Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
laziness, impatience, and hubris
 
PerlMonks  

comment on

( [id://3333]=superdoc: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??
The examples that you have given are now considered acceptable spoken English, but not formal English (although that is fast approaching).

They could be written more formally as:

Who does Kim think the coworkers want management to replace her with?

With whom does Kim think that her coworkers would like management to replace her?

and
Who does Kim think Carol hopes Jim says the coworkers want management to replace her with?

With whom does Kim think that Carol hopes that Jim says that her coworkers would like management to replace her

The grammar in the formal versions is more closely related to Latin grammar, but it introduces a stiffness into the construction that appears to be a dying trend. Forms that, 20 years ago, would have been considered errors, are now accepted practice and come more easily to the tongue, such as:

Ending a sentence with a preposition: Who ... with as opposed to With whom
and
The split infinitive: They could be more formally written as... as opposed to They could be written more formally as...

...and I am pleased that it is so. I love the flexibility of English, the fact that it is so adaptable, but it does make parsing it hell!

update jporter correctly pointed out that this is not a split infinitive

Clint


In reply to Re^4: The Germanic language form by clinton
in thread The Germanic language form by Win

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post; it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
    <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>
  • Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
  • Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.
Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others goofing around in the Monastery: (3)
As of 2024-04-25 19:49 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found