say: Why don’t you be more careful? or “Why don’t they be happy?” ? Why is each of these wrong or right. Is it acceptable to use be and do together in … Read more
In the phrase make <someone> {adjective}, it implies changing that person’s emotion, but make <someone> be {adjective} implies forcing that person to comply. Why does the word “be”, which only has to do with a subject’s state of being, make so much of an implication difference? Answer I see that there’s already an excellent answer … Read more
In a scientific paper, I am using a phrase that is something like ‘the condition that all the numbers be positive’. I was wondering what kind of construction this is (the ‘be’) and how it compares to ‘all the numbers are positive’. My impression is that both are correct, but ‘be’ is perhaps more formal. … Read more
