who
interrogative pronoun,
what or which person or persons -- used as an interrogative
Whom
Objective form of Who... pronoun
-- used as an interrogative or relative; used as object of a verb or a preceding preposition
usage Observers of the language have been predicting the demise of whom from about 1870 down to the present day. Yet it shows every indication of persisting quite a while yet.
as in
Whomshall I say is calling?
WHATEVER!!
Well, whoever is used in the same context.. as in it doesn't matter who...
"Whom (who) shall I call for the party?"
"Whomever (Whoever)!"
Whomever is the objective form of whoever.
The government gave the contract to whoever paid the highest money.
Whomever cannot be use here, because the sentence is the answer to the question
Who did the government award the contract to? (according to the first rule of using who..)
Whomsoever and Whosoever serve same functions with different levels of emphasis.
as in
"To whomsoever it may concern
ConvolutedSignal has asked me a totally unnecessary grammar question!"
Again, it answers the question..
To whom is this letter addressed?... ie the subject!
Whosoever wants to avail this facility is welcome to do so....
Preparation Strategy
The 8 Major Errors Of English
Spotting bad sentences is the key to doing well on sentence structure test questions.
1)Pronoun error
There are 3 main types of pronoun errors encountered
a.Plural and Singular
Once you start with one, you need to stay in the same quantity (singular or plural).
§Singular Pronouns (Memorize these)
Hint: Do you see the categories I setup? It’s SANE to memorize this
Some---
Any—
No—
Every—
Everyone
Everybody
Everything
Someone
Somebody
Something
Either
Neither
One
Each
Anyone
Anybody
Anything
No one
Nothing
Nobody
Whoever
Whomever
His
§Be aware that group, jury, team, country, family are singular. Society today uses them sometimes as plural. This is because these act as a single unit when they do something.
§Plural Pronouns (Memorize these)
Both
Their
Many
Several
Few
Others
§Singular and Plural Pronouns – depends on whether the noun is singular or plural (Memorize these)
Some
More
Most
All
§The plural and singular clause error
When two nouns are in the sentence doing an action together but they are linked with
i)Along with
ii)Together with
iii)With
iv)As well as
v)In addition to
vi)Accompanied by
… this does not make the following action they do plural. Only “and” can take the two singulars and make their action plural.
For example
Janie, with her poodle limping behind her, walks to the dog park.
Explanation: Janie is singular. The poodle is singular. They both do the action together, but the use of “with” means that we need to keep the verb singular. “Walks” is singular and “Walk” is plural.
Remember, a verb that ends with an –s is singular.
Pronoun reference error- referring pronoun is not correctly placed.
For example:
In the sentence “Samantha and Jane went shopping, but she couldn’t find anything she liked.”, the pronoun “she” does not refer to a person unambiguously. It is difficult to understand that whether “she” is referring to Samantha or Jane.
The correct form would be “Samantha and Jane went shopping, but Samanatha couldn’t find anything she liked.”
Relative pronouns are often used incorrectly today.
1)Referring to things or animals – that, which
2)Referring to people—who, whom
3)They – be careful that you don’t use this unless you’re positive there is a referring noun. Today we often use “they” to replace the use of a proper noun which it is not. It’s a Pronoun.
Misplaced Modifier (modifiers must stay close to home)
Sentences that begin with a verb, adjective+verb, and adjective phrases need to be followed by the noun or pronoun they are modifying. Usually end with –ing.
Example: “Coming out of the department store, John’s wallet was stolen.”
“Coming” is the modifier. Was john’s wallet coming out of the store? à Incorrect
Possible solution to look for:
i)Correct the reference
ii)Put a noun or pronoun into the 1st part of the sentence turning the 1st part into an adverbial clause. Thus can stand apart without needing to watch the modifier.
Parallel Construction
There are two kinds of sentences that test the parallel construction. The first is a sentence that contains a list, or has a series of actions set off from one another by commas.
The second kind is a sentence that’s divided into two parts.
Both types must have parallel types of verbiage:
§…..to ____, to ____
§ate _____, slept ____, drank ____.
Bad construction might look like:
§…to ____, _____
§…ate _____, sleep _____, drank ____.
There are a few more things to be observed in a parallel construction sentence.
a.Comparisons must be logical and compatible
Find the two things being compared and see if the sentence is structured in balance. Don’t be afraid to consider changing verbs or adjectives to get the balance.
The words "like," "unlike," "similar to," "as…so", “when” and "in contrast to" are the most common indicators of comparisons. In comparisons, compatibility is determined by subject matter. For example:
“As domesticated animals, indoor cats typically lose their ability to hunt for their own food, so too do domesticated dogs come to rely exclusively on their owners for sustenance.”
Here, domesticated cats are compared to domesticated dogs, and the comparison works because they are both domesticated animals — they are like terms. Whenever you see a comparison being set up in a sentence, check to see that the terms of the comparison are compatible.
b.Parallelism is not just about clauses, but verb usage
Example: -ing and –ing, to…… to…… , either ….. or, neither ……. nor.
In a series of two or more elements, what you do on #2 determines what you do on 3+. In other words, everything after #2 must match #2:
·I like to swim, to run, and to dance.
·I like to swim, run, and dance.
are okay.
·I like to swim, run, and to dance.
·I like to swim, to run, and dance.
are NOT okay.
Well this is a typical confusion that often arises... the problem occurs because of the trailing 's'....
The rule is that when a trailing 's' is applied to a noun (not all nouns but common noun ofcourse) then the noun acquires plural form.
girl (singlular) --> girl + 's' --> girls (plural)
But the same trailing 's' when applied to a verb makes it singular and NOT plural.
sing(plural not singular) --> sing + 's' --> sings (singular)
Now you easily know that following are wrong:
girl sing a song. (singular noun but plural verb)
girls sings song. (plural noun but singular verb)
and the following are right:
girl sings a song.
girls sing a song.
)Verb Tense
tense problems are often just a matter of parallel construction. In general, if a sentence starts out in one tense, it should probably remain in the same tense.
Some major categories of tense: Don’t need to memorize types. Just be familiar
a.Present tense example: He walks three miles a day.
b.Simple Past example: When he was younger, he walked three miles a day.
c.Present Perfect example: He has walked.
d.Past Perfect example: He had walked.
e.Future example: He will work.
f.Present Perfect – Describes action that began in the past but continues until the present. Key identifier – “has” “have”. Sidenote: Sometimes used when deadline exists.
g.Past Perfect – Describes action that started and stopped in the past. Key identifier – “had”
h.Present Progressive – Used as emphasis by the speaker that the action is happening this very minute. Key identifier – verb ‘to be’ + a verb with an –ing ending.
i.Perfect Progressive – Occupies more than one moment in the past. In other words, ongoing for a period of time. Key identifier – “had been”
One exception to this rule is a sentence that contains the past perfect (in which one action in the past happened before another action in the past).
Examples:
§He had ridden his motorcycle for two hours when it ran out of gas.
§The dinosaurs are extinct now, but they were once present on the earth in large numbers.
Two events that have taken place, are taking place or will take place at the same time must have the same tense in the sentence.
Passive verbs begin with the form of “to be” (Example: to be, were, was) and end with a different verb in the past tense.
2)Subject-Verb agreement errors
A verb is supposed to agree with the subject.
a.Singular + Plural agreement. Do the two agree in plurality? Can be made very complex when prepositional phrases separate verb from noun/subject by 5 or more words. Easy to overlook cross referenced subject-verb relationship.
b.To tell if a verb paradigm is plural or singular.
§Mentally put “They” in front of the verb ß plural
§Mentally put “He” in front of the verb ß singular
c.Verb plurality:
Adding an “s” to the end of an adjective makes it singular.
For example, dislike ß plural dislikes ß singular
quote:
I chose A, but the correct answer is B.
The majority of the talk was devoted to an account of the experimental methods used by investigators in the field.
a. ...
b. The greater part of the talk was
c. The bulk of the talk has been
d. A large amount of the talk has been
e. A predominance of the talk was
Good one!!
"majority" should be used with count nouns only.
The majority of the water is dirty.
Is "unidiomatic," because "water" is a non-count noun.
Just in case, count nouns can be counted (bottle, idea, person, brush, etc.);
Noncount nouns cannot be counted (water, furniture, information, soap, luggage, etc.).
There is, however, a lot of overlap between the two--beer, coke, coffee, material, love, etc. can all be either count or non-count, depending on our meaning, context, or level of formality.
One of the most common questions is something like this:
Do I say:
"Most of the people is/are...?"
"Most of the water is/are...?"
Here's the rule:
quantifier + of + NOUN + verb
The NOUN determines whether the verb is singular or plural.
For example:
Most of the people is/are...
because the quantifier "most" refers to "people," (a plural noun) so "most" is plural in this sentence.
Most of the water is/are...
because the quantifier "most" refers to "water," (a non-count noun) so "most" is singular in this sentence.
So, from these examples, you should notice that we are looking mainly at whether the object of the preposition is count or non-count because the quantifier will take on this property from the object of the preposition.
In other words, in these sentences:
Most of the people are...
"Most" becomes a count noun because "people" is a count noun.
Most of the water is...
"Most" becomes a non-count noun because "water" is a non-count noun.
So, this rule tells us only whether the quantifier is count or non-count.
To figure out whether the quantifier is singular or plural, we need to check one more thing...
Sometimes, a quantifier refers only to one thing, not many things. For example,
each, every, and one always refer to one thing, but 10%, half, all, and most would refer to more than one thing if the object of the preposition is count (with one possible exception that I will show you in a second).
Of course, if the quantifier is always singular, then the verb must always be singular, too. (Let's not forget our common sense in grammar, okay??) For example, we say:
• One of the people is...
• Each of the students is...
Of course, when I first wrote out these rules, I imagined a situation like this:
• 1% of the 100 people is/are...
because, of course, 1% of 100 is one, and that's singular, right? And there's invariably some student in my class who will try to find an exception (that's what I do in class, too!! My teachers hated it!! )
Anyway, I think most people would say that this is simply a bad sentence and should be rewritten. This sentence I've shown you is more of a grammar puzzle than a real sentence.
But I know that somebody out there will want to know the "answer." Well, you can't go wrong if you write it in the singular, can you?
§The teacher together with the student IS (or ARE) going to...?
§The teacher and the student ARE (or IS)going to?
Generally speaking, we need a conjunction to create a plural subject from more than one singular noun. "together with" is NOT a conjunction, and therefore cannot create a plural subject. "and" on the other hand, IS a conjunction and CAN create a plural subject.
I'm concluding:
"a number of ..." always takes plural verbs.
"the number of ..." always takes singular verbs.
Eg: the number of people has increased
A number of people have gone
"a number of ..." always takes plural verbs.
"the number of ..." always takes singular verbs.
Eg: the number of people has increased
A number of people have gone
The important thing here is that the number in the first example (the number of women employed outside the home) is an actual number--35,000, for example. Even if you add more women to the original number, there will still be one number, right?
The second usage of "numbers" is also correct, and means that there are many people in that group. For example, it is correct to say:
People are leaving California in greater numbers.
People are spending more money on the Internet in greater numbers.
Second, "curfew" is a singular count noun and therefore requires a determiner (the).
I agree with you that skill can be both a count noun as well as a non-count noun. It all depends upon the context.
Have a look at the example below:
1. Harry knows quite a few driving skills.
Conversely, if were to ask Harry about his driving skills, I would ask.
2. How much skill do you have in driving a car, Harry?
So you see, the word "skill" remains the same but depending on the context, skill can be a non-count or a count noun?
With fractions, percentages and indefinite quantifiers, the verb agrees with the preceding noun or clause. With singular or non-count nouns or clauses, use a singular verb:
One third of this article is taken up with statistical analysis.
All of the book seems relevant to this study.
Half of what he writes is undocumented.
About fifty percent of the job is routine.
All the information is current.
With plural nouns, use plural verbs:
One third of the students have graduate degrees.
Fifty percent of the computers have CD-ROM drives.
Many researchers depend on grants from industry.
With collective nouns, use either singular or plural, depending on whether you want to emphasize the single group or its individual members:
Half of my family lives/live in Canada.
All of the class is/are here.
Ten percent of the population is/are bilingual.
we can't use a that noun clause with the word directive, just as we cannot with order
1)Parallelism (Apples + Oranges)
This error is not a frequently encountered error, but it is worth knowing and practicing such errors. In such sentences, generally two things or items are compared.
a.When the sentence compares two items. Ask yourself, can they be really compared?
b.When the sentence compares two actions as well.
Usually, the problem is with hidden comparison where two things or actions are compared, but another two items or actions are intertwined and you lose the comparison relationship.
Example: “Synthetic oils burn less efficiently than natural oils.”
The sentence is wrong because we are trying to compare how well each oil burns and not the oils themselves. But do you see how the actual thing being compared is easily missed?
2)Quantity Words
i.The words measuring quantity may be used incorrectly. For example, when comparing two items, it would be inappropriate to use “among” to compare them. Here’s a chart:
2 items if more than 2
Between among
More most
Better best
Less least
ii.Items that can’t be counted should not use quantity words. For example, you can’t say “fewer soup”. Here’s a chart:
Non-countable words Countable words
Less fewer
Amount, quantity number
Much many
.When two distinct words or phrases are joined by the correlatives either, or, neither, nor, not only, but also, the number (singular or plural) of the word or phrase nearest to the verb determines the number of the verb.
§Example: Either his parents or he is bringing it (notice “is” is singular) This can be a confusing sentence because parents is plural, but we pay attention to he which is the noun “he” tells us that we need to keep “is” singular.
§Example: Either he or his parents are bringing it. Notice “parents” is plural and is the closest to the verb so we use “are” which is plural.
1)Idioms
Such sentences incorporate incorrect usage of idiomatic expressions. There are no rules. Really need good English familiarity.
Overall rule: If it’s not one of the previous 7, then it’s very likely an idiom expression test question. Watch for the prepositions (to, the, of, at, for, on, in, about, etc.,) changing among the answer choices. This usually implies an Idiomatic problem, if not a Parallel Construction problem
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