Dragaera

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

Mark A. Mandel thnidu at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 11 11:47:19 PST 2005

--- Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > 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.

Seconded.

-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian,
   Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody
   a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
   [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]



		
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