1

Person1: Why is he dressed up so funny?

Person2: I don't know, may be what is the case with him is that he is going to some fancy dress competition.

Is the second expression grammatically correct?

Improve this question
2
  • Is there a specific concern you have about the grammar?
    – Andrew Grimm
    Feb 3, 2013 at 5:49
  • This is completely beside the point but perhaps is worth noting: fancy dress is close to unintelligible in AmE, where the term is costume, e.g. costume contest or Halloween costume. I only learned the UK term recently from Peppa Pig and the Guardian's sports section.
    – CynicallyNaive
    Jun 1 at 13:56

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
7

I'd change "may be" to "maybe".

It looks like you have two independent clauses joined by a comma. This is called a comma splice and is usually considered poor style. Personally, I'd write it as two sentences.

The phrase "what is the case with him is that" sounds awkward to me. I'm not sure it's ungrammatical, but it certainly sounds strange. I'd remove the phrase entirely.

Thus, I would write:

Person2: I don't know. Maybe he's going to some fancy dress competition.

Note that I changed "he is" to "he's". It wasn't wrong before, but I think it sounds a little less stilted this way.

Improve this answer
3
  • is this expression okay? I don’t know.What the case with him is that he is going to some fancy dress competition.
    – john mconore
    Feb 2, 2013 at 13:58
  • @johnmconore I'm afraid not. Removing "maybe" makes it sound like you're stating a fact rather than a guess. This contradicts "I don't know", so it doesn't make sense. Instead of removing "maybe", I would remove the awkward clause ("What the case with him is that"). Doing so makes it sound more natural without changing the meaning of the sentence.
    – user230
    Feb 2, 2013 at 14:50
  • 3
    What the case with him is isn't ungrammatical; it's just unnecessarily complicated, and sounds strange to at least this native speaker. The simple maybe example is what I'd say or expect.
    – barbara beeton
    Feb 2, 2013 at 14:52
5

No, to be grammatical it would have to be:

I don't know. Maybe the case with him is that he is going to some fancy dress competition.

But no native speaker would even say that. What you would be likely to hear is something like:

I don't know. Perhaps he’s taking part in some fancy dress competition.

Improve this answer
2

Here are a couple of options using similar wording with more conventional spelling and word order:

I don’t know. What the case may be with him is that he is going to some fancy dress competition.

I don’t know. Maybe what the case is with him is that he is going to some fancy dress competition.

A native speaker would more likely say:

I don’t know. Maybe he is going to some fancy dress competition.

Improve this answer
2
  • Many thanks for your answer, are the expressions provided by you correct? the first two ones
    – john mconore
    Feb 2, 2013 at 13:53
  • @johnmconore They are grammatically correct, meaning they follow the usual rules of English syntax, if that is what you are asking.
    – MetaEd
    Feb 2, 2013 at 14:01
2

There's a couple of things with that sentence that aren't quite right. Let's go through them one at a time.

Firstly, as some other answers have noted, "may be" should be changed either to "it may be [that he is going to a fancy dress competition]" or "maybe [he is going to a fancy dress competition]".

Maybe what is the case with him is that he is going to a fancy dress party.

The second problem is that the clause "maybe what is the case with him" is an invalid construction. Based on standard English word ordering, the phrase would be "maybe the case with him is that [he is going to a fancy dress competition]".

Maybe the case with him is that he is going to a fancy dress party.

In practice, native English speakers tend only to use the phrase "the case with [X]" in entirely hypothetical situations, such as "In the case that I saw a man in a chicken suit, I might assume that he was on his way to a fancy dress party". It's not common for native English speakers to use "the case" in concrete answers, preferring "Perhaps" instead.

Perhaps he is going to some fancy dress competition.

For example, "Maybe the case with him is that he's been ill for a week" would instead be phrased "Perhaps he's been ill for a week" by a native speaker.

Putting these together, we come up with a better sentence:

I don't know. Perhaps he is going to some fancy dress competition.

Finally, and this is a stylistic point, "some" is usually discouraged for countable nouns. More normally one would say:

I don't know. Perhaps he is going to a fancy dress competition.

Improve this answer
1
  • I don't think your point about some and countable nouns applies to AmE, at least not to colloquial AmE. In this usage the some would carry an implication of "some instance or other of this thing," i.e. I don't know anything about this specific competition but he told me he's going to it. That seems quite natural to me if that connotation is intended.
    – CynicallyNaive
    Jun 1 at 13:53

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .