Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 03:05:09 +0200 (CEST) From: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it> To: "Bruce A. Mah" <bmah@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Dima Dorfman <dima@unixfreak.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: docs/30203: description of security profiles in FAQ is just plain wrong Message-ID: <999306309.3b903445f411a@webmail.neomedia.it>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
[ redirected to -chat; PR is closed ] >> > - is enabled or disabled.</para> >> > + <para>The following table describes what each of the >> > + security profiles does. The columns are the choices you >> >> "...what each of the security profiles does". The verb (does) doesn't >> agree in number with the subject (profiles). Or something like >> that--you get the idea. I'm not an English teacher, so I probably got >> the terms all wrong. I changed 'does' to 'do'. >Actually, the subject is "each", which is singular. I'm pretty sure >Michael is right on this one. As others have pointed out, this is essentially correct. More precisely, "each of" is used before a pronoun or determiner (the, my, those...); the pronoun or noun is plural. As subject, "each of + plural expression" is *usually* followed by a singular verb; however, the verb can be plural in an informal style. The use of "each" makes us think of things/people "separately". This explains why "nearly every + countable noun" is preferred to "nearly each + (countable noun)"; it also explains the (normal) singular verb in the foregoing. > The prepositional phrase "of the security profiles" confuses things a > bit. A trick that my seventh-grade English teacher Mrs. Cantrell taught > me was to take out the prepositional phrase (which is optional in a > structural sense anyways) and see if the sentence still seems > correct...in this case, "each [...] does" vs. "each [...] do". Sorry, but Mrs Cantrell was plain wrong. :-) The reasons originate in syntax, as it were, interwoven with semantics, "a number of people are wrong" being a trivial counter-example. By the way, you may wish to browse http://www.english-usage.com/faq.html and look for "a number of" ;-) -- Salvo To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?999306309.3b903445f411a>