A Tricky Verb

Look at the last panel:

Should it be “bite” or “bites”?

I’ll make the correct answer more obvious:

• of those old ladies who bite
• one …who bites

Yes! the correct verb is “bites”! The plural “ladies” goes with the preposition, and the noun clause (who bites) refers to the singular noun, “one.”

The plural is closer, hence the mistake. This error is called “attraction.”

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This is a fairly common error, so the strip is worth mentioning, but the person who made the mistake would not have done it. Oh well, you wouldn’t have seen the strip if she had been her usual self.

The part about her not being a good driver is in character, though.

—but not much else. Remember, when it’s the object of a preposition (in this case “with”) we use “whom,” not “who.”

Nice little reminder, though.

Okay, they should make her look more glamorous, because she’s got good grammar technique! (Am I biased???) She’s suggesting they take out the plural to see how their sentence sounds.

The grammar rule is to use the objective case (me) after a preposition. We get this correct when the object is alone, but for some reason, people often don’t do this when they have a compound object.

Make her look more like my wife.

The young lady is not usually an example of good things in the Luann comic, but she illustrates a good point here.

You have permission to end a sentence with a “preposition”!

Actually it’s an adverb, or part of a separable verb, if you prefer. Use the search box on the upper right corner to see more posts on this subject.

Okay, so here’s the comic.

Maybe that last panel is a good illustration of why you can do this.