Grammar test for would-be pedants

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... that's our Alpie.

You were waiting for me.

[Serial_Apologist]

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

I dumbed myself down to pass that one!

[french frank]

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".

FWIW:

http://www.cybergrammar.co.uk/sentences_clauses.php

"Traditional grammars used to define a clause as a block of words containing a subject and a finite verb. Indeed, many clauses do follow this pattern and initially you might find it easier to identify clauses by establishing where the finite verbs are in a sentence, and locating the clause which is built upon each of the finite verbs.

However, it is important to remember that not all clauses contain a finite verb and non-finite clauses are a common occurrence in both speech and writing." Not a good question.

I said 'team' was both a collective and an abstract noun, which apparently is not so. I thought 'team' could be an abstract concept, not literally the people making up the team. ??

Irritatingly, I was fooled into saying 'pride' (like 'truth') was an abstract noun - and forgot the collective idea. I felt that was a bit of a trick, not really a grammar question and 'demonstrated' that I didn't know the secondary meaning of 'pride' when in fact I did. Not a good question.

[mangerton]

FWIW:

http://www.cybergrammar.co.uk/sentences_clauses.php

"Traditional grammars used to define a clause as a block of words containing a subject and a finite verb. Indeed, many clauses do follow this pattern and initially you might find it easier to identify clauses by establishing where the finite verbs are in a sentence, and locating the clause which is built upon each of the finite verbs.

However, it is important to remember that not all clauses contain a finite verb and non-finite clauses are a common occurrence in both speech and writing." Not a good question.

I said 'team' was both a collective and an abstract noun, which apparently is not so. I thought 'team' could be an abstract concept, not literally the people making up the team. ??

Irritatingly, I was fooled into saying 'pride' (like 'truth') was an abstract noun - and forgot the collective idea. I felt that was a bit of a trick, not really a grammar question and 'demonstrated' that I didn't know the secondary meaning of 'pride' when in fact I did. Not a good question.

Yes, I googled a bit for "subordinate clauses" and discovered that things have moved on since my school days fifty years ago. And I thought of the collective sense of "pride" just in the nick of time! As you say, not a good question. I suppose it could have been worse, though - "exaltation", or perhaps Shylock's "wilderness".

[Mary Chambers]

I said 'team' was both a collective and an abstract noun, which apparently is not so. I thought 'team' could be an abstract concept, not literally the people making up the team.

So did I.

[gurnemanz]

FWIW:

http://www.cybergrammar.co.uk/sentences_clauses.php

"Traditional grammars used to define a clause as a block of words containing a subject and a finite verb. Indeed, many clauses do follow this pattern and initially you might find it easier to identify clauses by establishing where the finite verbs are in a sentence, and locating the clause which is built upon each of the finite verbs.

However, it is important to remember that not all clauses contain a finite verb and non-finite clauses are a common occurrence in both speech and writing." Not a good question.

It does seem that it is up to you nowadays whether you call "in order to stay alive" an infinitive phrase or an infinitive clause, but I definitely incline to the traditional approach mentioned above.

In the Oxford Companion to the English Language they give three types of clauses:
- finite clauses
- non-finite clauses (infinitive and participial clauses)
- verbless clauses

The last category is interesting. The example given is: "Obdurate as stone, the man withstood all pleas". I can see why "obdurate as stone" might be accepted as a clause. Although there is no finite verb, it is implied. The full version would be: "The man was obdurate as stone and withstood all pleas".

[jean]

It does seem that it is up to you nowadays whether you call "in order to stay alive" an infinitive phrase or an infinitive clause, but I definitely incline to the traditional approach mentioned above.

In the Oxford Companion to the English Language they give three types of clauses:
- finite clauses
- non-finite clauses (infinitive and participial clauses)
- verbless clauses
a

To my mind, any system of analysis that assigns 'in order to stay alive' and 'in order that he might stay alive' to entirely different categories has got something wrong with it.

I have much more to say on this thread but I am away from home and trying to post from my phone so it will have to wait

[french frank]

It does seem that it is up to you nowadays whether you call "in order to stay alive" an infinitive phrase or an infinitive clause, but I definitely incline to the traditional approach mentioned above.

If I remember accurately (heh, heh), when I was at school we distinguished a clause (which had a finite verb) from a phrase: 'obdurate as stone' would be an adjectival phrase.

[Dave2002]

To my mind, any system of analysis that assigns 'in order to stay alive' and 'in order that he might stay alive' to entirely different categories has got something wrong with it.

I have much more to say on this thread but I am away from home and trying to post from my phone so it will have to wait

Hey dudes, some of this is garbage, innit!

[mangerton]

If I remember accurately (heh, heh), when I was at school we distinguished a clause (which had a finite verb) from a phrase: 'obdurate as stone' would be an adjectival phrase.

Yes, that's what I was taught.

[jean]

That's what we were all taught, back then.

But why?

The purpose of identifying clauses was so that we could then indulge in clause analysis, which until the early 1960s had an honoured place in the O-level syllabus.

The problem was that it was only clauses which mattered - a phrase, even if it had exactly the same function as a related clause (as in the example I gave in #52) counted for nothing, and was merely considered a part of the nearest clause.

No wonder clause analysis got a bad name.

The sad thing was that it was totally swept away from the curriculum, and an opportunity was missed to devise a much better way of analysing written English - whether by recognising the syntactic importance of the phrase, or by re-classifying elements where the verb is not finite as clauses rather than phrases.

[jean]

Click on the red word "this" in SirV's first post. It will take you to a site with the heading "10 Questions on Grammar"; immediately below this, there's a light blue box...

It didn't! I was away from home when I asked my question and the light blue box never appeared on my phone, so I've only been able to do the test now I'm back.

There is much silliness that has been identified on this thread, but the silliest question is the one about which and that.

As for 'which' and 'that', the 'official' reply is too dogmatic: in a defining clause either which or that is permissible (Gowers says, 'but that is to be preferred'...)

I think it was the original Fowler who thought that since you could use 'that' only in a defining clause, it made sense to invent a new rule whereby who or which could only be used in a non-defining one.

Did these people never confess their sins in the words of the Book of Common Prayer?

...But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.
Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults.
Restore thou them that are penitent; according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord.
And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

(Before anyone points to the comma in the first of these as an indication that it's a different kind
of relative from the second, it's not - the commas are only there to indicate that there's a a parenthesis between antecedent and relative.)

[french frank]

Did these people never confess their sins

No. They still don't.

[jean]

...As for 'which' and 'that', the 'official' reply is too dogmatic: in a defining clause either which or that is permissible (Gowers says, 'but that is to be preferred'. and 'On the whole it makes for smoothness of writing not to use the relative which where that would do as well.')

I knew this went back to the original 1926 Fowler, but I've only just had a chance to look it up and, as usual, he's much more subtle than what later revisions have made of him.

He has pages on the history of the relative pronouns, far too much to reproduce as it's not available online, but this is the part that's most relevant here:

"If writers would agree to regard that as the defining relative pronoun & which as the non-defining, there would be much gain both in lucidity & in ease. Some there are who follow this principle now; but it would be idle to pretend that it is the practice either of most or of the best writers."

[french frank]

Thanks, jean!