grammar question

[susnfx]

Carbon paper "ancient"!?!? Hmph. I used carbon paper to make carbon copies for several years before ever having something that approximated a computer. Well do I remember the days of a letter with 12 carbon copies...you make a typo, get out the old piece of thin cardboard and put it behind the first carbon copy, erase with the typewriter eraser, move the cardboard behind the second copy, erase, and so on. Then breathe a sigh of relief, remove the cardboard, and hit the correct letter---only to find you forgot to backspace and now the correct letter is in the incorrect place. Shed a tear, get out the cardboard....

In my first job our pay as secretaries was based on how many pages we could type in an hour. The average was four and five was very good. I don't have a clue how many I could do now, with my computer and laser printer.

Cran, I have the same problem in a sentence our doctors use in almost every letter I type for them. Because they're allergists, they're concerned with how many and what type of pets are in the patient's home. They'll dictate this sentence: "There's a dog and a cat in the home." Well, when I type it, I stumble over it every time (going on 14 years now). This is a list of singular items, so is it proper to say "There are a dog and a cat in the home" or "There is a dog and a cat in the home?" The first is probably gramatically correct, but sounds terrible. (I should mention that in medical letters you don't use contractions, so even though the doctors dictate it as a contraction, I have to write it out.) I try wording it different ways ("Pets in the home include a dog and a cat") but I'm not entirely comfortable with that either.

Susan

[jim stone]

Well, suppose you wished them ill.

Would you say, May you both have an itchy nose?
Or would you say, May you both have itchy noses?

The former surely--the latter sounds as though
you are wishing each of them more than one
nose. That would be really mean.

[Jack]

Well, suppose you wished them ill.

Would you say, May you both have an itchy nose?
Or would you say, May you both have itchy noses?

The former surely--the latter sounds as though
you are wishing each of them more than one
nose. That would be really mean.

That's a good point.

[SteveShaw]

This is a list of singular items, so is it proper to say "There are a dog and a cat in the home" or "There is a dog and a cat in the home?" The first is probably gramatically correct, but sounds terrible.
Susan

I think the second is correct. You are saying that there is a dog and there is a cat. You are treating them as equal in the sentence but as separate items by the use of "and." You could say "there are dogs and cats..." or "there are dogs and a cat," but you can't say "there are a dog..." in what could be a stand-alone part of the sentence. If you get tangled by words like this (and who doesn't!), best not to fret but just to find another way of saying it.

[Whistlin'Dixie]

Like: "The patient has a dog and a cat in the home."

[Lambchop]

Well, I completely understand how it could comes across as "holier-than-thou" and I regret that. I'm not holy. I'm an evil sinner.

Now, that's the sin of vanity. It's a variant of holier-than-thou.

It's not just in writing. We also speak this way too, for what it's worth. We don't use titles or outward forms such as "Doctor" or "Miss" or "Officer" or any of the world's forms of address.

I've never heard Friends, here or elsewhere, doing it in any obvious way. Usually, they go for expressing themselves unobtrusively and in an down-to-earth fashion. It's so subtle as to require no explanation or announcement that it's happening.

[Flyingcursor]

I think the biggest point here is that regardless of where they are spending their summer, it will be the same summer, unless of course one of them is going to be time traveling and will be spending his or her vacation in the summer of 1261.

I think Byzantium had a switch of emperors about that time.

[talasiga]

whats wrong with..

MAY BOTH OF YOU have great summers?

Well, everyone one is going to have lots of summers unless they die this year. Get it?

I think the biggest point here is that regardless of where they are spending their summer, it will be the same summer, unless of course one of them is going to be time traveling and will be spending his or her vacation in the summer of 1261.

.......

I agree with your point but your argument is senseless.
It is possible to enjoy more than one summer in any one year
for those who travel across hemispheres.

The issue is what Cranberry means to say by his statement.
If Cranberry is simply wishing each of the persons a good summer this year then the first option is correct.

If each or any of the persons is crossing hemispheres and experiencing more than one summer this year, then, "a summer" is still correct because one is a sub-set of more than one.

The second option is incorrect because its ambiguity could mean that Cranberry's good wish is only realised if they do indeed enjoy two summers in the one year.

[Innocent Bystander]

Ah, subsidiary clauses!

There is a dog and a cat in the home.

There is a dog, and a cat, in the home.

There is a dog (and a cat) in the home.

There is: a dog, and a cat; in the home.

(doesn't anyone use punctuation anymore?)

How about:

A dog and a cat are in the home?

Or even:

In the home there is a dog and a cat?
Gee, that last one seems to explain it for me.

BTW, CC stands for "Courtesy Copy" these days. And BCC stands for Blind Courtesy Copy - like when you send a round-robin to all your mates but you don't want each mate to know who else you sent it to.
Even in the carbon copy days you would never send a carbon copy to anyone. They were for the files. There were legible, but only just. They looked terrible.
CC also stands for Cubic Centimetre. Go on - make something out of that...

[dfernandez77]

CC also stands for Cubic Centimetre. Go on - make something out of that...

Does it also stand for Cubic Centimeter? Nah! Different language.

Then if you asked Yoda, it would be...
"In the home dog and cat there is."
"Summer good one you will have."
Mandarin grammarified English.

[GaryKelly]

.
CC also stands for Cubic Centimetre. Go on - make something out of that...

The abbreviation for cubic centimetre is cc, not CC. But it's obsolete.

The SI unit of volume is the cubic metre, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_kilometre

[SteveShaw]

There is: a dog, and a cat; in the home.

Pray, in what circumstances would this construction ever be employed?

(doesn't anyone use punctuation anymore?)

Yep, me. I'm a pedant and a stickler when it comes to punctuation. I don't want to see our most expressive language degraded by those with sour grapes because they haven't bothered to master the rules. I also use spaces between words, though I don't want to go on about it any more.

[Innocent Bystander]

Yeah, but would Yoda have said

"Good Summers you both should have"?

or

"A good summer you both should have"?

(I think he would have said "A good summer you each should have, Dog and cat both! Now sleeping I am. Alone let me be, or a good smack in the mouth you will get.")

If people are ignoring punctuation and spelling, I'm not going to apologise about misusing case.

Then there was the nurse who was asked why she had only ever recorded one or two ccs input or output of fluids for any of the patients. And they found out that she thought that cc stood for "cup of coffee".

[amar]

CC
I thought that stood for carbon copy..

[FJohnSharp]

In Cleveland CC stands for Carston Charles.