One of the great mysteries of life for me was solved today. The lovely people over at fandom_grammar answered my question, which (though I didn't know it!) was about the use of possessives with gerunds
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I've lost sleep over wondering why people didn't know it, but not over the question. It's "our going." "Going" is the object (essentially, a noun). The possessive acts as an adjective, modifying the noun. I haven't checked out the link yet, but YAY, I'm so glad someone is setting people straight, because this one drives me crazy. (I saw an example of it just this morning in Fraser dialogue, and Fraser would not make this mistake.)
Wait, I'm an editor. Everything drives me crazy. :) I hope Fandom Grammar has taken on the great "may/might" problem. Almost everyone gets it wrong these days (people use "may" in the past tense! Grrr!) and it, er, drives me crazy. :)
I know why people don't know it-it's because there's a whole generation (or maybe more than one, and at least in Australia) that wasn't ever taught any grammar. We're supposed to have learned it all by osmosis. I've tried looking this up a few times, but not even known what I was looking for. If someone had just said "verbal noun", all would have become clear
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I'm sorry I worded that comment clumsily. My fault. *smacks self* I know we weren't taught grammar formally ("we" being more than one generation here in the US, too). I had to learn English grammar in French class, and then later in a college linguistics course. But I had a knack for usage because I read good books, and my parents were both English teachers who didn't tolerate bad grammar in their house. :0
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if you use "us," then "us" is the object...so what is the function of "going"?
It explains what the "us" are going to do: go! *g*
imagine ravening hordes of them living
I have no idea what the usage is called, but you're imagining the hordes of them, so it has to be "them", right? You couldn't imagine a horde of their living.
I've wondered before about a sentence like, say, "Aragorn thought of Legolas running over the rocks." He's thinking of Legolas, who in his mental image is running, not of Legolas' running? Or is he?
I'm sure I'd really enjoy learning this stuff, if I knew where to go. I frequently get tangled in unwanted tense changes and that's next on my list to try to sort out. (Feel free to point it out, if you notice my doing it (ha!) and have the time! I got tied in knots even in my thank-you comment to the fandom_grammar person who answered my question.)
At any rate, in my Ray-POV stuff, the grammatical errors are intentional, a stylistic choice. Maybe so much modern writing is about characters who would do
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Comments 13
http://www.stcustards.free-online.co.uk/topp/latin/latin2.htm
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Wait, I'm an editor. Everything drives me crazy. :) I hope Fandom Grammar has taken on the great "may/might" problem. Almost everyone gets it wrong these days (people use "may" in the past tense! Grrr!) and it, er, drives me crazy. :)
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It explains what the "us" are going to do: go! *g*
imagine ravening hordes of them living
I have no idea what the usage is called, but you're imagining the hordes of them, so it has to be "them", right? You couldn't imagine a horde of their living.
I've wondered before about a sentence like, say, "Aragorn thought of Legolas running over the rocks." He's thinking of Legolas, who in his mental image is running, not of Legolas' running? Or is he?
I'm sure I'd really enjoy learning this stuff, if I knew where to go. I frequently get tangled in unwanted tense changes and that's next on my list to try to sort out. (Feel free to point it out, if you notice my doing it (ha!) and have the time! I got tied in knots even in my thank-you comment to the fandom_grammar person who answered my question.)
At any rate, in my Ray-POV stuff, the grammatical errors are intentional, a stylistic choice. Maybe so much modern writing is about characters who would do ( ... )
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