Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this in an email message.

Problem:
The apostrophe is in the wrong position.

Explanation:
The complete sentence was (quote) “I hope to see ya’ll next year.” (unquote).

A Texan wrote the email message, and I recognized what the writer intended to say.

But “ya’ll” — spelled Y-A-APOSTROPHE-L-L — is not the correct way to write the contraction for the way that Texans say “you all”, the informal plural of the pronoun “you” in some parts of the United States.

An apostrophe in a contraction indicates where letters have been removed.

No letters have been removed between the “a” and the first “l” in the word “all”.

So the apostrophe does not belong after the “a”.

Instead, the apostrophe belongs where the letters “o” and “u” have been removed from the word “you” in the forming of the contraction.

Solution:
“y’all”

I heard this the other day, and it struck me as odd — mostly because there is a bad habit among many American children to say “mines” instead of “mine”.

Problem:
A pronoun may not be converted into a possessive simply by adding apostrophe-”s”.

Explanation:
The archaic use of the word “mine” as a pronoun is as a substitute for “my” — as in (quote) “Mine eyes have seen the glory …” (unquote).

But the word “mine” as a pronoun has two modern meanings:

1. a predicate-adjective form of the possessive case of the pronoun “I”, as in (quote) “The green car is mine.” (unquote);
2. something belonging to me, as in (quote) “Mine is the purple towel.” (unquote).

I am unsure whether the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine’s mother” (unquote) more closely follows definition #1 or definition #2.

Concentrating on the first part of the phrase, one could argue that the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine” (unquote) follows definition #1 because one could say (quote) “The student is mine.” (unquote).

Or one could argue that the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine” (unquote) follows definition #2 because one could say (quote) “Mine is the student.” (unquote).

No matter which argument makes more sense to you, it is clear that “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine’s mother” (unquote) is a pronoun.

And a pronoun may not be converted into a possessive simply by adding apostrophe-”s”, so the phrase must be rewritten.

Solution:
“the mother of one of my students”
OR
“one of my students’ mothers”

Reader Rick Mallonee submitted this one to me a few days ago.

Problem:
“Myself” is the wrong pronoun.

Explanation:
Rick wrote to me four days ago (Thanks, Rick!) that he heard (quote) “Please send it to Joe and myself.” (unquote) in a meeting.

This sentence is an imperative.

The speaker is imploring the listener to send something to Joe and to him.

This sentence can not be reflexive because the speaker is not talking about something that he is doing for/by himself.

“Myself” is a reflexive pronoun, so it is not the correct first-person-singular pronoun here in this non-reflexive sentence.

Instead, “me” is the correct pronoun.

To confirm this, imagine the speaker asking the listener to send something only to him: “Please send it to me.”

Adding “Joe and ” has no effect on the pronoun; “me” remains the correct pronoun.

Solution:
“Please send it to Joe and me.”

My wife saw this on Amazon.com.

Problem:
The reflexive pronoun is triply misspelled.

Explanation:
My wife was researching a carpentry tool on Amazon.com.

She was reading comments from those who had bought the tool when she came across (quote) “The tool it’s self seems …” (unquote).

The obvious solution is to replace I-T-APOSTROPHE-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F with the reflexive pronoun “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

What fascinates me is how the commenter managed to make three spelling mistakes in the process of misspelling this pronoun.

1. Mistake #1 was to assume that reflexive pronouns are always formed by combining a possessive pronoun with the word “self”.
2. Mistake #2 was to assume that a space should appear between such a possessive pronoun and the word “self”.
3. Mistake #3 was to misspell the possessive pronoun “its” as I-T-APOSTROPHE-S.

Let us discuss these three mistakes in reverse order.

If we undo mistake #3, then we get “its self” — spelled I-T-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #2, then we get “itsself” — spelled I-T-S-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #1, then we get “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

Solution:
“The tool itself seems …”

I saw this in an email message from a personnel department.

Problem:
The space between “every” and “one” does not belong.

Explanation:
The complete sentence in the email message was (quote) “The supervisors will hold a short meeting to advise every one of housekeeping items and scheduling information.” (unquote).

(Quote) “every one” (unquote) — with a space between “every” and “one” — is a noun phrase that means each person or thing.

An example of the correct use of “every one” (with the space) is (quote) “Every one of the plants had turned brown.” (unquote).

(Quote) “everyone” (unquote) — without the space — is a pronoun that means everybody in a group.

An example of the correct use of “everyone” (without the space) is (quote) “Everyone likes an end-of-year bonus.” (unquote).

Solution:
“… to advise everyone of housekeeping items …”

I have been contemplating these two imperative constructions for the past several days.

Question:
Are both constructions correct?

Explanation:
The verb “Give” in either construction is the imperative verb.

The phrase (quote) “the money” (unquote) in either construction is the direct object.

The pronoun “us” in either construction is the indirect object.

In other words, the speaker of the sentence is telling the listener to take an action (”Give”) with a direct object (”the money”) on behalf of an indirect object (”us”).

So you might wonder why the preposition “to” is required in one construction and is NOT required in the other construction.

According to the discussion about the dative case in English at Wikipedia, the indirect object of an action does not have to be expressed with a preposition such as “to” or “for”.

In other words, the objective pronoun “us” may immediately follow the main verb and be used in a dative manner, as long as that verb has a direct object, too.

So the preposition “to” in (quote) “Give to us the money!” (unquote) is optional in current English usage.

This gives [to] us the answer to the original question.

Answer:
Yes, both constructions, along with (quote) “Give to us the money!” (unquote), are correct.

I saw this in an email message.

Problems:
1. A direct object is missing.
2. The wrong preposition was used.

Explanation:
The email message included an attached announcement about a reorganization.

The writer sent the email message to the people near the top of the new organization.

She wanted to make sure that everyone in the new organization — all Americans — got the news.

Even if we convert the chiefly British preposition “amongst” to the more common preposition “among”, we still do not have the solution.

(Quote) “Please distribute among your team.” (unquote) still has two problems: (1) a direct object is missing; (2) the preposition “among” does not go with the singular noun “team”.

The solution to the first problem is to put the pronoun “this” immediately after the verb “distribute”.

The solution to the second problem is to replace the preposition “among”, which requires three or more parties, with the preposition “to”, which requires a minimum of one party.

Solution:
“Please distribute this to your team.”

I started to think about this comparison after hearing someone say (quote) “meet up with” (unquote) a couple of days ago.

Problem:
Only two of these three are proper English.

Explanation:
I recently heard someone on the radio say (quote) “I was going to meet up with Chris in Galveston.” (unquote).

This sentence contains an unnecessary preposition. The expression (quote) “meet up with” (unquote) means exactly what (quote) “meet with” (unquote) means but contains the unnecessary preposition “up” and therefore is not proper English.

In contrast, (quote) “meet with” (unquote) is proper English but does not mean what (quote) “meet” (unquote) means.

• If I (quote) “meet John” (unquote), then he and I interact with one another for the first time.
• If I (quote) “meet with John” (unquote), then he and I already know one another and are having another meeting together.

Solution:
Use (quote) “meet” (unquote) for an initial, introductory meeting between two parties. Use (quote) “meet with” (unquote) for subsequent meetings between two parties. Avoid (quote) “meet up with” (unquote).

I read this somewhere recently.

Problem:
The sentence uses the wrong relative pronoun.

Explanation:
The word “which” — spelled W-H-I-C-H — can be used as a relative pronoun to represent a specified antecedent.

Here are two examples of the correct use of “which” as as relative pronoun:

• In a nonrestrictive clause: (quote) “The movie, which I saw last night, was boring.” (unquote)
• In a restrictive clause: (quote) “The religion which John preached was unacceptable to many.” (unquote)

The problem with “which” as a relative pronoun in (quote) “They are the people which pay the bill.” (unquote) is that “which” is supposed to refer to inanimate objects and to animals but not to humans.

The correct relative pronoun for referring to humans is “who”. This gives us the solution.

Solution:
“They are the people who pay the bill.”

I heard this from someone the other day.

Problem:
The word “ones” is unnecessary in this phrase.

Explanation:
The individual said a sentence such as (quote) “Those ones are bigger.” (unquote).

The word “those” in the phrase (quote) “Those ones …” (unquote) is acting as a determiner.

Other examples of “those” as a determiner include:

• (quote) “I like those chocolates.” (unquote)
• (quote) “Do you want those tickets?” (unquote)
• (quote) “He should give her those flowers.” (unquote)

Also, it is possible to pluralize the singular numerical pronoun “one”, as in the following examples:

• (quote) “I like the vanilla ones.” (unquote)
• (quote) “The ones in green are tickets for the front row.” (unquote)
• (quote) “Are the pink flowers the ones that he wants?” (unquote)

However, when the word “ones” is preceded by a plural determiner (such as “those”), it is best to drop the word “ones”, thereby converting the determiner “these” into a demonstrative pronoun, as shown in the following examples:

• (quote) “I like those.” (unquote)
• (quote) “Do you want those?” (unquote)
• (quote) “He should give her those.” (unquote)

Solution:
“Those …”