Some basic English grammar help needed

outdoorsygirl

Ok here goes.

I am not sure if this is the right Forum for my questions. However, I have searched for English and English grammar without success so maybe you can all help me here.

Q1. What is the difference betwee using the words 'may' or 'might'? For example, he 'may' go to the shop or he 'might' go to the shop.

Q2. What is the correct word for the first person in the following sentence.
You and 'I' or You and 'me'?

Q3. If referring to a group or organisation or a company do you use the plural or singular when referring to it or them.

For example The St Vincent de Paul has/have a busy time at Christmas.
Newstalk radio has/have won a new contract.

What is the difference in the following sentence below?

For example: He was walking along the riverbank and discovered the body
or
He walked along the riverbank and discovered the body.

What is the best advice on use of the comma?

When should a capital letter be used?
Why do some newspapers use a lower case t for taoisech and others use a capital T? Is it Minister for Finance in the middle of a sentence or minister for finance lower case?

Finally, what is the basic difference between the conjunctive and subjunctive?


Your help is greatly appreciated.

St._Andalou

I'll try to answer some of these without being confusing (or incorrect, I hope! )

Q1. What is the difference betwee using the words 'may' or 'might'? For example, he 'may' go to the shop or he 'might' go to the shop.

'Might' is the past tense of 'may'. We may go to the shops (present). We thought we might go to the shops but we didn't have time (past). Might is also used to show diminished possibility.

We might win the competition means you are less likely to win the competition than if you said We may win the competition.

Q2. What is the correct word for the first person in the following sentence.
You and 'I' or You and 'me'?

This depends on the context. If it is followed by a verb it is always 'you and I'. You and I will go there tomorrow, you and I will see a movie. You and me will see a movie is informal and acceptable in everyday speech.

However, if it's not followed by a verb, it's usually 'you and me'. I'll tell you a secret but it's between you and me.

Q3. If referring to a group or organisation or a company do you use the plural or singular when referring to it or them.

For example The St Vincent de Paul has/have a busy time at Christmas.

For groups and organizations I think it's always third-person singular. The G.A.A. is great.

For other stuff I'd recommend getting your hands on the Penguin Guides to grammar and punctuation. They're easy to read and very informative.

Hope this helps.

ali.c

outdoorsygirl wrote: »

.

What is the difference in the following sentence below?

For example: He was walking along the riverbank and discovered the body
or
He walked along the riverbank and discovered the body.

The first sentence is grammatically more correct. It is the past progressive tense and is used when the orginal action is interrupted by the second action in the sentence. If you read both of them out loud the second sentence actually sounds strange.

What is the best advice on use of the comma?

There is no one rule for the comma, there are entire books dedicated to it, some of its uses are also a personal style. There are loads of online guides such as http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm

When should a capital letter be used?
Why do some newspapers use a lower case t for taoisech and others use a capital T? Is it Minister for Finance in the middle of a sentence or minister for finance lower case?

It is a matter of style, I would always use a capital T for taoiseach and would refer to the Minister for Finance.

Thoie

outdoorsygirl wrote: »

Q1. What is the difference betwee using the words 'may' or 'might'? For example, he 'may' go to the shop or he 'might' go to the shop.

Another vernacular meaning for "He may go to the shop" is that he is permitted to go to the shop, though that's probably not what you're looking for in this instance.

outdoorsygirl wrote: »

Q2. What is the correct word for the first person in the following sentence.
You and 'I' or You and 'me'?

An easy way to remember this is to take the "You and" out of the sentence and see what makes sense. "He sold it to me" --> "He sold it to you and me". "I need to clean it"--> "You and I need to clean it".

From those you can work out "Who did he sell it to?" and "Who needs to clean it?"

pickarooney

Moved from Creative Writing to English

pickarooney

outdoorsygirl wrote: »

Q1. What is the difference betwee using the words 'may' or 'might'? For example, he 'may' go to the shop or he 'might' go to the shop.

'May' can be used to indicate permission.
Mark has been grounded but he may go to the shops and then come straight home.

Q2. What is the correct word for the first person in the following sentence.
You and 'I' or You and 'me'?

It's not a complete sentence and therefore there is no correct answer. The correct form (case) for the personal pronoun depends on the role it plays in the sentence. Simple examples of the difference are:

You and I are best friends.
This is a serious situation for you and me.

Q3. If referring to a group or organisation or a company do you use the plural or singular when referring to it or them.

The difference here is largely geographical. US English speakers tend to refer to e.g. football teams in the singular "Dallas is on a long losing streak" whereas UK English speakers will say "Chelsea are top of the league".

What is the difference in the following sentence below?

For example: He was walking along the riverbank and discovered the body
or
He walked along the riverbank and discovered the body.

The first mixes tenses and is therefore not good English. The second one describes a complete action in the past. An alternative form would be
"He was walking along the riverbank when he discovered the body."

As for the difference, it depends really on where/when you want the reader to be regarding the story. In the latter version there's more of a direct implication in the story whereas the former is more detached.

What is the best advice on use of the comma?

Go with your gut feeling. Commas should be used primarily for clarity, to separate items in a list and to separate clauses. Never use a comma to end a sentence or to join two unrelated clauses.

When should a capital letter be used?

At the start of sentences or for proper nouns and titles.

Why do some newspapers use a lower case t for taoisech and others use a capital T? Is it Minister for Finance in the middle of a sentence or minister for finance lower case?

Have you examples of sentences from each source. Generally when referring to someone as An Taoiseach X Y you would use a capital letter to denote the title. If you say that X Y was elected taoiseach you're describing the post. Similarly, you should refer to "King Zog of Albania" but "Zog became king of Albania".

Finally, what is the basic difference between the conjunctive and subjunctive?

I believe in English these refer to the same thing.

The Raven.

St._Andalou wrote: »

You and me will see a movie is informal and acceptable in everyday speech.

I don’t agree that this is acceptable. Thoe’s suggestion to remove the ‘you and’ out of the sentence is always a good way of judging whether ‘I’ or ‘me’ should be used. For example, one would not say ‘Me will see a movie’, but rather ‘I will see a move’. Therefore it should be ‘You and I will see a movie’.

The incorrect use of ‘I’ in recent times has emerged as an over-correction by many, often otherwise articulate, people. It seems to have started with people wishing to correct sentences such as ‘Me and my husband went out’ to ‘My husband and I went out’. This was followed by people using sentences such as ‘The prize was given to my husband and I’, or ‘It was directed at my friend and I’, both of which are incorrect. It is alarming how quickly and widely this incorrect usage has spread.

St._Andalou

The Raven. wrote: »

I don’t agree that this is acceptable. Thoe’s suggestion to remove the ‘you and’ out of the sentence is always a good way of judging whether ‘I’ or ‘me’ should be used. For example, one would not say ‘Me will see a movie’, but rather ‘I will see a move’. Therefore it should be ‘You and I will see a movie’.

The incorrect use of ‘I’ in recent times has emerged as an over-correction by many, often otherwise articulate, people. It seems to have started with people wishing to correct sentences such as ‘Me and my husband went out’ to ‘My husband and I went out’. This was followed by people using sentences such as ‘The prize was given to my husband and I’, or ‘It was directed at my friend and I’, both of which are incorrect. It is alarming how quickly and widely this incorrect usage has spread.

I know the correct the usage of "you and I". What I meant was in everyday conversation, saying something such as "You and me will see a movie" would not raise eyebrows, even though it's grammatically incorrect.

My own pet peeve is people who say "between you and I" or "for you and I", because it's usually people who want to sound smart and have no idea they're sounding stupid instead.

I used to date a French guy who'd chastise me for saying "Me and you should go to the movies", not because of grammar but because putting the first person before the second person is considered rude in French.

The Raven.

St._Andalou wrote: »

What I meant was in everyday conversation, saying something such as "You and me will see a movie" would not raise eyebrows, even though it's grammatically incorrect.

It might not 'raise eyebrows' in America, but in Ireland and the UK it would be generally frowned upon. In casual conversation in Ireland and the UK, one is more likely to hear 'You and I will go and see a film' or perhaps 'We'll go to the pictures' and the 'you and I' is a foregone conclusion (though if questioned as to who would be going to the pictures, the answer would often be 'You and me', which should be 'You and I').

My own pet peeve is people who say "between you and I" or "for you and I", because it's usually people who want to sound smart and have no idea they're sounding stupid instead.

That is similar to the point I was making in my previous post. I also find it extremely irritating, especially when it is used by people who are otherwise articulate and should know better.

I used to date a French guy who'd chastise me for saying "Me and you should go to the movies", not because of grammar but because putting the first person before the second person is considered rude in French.

I would imagine that is also the reason in UK English, as it appears to be more polite to put the second person first.

Enkidu

outdoorsygirl wrote: »

Finally, what is the basic difference between the conjunctive and subjunctive?

The conjunctive and subjunctive mood are identical as pickarooney said.
The subjunctive mood is the correct term for this verb mood. The name "conjunctive mood" is a nickname, if you will, that it has picked up in English because it commonly follows a conjunction.
However in a lot of other languages and quite often in English, the subjunctive doesn't follow a conjunction, so in general I believe the term subjunctive is better.

As a side note, the subjunctive is decaying in all European languages, a lot of languges only have a present subjunctive at this point. English is one of the few languages were the subjunctive still retains all its tenses formally, but people rarely use it correctly. It has shown decay from Shakespeare's time, were it was still quite different from the indicative.

FruitLover

St._Andalou wrote: »

I used to date a French guy who'd chastise me for saying "Me and you should go to the movies", not because of grammar but because putting the first person before the second person is considered rude in French.

Pff, what do the French know about decorum? They eat frogs and snails!

rickyjb

outdoorsygirl wrote: »

Ok here goes.


What is the best advice on use of the comma?


Your help is greatly appreciated.

You should check out the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss, it has a whole chapter on commas...

nompere

The Raven. wrote: »

I don’t agree that this is acceptable. Thoe’s suggestion to remove the ‘you and’ out of the sentence is always a good way of judging whether ‘I’ or ‘me’ should be used. For example, one would not say ‘Me will see a movie’, but rather ‘I will see a move’. Therefore it should be ‘You and I will see a movie’.

The incorrect use of ‘I’ in recent times has emerged as an over-correction by many, often otherwise articulate, people. It seems to have started with people wishing to correct sentences such as ‘Me and my husband went out’ to ‘My husband and I went out’. This was followed by people using sentences such as ‘The prize was given to my husband and I’, or ‘It was directed at my friend and I’, both of which are incorrect. It is alarming how quickly and widely this incorrect usage has spread.

This has also given new life to "myself", commonly used where the writer/speaker isn't sure whether to use "I" or "me".
You don't have to spend long on various forums here to find:

"Myself and my husband went out."
"The prize was given to my husband and myself."

pickarooney

FruitLover wrote: »

Pff, what do the French know about decorum? They eat frogs and snails!

:rolleyes: (Gallic shrug smiley)

The Raven.

FruitLover wrote: »

Pff, what do the French know about decorum? They eat frogs and snails!

Indeed they do, and who could blame them? After the impending Irish budget, we could also end up resorting to the same source of protein :eek::eek: - unless of course they tax anything that moves in our back gardens. Shhh!! Don't alert them to this. They haven't thought of it yet !

But 'Pff'?? I quietly asked myself 'what on earth could this possibly mean?' At first I thought it might be an abbreviation of a username on this thread, and the only one that came remotely close was Pickarooney, France - still the extra 'f' though. Then I thought I would find it in the Internet slang list, but no joy there either.

So I googled 'Pff' and, apart from a couple of unmentionable possibilities, I waded through acronyms for titles such as 'Pakistan Football Federation', 'Porcupine Freedom Festival' and even 'Psycho Fly Fishing' - surely not!!

I have now given up and resigned myself to the fact that it must be some profound new secret text language (possibly French), which the poster will reveal at his discretion in good time.

Baffled ,

The Raven.

The Raven.

nompere wrote: »

This has also given new life to "myself", commonly used where the writer/speaker isn't sure whether to use "I" or "me".
You don't have to spend long on various forums here to find:

"Myself and my husband went out."
"The prize was given to my husband and myself."

Yes, I forgot about that one. 'Myself and my husband went out' could be corrected using the Thoie method as in 'Myself went out', though some would not see the fault in 'The prize was given to myself.'

pickarooney

The Raven. wrote: »

But 'Pff'?? I quietly asked myself 'what on earth could this possibly mean?' At first I thought it might be an abbreviation of a username on this thread, and the only one that came remotely close was Pickarooney, France - still the extra 'f' though. Then I thought I would find it in the Internet slang list, but no joy there either.

Simple onomatopoeia - the scornful exhalation of air through slightly pursed lips.

The Raven.

pickarooney wrote: »

Simple onomatopoeia - the scornful exhalation of air through slightly pursed lips.

Thanks, Pickarooney. Mystery solved! Phew!!