Mea maxima culpa! This is what happens when I don’t
check my own examples. At this point, I’ll vow to use it as an extremely
effective humility-enhancer next time I want to scold a student for… doing
the same thing.
Perhaps “admissions office” would work?
--- Bill Spruiell
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John
Dews-Alexander
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
Yes, I agree. When I first read Bill's message, I understood
his intent and didn't even notice the problem with "accounts
receivable." Bill's statement, as I understood it, works just fine if we
replace the phrase in question with a clearly adjectival noun:
"Teacher, you said only nouns could be plural, but in
'the computers picture' the adjective seems plural."
I use this example because I said it today. I was reviewing
a marketing piece that contained pictures of various things: computers, office
supplies, people, etc. I quickly grew tired of saying, "The picture of the
computers" and switched to "the computers picture" (I noticed
that by the end of the conversation I simplified even more to "the
computer picture").
Just my intuition -- plural adjectival nouns are probably
less common than singular adjectival nouns. They do occur though!
John Alexander
On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 12:21 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
This is so unusual that I have
to respond, but I find myself agreeing with Brad. “Accounts
receivable” is one of those formulaic constructions we have in English,
some borrowed from French, like “courts martial,” “lobster
Newburg,” “steak tartar,” and also
“attorneys-at-law” and “brothers-in-law.” Of
course, those with phrasal modifiers, like the last two, have the order
they’d normally have in English.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Brad Johnston
Sent: 2009-04-02 10:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
one of the things that constantly causes
problems for anyone trying to teach the material (“You said only nouns
could be plural, but in ‘accounts receivable,’ the adjective
is”). Bill: this is incorrect. The noun is
"account" and more than one are "accounts". The
descriptive adjective is "receivable", often in standard accounting
referred to as "receivables", which is then a noun. The
accounts are "receivable accounts" but in the parlance of the
trade, they are "accounts receivable". I wonder if that makes it
clearer or less so. In any event, in "accounts receivable",
"accounts" is the noun. Just clearing the files and noticed
this. .brad.02apr09.
The book is so good in other
respects that I’ve continued to use it, using handouts to deal with the
form/function distinction. But, of course, then the students get annoyed
because I’m disagreeing with the textbook, and I get annoyed with them
because the last thing future teachers should do is view a textbook (or their
instructor’s comments!) as Holy Writ. Sincerely, Bill Spruiell From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of John Dews-Alexander Greetings, ATEGers! Someone (I believe it was Herb) recently suggested a book to me: Mark
Lester's (1990) Grammar in the Classroom. I'm not sure why I haven't
discovered this book before, but I quite like it and would suggest it to
anyone reviewing grammar texts. Even if you can't use it in your classroom,
you and/or your students might enjoy knowing about it as a
reference text. I find Lester's writing to be straightforward and
uncluttered. Has anyone actually used this as a classroom text for
teachers-in-training? If so, I'd be interested to hear about your
experiences. I went to the text specifically to find some more information on phrasal
verbs, information that wasn't overly technical for non-linguistic students
but also not overly simplified so as to ignore descriptive facts. I thought
I'd share here a few of the main points about phrasal verbs that Lester
includes.
John turned out the
light. (Noun subject+phrasal verb+noun phrase object) John turned at the
light. (Noun subject+verb+adverbial prepositional phrase) Say the
sentences out loud and notice the stress. In phrasal verbs the preposition is
stressed while it is not in the PP.
Hope all the grammar nerds enjoy this as much as I did! Regards, John Alexander Austin, Texas To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
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