I was reading The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation. I came across a sentence: "In serious writing, this must be followed no matter how strange or awkward the results."
My question: can we add an "are," a "may be" or a "might be" at the end of the sentence? Why did the author not add one? How does the meaning change with and without an "are"?
The example sentence:
In serious writing, this must be followed no matter how strange or awkward the results.
could have any of "may be", "might be", or "are", added at the end of the sentence. The result would be grammatically valid, and the meaning unchanged. English usage allows this final auxiliary verb to be omitted. Whether to include any of these, and if so which, is a matter of style, not of grammar.
