Grammar test for would-be pedants

[Dave2002]

yes I fell over Hilary too, but I'm still a guru apparently

http://ninomelon.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/guru.jpg

I regularly get which and that confused, also less and fewer
I honestly don't remember having any formal grammar lessons at school, except in foreign language and Latin classes
I must have done at some point surely

The rules are different in America.

[mangerton]

Isn't a semicolon missing from that sentence?

No, because - at least as I understand it - "not that" = "though" acts as a conjunction.

I'd check in my "Fowler", but Miss m has stolen it. Ah well, her necessity is yet greater than mine.

[EdgeleyRob]

i did'nt score,very Many:

[Flosshilde]

The answer is that none of them is wrong, but you can't proceed with the quiz until you've chosen one. Mr Gove set this.

Shouldn't that be either 'none of them are wrong', or 'not one of them is wrong'? Or is 'none' really an abreviation of 'not one'?

[mangerton]

Shouldn't that be either 'none of them are wrong', or 'not one of them is wrong'? Or is 'none' really an abbreviation of 'not one'?

My Chambers - no great authority as it recently got me into trouble around here - indicates that via Old English, it is. It also says, though, that "none" can be singular or plural. I tend to regard "none" as singular, but sometimes that sounds wrong.

edit: Looking at ff's post, it occurs to me that anything involving Mr Gove probably is wrong, per se.

[scottycelt]

My Chambers - no great authority as it recently got me into trouble around here - indicates that via Old English, it is. It also says, though, that "none" can be singular or plural. I tend to regard "none" as singular, but sometimes that sounds wrong.

edit: Looking at ff's post, it occurs to me that anything involving Mr Gove probably is wrong, per se.

The very mention of a dictionary can provoke much disapproval from some of our more knowledgeable members, mangerton ...

I haven't tried 'the test' but have always tended to consider "none" as singular, though I feel sure that's never prevented me using it in a plural context as well!

With reference to our forum pin-up boy, Mr Gove, his recent comments that he would vote for the UK to leave the EU, even before his leader has embarked on his rather mysterious and solitary 're-negotiations', lends no little strength to your personal appraisal of him.

[french frank]

Shouldn't that be either 'none of them are wrong', or 'not one of them is wrong'? Or is 'none' really an abreviation of 'not one'?

There is no fixed rule. I studied the literature on this before I posted the message . I don't believe, technically, 'none' is the exact equivalent of 'not one'. It seems this was not a point on which the Victorian grammarians decided to invent a 'rule'. [Note also the different practice of Gowers and Fraser on 'which' and 'that'. ]

Gowers (who revised Fowler) wrote The Complete Plain Words as guidance for civil servants who had to correspond with the general public. Fraser revised TCPW and on the 'split infinitive' he is quite amusing. Without looking up his exact words, I paraphrase: he advised civil servants not to split infinitives in their letters to the public because the notion that "it is wrong" was so entrenched in the public psyche that they would be thought uneducated and therefore lose the respect of their readers. In other words (perhaps slightly patronisingly?) he was saying, "Humour them in their notions of 'right' and 'wrong' (it does no harm)."

[Mr Pee]

I caught the end of "Woman's Hour" yesterday morning- not my usual listening, I hasten to add- and the presenter read out some piece of grammatical nit-pickery from a Radio4 listener with nothing better to do, criticising her for using the word "translator" rather than "interpreter". The complainant started off by saying he was sorry to be pedantic, but said presenter riposted that she thought he probably wasn't sorry for his pedantry, but actually rather pleased.

[Anna]

There was a grammar test in The Telegraph a few months ago by Nevile Gwynn (author of best-selling Gwyn’s Grammar) which you might like to try although one question is the same as the BBC quiz

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationquestions/9987757/Good-grammar-test-can-you-pass.html

There was also one in The Guardian. I think both of them are harder than the BBC one.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/quiz/2013/feb/04/grammar-punctuation-quiz-test

See how you get on with them

[Pabmusic]

Shouldn't that be either 'none of them are wrong', or 'not one of them is wrong'? Or is 'none' really an abreviation of 'not one'?

There is no fixed rule. I studied the literature on this before I posted the message . I don't believe, technically, 'none' is the exact equivalent of 'not one'. It seems this was not a point on which the Victorian grammarians decided to invent a 'rule'. [Note also the different practice of Gowers and Fraser on 'which' and 'that'. ]...

Here's Michael Quinion's take on it:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-non2.htm

I like the fact that King Alfred used it as a plural in 888, and that nan was inflected anyway.

[mercia]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...-you-pass.html

only 58% in that, and could easily have been worse

[gurnemanz]

There was a grammar test in The Telegraph a few months ago by Nevile Gwynn (author of best-selling Gwyn’s Grammar) which you might like to try although one question is the same as the BBC quiz

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationquestions/9987757/Good-grammar-test-can-you-pass.html

There was also one in The Guardian. I think both of them are harder than the BBC one.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/quiz/2013/feb/04/grammar-punctuation-quiz-test

See how you get on with them

The Guardian one was fairly straightforward. I would query No 5.

Which of the following sentences uses a subordinate clause at the beginning?

Male penguins keep warm by huddling together
In order to stay alive, male penguins keep warm by huddling together
Huddling together helps male penguins to stay alive and keep warm

Option 2 was the only possibility but for me a clause must have a finite main verb. "In order to stay alive" is not a clause but an infinitive phrase. A genuine subordinate clause with a similar meaning might be something like: "because they want to stay alive" or "so that they can stay alive".

[mangerton]

The Guardian one was fairly straightforward. I would query No 5.

Which of the following sentences uses a subordinate clause at the beginning?

Male penguins keep warm by huddling together
In order to stay alive, male penguins keep warm by huddling together
Huddling together helps male penguins to stay alive and keep warm

Option 2 was the only possibility but for me a clause must have a finite main verb. "In order to stay alive" is not a clause but an infinitive phrase. A genuine subordinate clause with a similar meaning might be something like: "because they want to stay alive" or "so that they can stay alive".

Interesting! I got 13/14 in the Grauniad quiz, and that's the one I couldn't answer, because, like you, I was taught that a clause must have a finite verb. I'd be interested to hear others' opinions on this.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I would query No 5.

Moi aussi. I didn't think any of them started with subordinate clauses.

The Telegraph one: I got a very low score, but would argue that some of the so-called "grammar" was ungrammatical.

[vinteuil]

The Telegraph one: I got a very low score, but would argue that some of the so-called "grammar" was ungrammatical.

... that's our Alpie.