Dragaera

"attraction" in grammar [was Re: House Pictures]

Casey Rousseau casey at the-bat.net
Mon Jan 10 10:44:29 PST 2005

Jerry Friedman wrote:
> 
> --- J C <greyw01f at hotmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> > So what's the correct way of saying this?
> > 
> > What universities am I applying to?
> > What universities are you applying to?
> > What universities are we applying to?
> > What universities are they appyling to?
> > What universities am he applying to????  heheheheeh  I hate english.
> 
> "What universities is he applying to?"  Because you say "He *is*
> applying to five universities."  The tendency to make a verb agree
> with the previous noun has been called "attraction", and a lot of
> people do it, but it's not part of standard English.
> 
> Jerry Friedman

Another way to arrange the question might make it clearer.

To which universities is he applying?
To which universities am I applying?  etc.

Which just goes to show you that your English teacher who railed against
dangling prepositions was really trying to help you.

Casey