Sounds Wrong, Doesn’t It?

First speech bubble. It’s correct!

That “whom” sounds wrong because we’re used to hearing the subject of the sentence first. That ‘whom’ is really the object of “of.” You can also say that the “whom” is introducing the noun clause that’s the direct object of “know”!

To fix the word order a bit, you’d have:

Do you know of whom she reminds me?

Of course now you have a rather awkward question. I fear that “who” will become the only form to appear at the beginning of a sentence regardless of the word’s function in the sentence.

PS—If it were me, I’d write. “Hey! She reminds me of someone I knew.”

PPS—Since I ran into it today, here’s a strip that gets it wrong twice. Second panel:

PPPS—And here’s one where he gets it right. First panel.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

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A solecism is a mistake in grammar. Usually I say “goof,” but lightheartedness doesn’t seem appropriate for this solecism. It has to do with the verb “to hang.” Here’s the illustration; look in the lower right corner:

The past tense of “hang” is usually “hung.” But when you’re mentioning someone getting killed by being suspended by their neck, the word is “hanged,” whether suicide, execution, or murder. I see too many professionals using the wrong verb lately. If you’re talking about death, it’s “hanged.”

Not a pleasant subject, but at least get it right.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

…He’s being a jerk about it. This is why I regularly promise not to correct someone’s grammar unless they ask me to.

I gotta admit, he’s unlikely to forget his PIN, though.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

The rule he gets right has to do with the apostrophe when you want to make a word possessive.

If the word you want to make possessive ends in “s,” just add an apostrophe; don’t add another “s.”

Last panel:

But you pronounce the possessive as if that second “s” were there! So it sounds like “Joneses.”

A head locker room attendant is a janitor, right?

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

The previous post was mainly about the verbs lay and lie, but it made a brief reference to the transitive-intransitive dichotomy. Here’s an article that got it right, then got it wrong. Should help make the distinction clear.

First the headline, which is correct:

MSDN Magazine will publish its last issue, ending a Microsoft developer era

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/08/microsofts-msdn-magazine-for-developers-will-end-its-decades-long-run/#p3

And the article’s first sentence (it’s the subhead), which is incorrect:

The final issue of the print magazine will publish this November.

“Publish” is transitive! You always publish something! In this case they publish an issue.

• So to make that second sentence correct, they need to use either the passive (ick) by saying it will be published;
• Or they need to give the verb a direct object, saying something like they will publish the last issue this November.
• Or they could use an intransitive verb, saying the magazine will end in November.

See the difference? Good. Now you’re a grammar expert. For practice, go look for a few more examples.

I like pictures in these posts, so here’s a picture of the product that the magazine was all about.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.