78
From the sentence alone, it could mean either #1 or #2; there is no way to tell without context. #1 would be the more common meaning of this construction, but #2 is perfectly proper.
In this case, the previous paragraph makes it clear that Tom was happy (the term "boisterously" is used), and that Daisy and Gatsby were not. Therefore, #1 was intended.
...
57
I agree with this answer and this comment answer that say the original sentence is grammatical. Your proposed correction,
Popcorn is the only acceptable snack to consume while people are watching a movie
is no good. The inclusion of "people are" makes it sound like the people who are watching the movie are different from the people who should consume ...
24
In this case your seeming "double negation" is actually required for the meaning you wish.
Let's look at the sentence in a more standard format.
They could not catch the mouse because they are not cats.
As you can see, both the "none of them" and the "not" are necessary. Without one of them, the sentence is odd. This is because the negations are ...
19
It's very common to use a get-passive with married:
My wife and I have been living here since we got married.
Most passives use be, but other verbs are possible as well: Pullum lists come, get, go, have, hear, make, need, and see. Most of these are relatively uncommon and each one has idiosyncratic rules for when it's appropriate. In this case get is ...
18
Being a teacher, she likes children.
When I read this, I assume:
1) The woman is a teacher. She teaches for a living.
2) She likes children.
3) There is some relationship between her love of children and her profession. The exact nature of the causality is unclear – perhaps she got into teaching because she likes being around children, or perhaps she's ...
16
The sentence is grammatically correct as is. If you wanted to make it explicit, you could say
Popcorn is the only acceptable snack for people watching a movie.
or
Popcorn is the only acceptable snack for people to consume while watching a movie.
or
For people watching a movie, popcorn is the only acceptable snack.
I agree that the original ...
14
This passage is about a surprising event: one moment the glass is present, the next moment the glass is absent. This sudden event is the glass vanishing. Thus the important feature of the glass is that it is a vanishing glass: it is a glass that vanishes.
A vanished glass would be a glass that was present in the past, and is no longer there now. This ...
13
Are they still teaching the old 'long/short' vowels? If so, here's the rule:
If the syllable before the /-ing/ is pronounced with a 'long' vowel, leave the final consonant single (and delete any final silent /e/)
If it's pronounced with a 'short' vowel, double the final consonant.
It may help make this clearer if you explain that a vowel before a ...
13
It is grammatically well formed, but could be better punctuated, and the slight stress between the singular in the first phrase and the plural in the main clause can be eliminated:
Not being cats, none of them could catch the mouse.
The meaning is "None of them could catch the mouse because they were not cats."
There is no double negative; there are two ...
10
Note: I gave this answer before it was edited to provide additional context. At the time, the only phrase provided was:
Daisy looked at Tom frowning.
It's ambiguous and could be interpreted either way.
To make it explicit, one way or the other, you could do the following (the list is not exhaustive):
1a. Daisy, frowning, looked at Tom.
1b. Daisy ...
answered May 15 '19 at 17:21
Jason Bassford Supports Monica
27.7k2 gold badges36 silver badges58 bronze badges
9
During the time of the chapter, the glass vanishes, so the title uses a present participle. A title of "the vanished glass" makes it sound as though the glass disappeared before the action of the chapter started.
9
There are no immediate issues with the sentence that I can see. Adding in "while people are" is redundant, as it's implied that people are watching the movie while eating popcorn. Your dog or pet fish are not watching a movie and eating a popcorn, so you don't need to specify people.
8
In English the grammatical term gerund is used only for an -ING form which is employed as a noun. When an -ING form is used as an adjective or as a component of progressive verb construction it is called a participle.
Consequently, the way to tell what you should call a specific instance of an -ING form is to determine what role it plays in the sentence.
...
8
For verbs ending in 'el' such as travel, cancel, chisel, excel, fuel, funnel, grovel, label, marvel etc, remember that British English requires a double 'l' as in 'travelling', whereas American English does not.
8
NOTE ADDED TO ANSWER
The OP clarified that he/she wanted to know the semantic difference between these two phrases. I will maintain that, for the general reader, both sentences are generally considered acceptable, and the semantics are identical for practically all purposes. There are some subtle variations in style or meaning in which one form might be ...
8
This sentence is much more readable with the addition of a single comma:
Not being a cat, none of them could catch the mouse.
The clause "Not being a cat" applies to the subject of the sentence, which is "none". However, the pronoun "none" can mean either "not one" or "not any". If it means "not one", it's singular. If it means "not any", it's plural. ...
8
I generally agree with Jeff Morrow's answer (though only some linguists treat a gerund as just a way of using a participle: many regard them as different forms which happen to have the same shape).
But I wanted to address your 4 and 5.
In 4, learning English is indeed the subject, but that does not mean that learning in any way modifies English: if it did,...
7
- ing
Wikipedia has this to say on the usage of -ing
-ing is a suffix used to make one of the inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund,
and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective.
Uses
The -ing form of a verb has both noun uses and adjectival (or
adverbial) uses. In either case it ...
6
It seems that this should be grammatical; but in fact,
Participial perfect constructions like having fluttered are not employed as direct or predicate adjectives in English, although they can be employed as sentence adjuncts. It's just not idiomatic.
✲The having-fluttered moths ... must be expressed as The moths which have fluttered
✲The moths are ...
6
If you say:
Being a teacher, she likes children.
you imply that she is still a teacher. You wouldn't say it if she were retired or had changed jobs.
Having been a teacher, she likes children.
means she was once a teacher but she isn't any more.
Answer edited to take J.R.'s comment into account.
5
It is the present participle of 'to be'. Just like doing, running, crying, living etc it means 'in the process of'.
'He was being helpful', means ' he was in the process of helping'.
5
Hemingway's usage is ordinary, and deliberate.
Your rewrite would mislead the reader. In that position it would initially lead her to understand while in the sense although—“even though Mrs. Macomber did not smile at Wilson she did look curiously at her husband. If the reader succeeded in correcting this original misreading she would next ...
5
You've got it exactly right; remember has two different meanings.
With the gerund complement remember means recall (a prior eventuality):
I remember visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1997. = I remember that I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1997.
This means that remember with the gerund complement always has to some extent a ...
5
These are examples of reduced adverbial clauses,in which the subject and BE are deleted.
While we were exploring the paths of the program, we established ...
Any method which covers ... while it is avoiding path enumeration ...
This reduction is only permitted under two conditions:
The verb of the clause must be in a progressive form, or rewritable as ...
5
From here, you double the consonant when:
one-syllable words: if the word ends with a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern (sit -> sitting, get -> getting).
two-syllable words: if the stress is on the second syllable (begin -> beginning).
For your other words (ride -> riding, skate -> skating, write -> writing) the e is dropped and replaced by ing.
5
These are idiomatic:
I smelled you smoking out in the tool shed, you little twerp. I'm going to tell Dad on you. An eight-year-old shouldn't be smoking.
Did I smell you burning dead leaves last night? The breeze brought the scent in our window.
I smelled you frying fish.
I would not use "your" with any of those actions. But I'm not sure why. ...
5
It's not common usage, but I don't think it's ungrammatical. I think the hang up is that you don't hear someone saying things, you hear someone say things. This means that you take in the completed speech in total, not the speech in process.
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