In informal spoken English, one encounters sentences like this:     ?That's the man who I wasn't sure where he had gone.   This construction doesn't strike me as quite right because it sentence includes not only the relative pronoun who but also the relativized pronoun he. In more typical relative phrases, the relativized element is deleted: _That's the man who was lost, not *That's the man who he was lost. In who I wasn't sure where he had gone, though, the relativized pronoun is in a nested relative clause introduced by where, which inhibits the deletion: *That's the man who I wasn't sure where had gone doesn't work. If the nested relative clause is introduced by that, one can't delete the relativized element and preserve that: That's the man who I thought was lost or ?That's the man who I thought (that) he was lost, but not *That's the man who I thought that was lost. But where, like most subordinators but unlike that, cannot be omitted when it introduces a relative phrase.  There's often no good alternative to these constructions, though. My ?who I wasn't sure where he had gone example might be recast as That's the man whose whereabouts I wasn't sure of, but this means something subtly different and requires turning the simple verb gone into the clunkier whereabouts. (Many alternatives to these constructions require changing the secondary relative clauses into verb nominalizations, similarly, and any good style manual warns against overuse of verb nominalizations.)  So, two questions: (1) Are constructions that repeat relativized elements in relative phrases ever acceptable in formal writing? (2) If not, am I missing a good standard method of recasting these constructions as something unambiguously grammatical?
11333
"Give him a box that everyone knows what it contains."  Is this correct English? It sounds wrong to me.
43872
The grammars I've seen state that dependent clauses never undergo inversion. This agrees with sentences like     Tell me where he is.   But how sentences like     Tell me, where is he?   should be analyzed? Isn't where is he a dependent clause in this case?
73669
I searched for  and found many example where &quot;that&quot; is omit. So my question is, is &quot;that&quot; unnecessary when paired with &quot;what happened is?&quot; Example sentence (with a small tense change):  What happened was (that) I got into an argument with my co-workers, so I headed back home alone.
72484
Once again, a problem encountered while marking German pupils' exams. We teach them the following rules:     A present participle can be used to shorten an active relative clause:         The boy who was driving the car didn't stop = The boy driving the red car didn't stop         A past participle can be used to shorten a passive relative clause:         Strawberries which are grown in California are delicious = Strawberries grown in California are delicious.      While marking, I encountered several problems. For example, why does this not work:     The girl who has black hair is in the corner   NOT   The girl having black hair is in the corner   or     That's the man who is happy to be here   NOT   That's the man being happy to be here   Does this all have to do with:   the verbs have and be? (But "The girl, being happy, phoned her friend") the continuous and simple forms? (But "We help people who live in ghettos = we help people living in ghettos") the tenses?    Or what? I'm totally stumped by this problem and do not know how to explain the pupils' mistakes to them. The problem seems to occur mostly with the use of the present participle. Who can help with some explanations or even better, specific rules!
97395
Somebody once observed two things:   people often omit the relative pronoun "who" or "whom" to avoid having to worry about which is grammatically correct however, in all cases where it can be omitted, it is "whom".   But look at this sentence:     I have a friend I hope will come.   Would you consider this to be grammatical, and therefore a counterexample to the latter point?
108642
I was in a Teacher's selection for a school in my country, and one of the coordinators said that she heard a mistake from another teacher that was unacceptable. I tried to figure out why was that, but I thought it was silly and forgot about it. Then I was asking about the weekend in my classroom and one of my Ss said the same sentence. I corrected him according to the coordinator, as she is way more experienced than me, but I couldn't actually explain why to him. The sentence was:     I went to the church.   I can't see the mistake in this sentence if the church had been previously mentioned in the context of the conversation. I understand, as a non-native speaker, that if you are talking to a person that doesn't have any idea of where you were and doesn't have any previous information about the specific place, the article 'the' should not be used. Also, I am assuming church as a count noun. So instead, we would say:     I went to a church.   Is it correct to use the indefinite article since I don't have any idea of which church he is talking about?   I made a research about it and found that places that people use in common (like school, church, hospital, work) but are not necessarily the same, we would omit the article, so we would use the sentence that the coordinator accept:      I went to church.   Like this sounds strange to me, but since I am not a native speaker, I think that it is OK.   I really don't think that it was an unacceptable mistake, since the use of the article will depend on the context. So, if I am talking to my student, asking what he did last weekend and we were not talking about anything before, which one should he use?
91962
According to      there         adverb          in or at that place (opposed to here ):      She is there now.         pronoun          (used to introduce a sentence or clause in which the verb comes before its subject or has no complement):      There is no hope.   Then, what element is there in:     There is the man.   I'm confused because "There is the man" is an adverb inversion, in which there is an adverb and "the man is" is inverted. But according to the definition above, there suddenly becomes a pronoun.
80939
Why is this sentence wrong?     He went to home.   is it correct in this way?     He went home
14504
I know the "omitting-rules" regarding the relative pronouns who/which/that and whose. How does it work with where and when? In the first sentence I cannot omit where but I can easily omit when in the second sentence. What is the rule?   I saw John in the shop where you bought your brown T-shirt. I met Laura on the day (when) I missed the train to Barcelona.
114170
Iv'e never understood what is the difference between the  "it" and the demonstratives "this" and "that".   To be precise, I understand well the difference between those two demonstratives ("this" and "that"). "this" is used for when being close physically or when pointing on the object, and "that" is used for when the object is far or no pointing it. But I don't understand the difference between these two ("this" and "that") and the pronoun "it".    N.B. The same question I can ask about the pronoun "they" and the demonstratives "these" and "those", but in this case "they" is used both for human beings and all the rest, unlike the pronoun "it" which is used for everything except about human being.
69156
“I guess it was Cal asked Lee.” (Aron, born in California) . . .   . . . “That’s a smell could raise me out of a concrete grave.”   (Adam, born in Connecticut) (John Steinbeck, East of Eden)   In the ‘it is’ or ‘there is’ constructions, relative pronouns can be omitted, says my Korean grammar book. In this context, is the second sentence an example of regional dialect?
56149
I'm not a native english speaker, so even though I'm decently proficient at it, I don't really "know the rules" sometimes, and this is one that's been confusing me for a long time.  Which one is correct in each sentence?     If the movement [was/were] to continue uncorrected, the tower would   one day topple.      If I [was/were] rich, I would buy a yacht.   NOTE: I care not only about the case of "I", but also "she", "them", "it", etc, as in the example of the tower. Would it be any different if instead of the tower, it'd be me who'd topple if uncorrected?  I'm pretty sure it's "were" in both cases. That's what they taught me, I think. I started to doubt when I saw a lot of "was", but it sounded like the typical intentional mistake used "stylistically". ("If I was a rich girl...")  Then I saw it some more and thought it came down to an American/British English difference (I was taught British, in theory, and most of what I read is American).    But that tower sentence came straight from "The Guardian"...  When do you use was and when do you use were?
47718
"Before the war, you always think that it's not you that dies."   - Ernest Hemmingway    I'm having trouble diagramming this sentence. My question is about the subordinate clause in bold.  Is the extraposed that-clause("that dies") at the end the subject or an adjective of the subject?  When you un-extrapose it, would it be : "that it that dies is not you" or " that that(who) dies is not you."?
117257
We look at the kids which/that/who skillfully use tablets with the help of their small fingers and we understand that to surprise the younger generation will be more difficult each year.   Is the relative pronoun which acceptable here, or does it look totally out of place, because it befits a "non-restrictive relative clause" more?   It seems to me that the pronoun that looks best in the bolded position, with who an acceptable second choice. But it's hard to pin down why.
37027
It is common to say "What happened to him (or somebody)?" to inquire about somebodies' whereabouts. But is it right?   In my opinion, it should be "What was happened to him?" or "What did happen to him?", even it can be "What had happen to him (before today)?" Am I wrong in this understanding?
66826
I have two sentences:          John, Jane, and I went to the party.     He and I went to the party.    But I think there is a rule that says a pronoun at the end of a list should be in a special form (for "I", the special form is "me").  So, my sentence 1 and 2 should be rewritten like this:        John, Jane, and me went to the party.     He and me went to the party.    But in a lot of writing, sentences like sentence 1 and 2 are used instead of sentence 3 &amp; 4.  Is there a special rule that allows not using "me" for sentences similar to 1 and 2 for casual writing?
20568
"Essos is an immense landmass located to the east of Westeros,   extending into the far east of the known world." (Here, "extending"   describes the Essos or does it describes the landmass? )   Having seen this sentence above, I question came to my mind.   Can I use participles to modify the subject of the main clause when there is no connection between main clause and participle clause. For example:      1- "He is a bookworm, living in Canada. (He is a bookworm + He lives in   Canada, there is no connection between being bookworm and living in   Canada)      2- He, living in Canada, is a book worm. (I suppose, this placement would be more correct)