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Продвинутый English Advanced English Newsletter #179


A warm welcome to all subscribers! Здравствуйте, уважаемые подписчики!
Выпуск #179
"ПРОДВИНУТЫЙ ENGLISH" 10/11/21
Электронные записки для изучающих английский язык
Dear subscribers!

Recently I came across this interesting collection of the most confusing rules of English Grammar: https://www.rd.com/list/most-confusing-grammar-rules/. Most of these rules are actually less than confusing to me, and they are probably so to many of those who first learned English by books. However, I found it really interesting that "none" can be both singular and plural. In a nutshell, if the subject of the sentence is an uncountable noun, use a singular verb e.g. "None of the wine is left", and if the subject represents a concrete number of people or things (so you can count them), a plural verb is OK e.g. "None of my brothers are coming for dinner".

Similarly, "neither" is usually singular e.g. "Neither my brother nor my sister is responsible for the mess" or "Neither of them is responsible for it". However, if one or both of the subjects is plural, the verb is pluralized: "Neither Modern Talking nor the London Boys are performing tonight".

Also, I was a bit surprised to read that distinguishing between relative pronouns "which" and "that", namely that the former should only be used with a comma... is like "some deep-cut grammar pedantic-ness" and people don't really adhere to this rule. I remember I had always wanted to edit it in formal writings of others until I eventually gave up on that one day (as it was so much of it). I still automatically follow this rule in my own writings. In contrast, years ago I stopped using "data are" just because "data is" is shorter and not really incorrect... data is unprocessed information, and if the latter is singular so is the former. Also, the plural of datum is datums, not data, at least in the modern world we are living in now.

Best regards,
Andrey Kostenko

Автор рассылки: Andrey Kostenko  (c) 2001-2021  

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