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134 votes

Syntactical problem? Musk's tweet "I Am Become Meme, Destroyer Of Shorts"

It is a parody of I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. Constructions such as "I am come", "He is become X" were used in English several centuries ago but are now obsolete in ...
Kate Bunting's user avatar
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62 votes
Accepted

Syntactical problem? Musk's tweet "I Am Become Meme, Destroyer Of Shorts"

"I am become" is an archaic perfect (= "I have become"). Here Elon Musk's phrase parodies a quote by Oppenheimer. Background to Parodic Reference Robert Oppenheimer was an ...
rjpond's user avatar
  • 23k
32 votes
Accepted

I hate mushrooms. How can you agree?

You use the form, not the negative meaning. Me too So do I. Either of these would be acceptable. Also He hates mushrooms, doesn't he? You would normally say this when you thought he ...
Kevin's user avatar
  • 7,994
28 votes

The grammar of "Stop Asian hate"

The difference between "Stop Asian hate" and "Stop white terrorism" isn't one of grammar, it's one of semantics. "Stop Asian hate" and "Stop white terrorism" ...
R.M.'s user avatar
  • 934
25 votes

Is "The two men Savchenko, an Iraq war veteran, was convicted of helping to kill were . . . " grammatical?

The sentence is difficult to parse because it has a long relative clause with no wh-word. In addition, the relative clause has an extra phrase in the middle. It may help to think about the sentence ...
Araucaria - Not here any more.'s user avatar
25 votes
Accepted

Grammar behind "Whatever what is is is what I want."

Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that. Whatever "what is" is, is what I want. (Second cup of coffee to the rescue.) Although is appears three times ...
TimR's user avatar
  • 121k
24 votes

The grammar of "Stop Asian hate"

If you drive in the UK, you'll see road signs that have one word on them - STOP - and this is perfectly acceptable. English learners are sometimes taught as a "rule" that a simple sentence ...
Astralbee's user avatar
  • 96k
21 votes
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“as would a calm dog whose yard…”

When she opened her eyes she saw a harbor seal, twenty feet in front of her, staring at her as would a calm dog whose yard she'd walked into. There's nothing missing from the basic construction. Your ...
BillJ's user avatar
  • 15.8k
21 votes

Syntactical problem? Musk's tweet "I Am Become Meme, Destroyer Of Shorts"

Also, another question is what does "destroyer of shorts" mean? TLDR: Elon does not like people who short sell stocks (aka "shorts" or "shorters") and is happy to ...
eps's user avatar
  • 860
17 votes

Can "Wow!" be a sentence?

Short answer: Yes, these are minor sentences. They consist of a single clause that's usually categorized under "minor clauses". Examples of minor clauses are optatives, conditional fragments, ...
M.A.R.'s user avatar
  • 7,351
15 votes
Accepted

"Her this behavior" vs "this behavior of her"

You should omit 'this' in the first sentence I don't like her behavior but that would be about her behavior in general. I don't like this behavior of hers. (note the extra 's' at the end – it's a ...
Glorfindel's user avatar
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13 votes
Accepted

Can "Wow!" be a sentence?

This question is anything but clear. It's muddled by design. :^) But I'll take a shot at it. NOAD defines sentence like this: sentence (n.) a set of words that is complete in itself, typically ...
J.R.'s user avatar
  • 109k
13 votes

“as would a calm dog whose yard…”

The seal was staring [in the same way] as a calm dog would [stare] when she had just walked into its yard. You are expected to 'understand' the missing words, which have been left out to make the ...
Kate Bunting's user avatar
  • 49.4k
13 votes

The grammar of "Stop Asian hate"

This isn't a matter of grammar, but of context. Grammatically it is ambiguous, and could mean either "stop hatred directed at Asian people" or "stop hatred perpetrated by Asian people&...
Especially Lime's user avatar
13 votes
Accepted

Is it correct to say "how-many-day a tour was it"?

"How many days was the tour" is the only option there that is correct. I'd still definitely prefer to use "how long was the tour". Edit: as Jack said, option 2 "How many days ...
Riolku's user avatar
  • 957
13 votes

What does "though somewhat dated, as, to a greater extent, are those..from the same decade" mean in this sentence?

Jack's various essays from the 1950's are still readable, though somewhat dated, as, to a greater extent, are those by Neville Braybrooke and Christopher Hollis from the same decade. Jack's essays ...
ColleenV's user avatar
  • 12k
12 votes

Grammar behind "Whatever what is is is what I want."

Grammatically, this can be summed up neatly by some ungrammatical use of parentheses: (Whatever (what is) is) is what I want. Each phrase in parentheses is a noun phrase and can be substituted by ...
Gregory Higley's user avatar
12 votes

Syntactical problem? Musk's tweet "I Am Become Meme, Destroyer Of Shorts"

I think Musk is referring to a quote made famous by Robert Oppenheimer. Upon witnessing the detonation of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer recalled a line from the Hindu sacred text "Bhagavad-...
Andrew's user avatar
  • 131
11 votes

Entry Was Gained

There are (at least) four reasons to use a passive construction. One, because you don't know who or what performed the action. "Entry into the house was gained through the basement." Perhaps we don't ...
Jay's user avatar
  • 62k
10 votes
Accepted

Why so many verbs in this sentence in the published book?

'come' here is not a finite verb, but a past participle used as an adjective modifying 'nightingale'. The original sentence could be expanded as: There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a ...
Paul Dexter's user avatar
  • 2,198
10 votes
Accepted

How to understand "…you like it the shape it is"

It is syntactically analogous to the way it is. I like it the way it is. That is, "as it is (now)". If you like the present shape of your nose, butt out. Would you like some more milk to cool ...
TimR's user avatar
  • 121k
9 votes

Is "have to" a modal verb?

Have to is not a modal verb, it is not even an auxiliary verb. In the have to structure have is a main verb: Examples: Declarative sentence: I [do] have to go Questions: Do I have to go? ...
Lucian Sava's user avatar
  • 11.4k
9 votes

Why so many verbs in this sentence in the published book?

In this case come is not a finite verb but a participle. If you want to paraphrase the clause it heads as a relative clause you should cast it in the perfect construction: . . . a nightingale ...
StoneyB on hiatus's user avatar
9 votes
Accepted

What does "though somewhat dated, as, to a greater extent, are those..from the same decade" mean in this sentence?

Jack's various essays from the 1950's are still readable, though somewhat dated, as, to a greater extent, are those by Neville Braybrooke and Christopher Hollis from the same decade. Parse 1: Jack's ...
Lambie's user avatar
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9 votes
Accepted

Why, in one simple sentence, there are two verbs?

In this case, open isn't a verb, it's an adjective. "The door is open" is like "the door is green", it's describing the state of the door, not an action. "Jerry kicked the ...
Darth Pseudonym's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

"Nothing is available, is anything?" Tag questions for negative sentences

The Original Poster has the right idea about the grammar here. When we have negative sentences, the question tags must be positive, not negative. One small, but important point though: usually, we ...
Araucaria - Not here any more.'s user avatar
8 votes

What is the subject in the sentence "Rice is being cooked by Mary"?

I thought that the subject is that which acts, and the object is that which is acted upon. This is often true in an active-voice sentence, but not in a passive-voice sentence. That which acts/is ...
StoneyB on hiatus's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

Is "I bought it because it costed ..." an idiomatic and grammatical phrase?

The reason you found so few results is most likely because cost is an irregular verb. The past simple (and the past participle, too) of cost is still cost, so the correct phrase would be: Naomi ...
Tobey's user avatar
  • 674
7 votes

"I want to understand what my options are" or "I want to understand what are my options"?

"I want to understand what my options are" is fine and sounds more natural to me. This version: "I want to understand what are my options" really stands as two, so could be separated by a full stop, ...
AdamV's user avatar
  • 363
7 votes
Accepted

grammar difference between "to make dry dishes" vs "to make the dishes dry"

The usual place for an attributive adjective is before the noun it modifies. When one appears elsewhere that's a signal that something else is going on, and it's probably not an attributive adjective, ...
John Lawler's user avatar
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