Follow-on to the Previous Post

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.

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Whenever you have two (or more) of something in a sentence, they should share the same structure. For example, if you have a list, they should all be the same part of speech. Line items in bulleted lists should have the same structure. (I wrote about parallelism several times in the past. Look up “parallel” in the search box in the upper right corner.)

I’m not sure how this is wrong, but it’s wrong. The sentence has a compound direct object that doesn’t match itself:

This time around the threat is contained, but flight crews have detailed and practiced responses to more extreme problems.

Maybe it’s because the source is British. I Americanized the spelling.  https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/nasa-international-space-station-leak-iss-latest-alarm-soyuz-module-a8514291.html

“Detailed” looks like an adjective (a detailed response), and “practiced” looks like a verb (they practiced responses). Not the same. Bad. Maybe “detailed” is a verb? What is the sense of detailing a response? Is “practiced” an adjective? What’s a practiced response? I think the sentence is just plain not well written.

They could fix this with a simpler sentence; for example:

This time around the threat is contained, but flight crews have practiced detailed responses to more extreme problems.

One verb, one direct object. Nice. 

First, here’s the bad sentence:

Because it will be able to collect more light than any telescope every built, including light from the edge of the universe, the device will allow us to determine the distance of far-off objects from the Earth and their composition.

https://futurism.com/giant-magellan-telescope-construction/

(First, that “every” should be “ever.” This is a plain old typo, resulting from carelessness. Shame on the proofreader.)

The real mistake of writing in this sentence has to do with the phrase “their composition.” At first (careless) glance, it looks like a compound object of 
from,” which doesn’t make sense.

“Their composition” is part of a compound direct object of “determine.”

The sentence has two solutions:

• Put a comma after “Earth.” This separates “and their composition” from the prepositional phrase.
• Put “composition and” right before “distance.” That gives you “…determine the composition and distance of far-off objects…” Now put “far off” where it belongs, next to the preposition: “…determine the composition and distance of objects far off from the Earth.”

I prefer the second choice even though it’s more work. The sentence is smoother.

Oh. Here’s a picture of the telescope, scheduled to be completed in 2024.

I don’t run into correct whoms often, so I like to post them when I see one as good examples, The Lockhorns in this case.

The subject and verb are “you think,” which makes “whom” the direct object. Myself, I’d be a little more cheerful about that perfume ad…

He makes a good point about the comma, though. The construction with the comma is called “direct address.” Without the comma, it’s “direct object.”

Got if off of Facebook, and now I can’t find it to give credit.