I've seen those English dramas too, they're cruel

[venta]

I avoided all the BBC frothing about bad grammar the other day. Much as I like a well-placed apostrophe, the sort of people who say "I think you'll find you mean 'fewer'" are, largely, arses (up with whom one should not put).

However, a nice grammar quiz? oh yes, that sounds like fun. I can answer it and feel all smug. Except, of course, I disagreed with it.

Question 3: Read this sentence carefully. "I'd like to introduce you to my sister Clara, who lives in Madrid, to Benedict, my brother who doesn't, and to my only other sibling, Hilary." Which of the following is correct?

1. Hilary is male
2. Hilary is female
3. It's impossible to know from the context

Now, the BBC's answer is that Hilary is male, because there isn't a comma after 'brother'. Benedict is described as "my brother who doesn't [live in Madrid]", so there must also be another brother, and thus that brother must be only-other-sibling Hilary.

I claim the answer is morally 3: it's impossible to tell. Because I, for one, got so lost among the commas of that god-awful sentence that I was frankly quite bewildered enough by the end without worrying about whether Hilary was a boy or a girl. Good grammar aids clarity, it doesn't reduce English to a puzzle of whether you knew the rules well enough to divine the writer's intent correctly. If your reader has to count commas to understand your statement, you've already got it monumentally wrong.

Bah.

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(And the one about semi-colons is wrong too.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I took a dislike to the that/which question.

I've always thought saying "the car which ran me over" was fine. ("The car that ran me over" is also fine).

The obsession with "which" only being permissible after a comma is something I think of as a M$-ism.

This morning, Word took exception to the phrase "some of them chose their own names". Reflexive Pronoun Use, it said. Consider revising, it said. Sod off, I said.

I think I agreed with the answer to the semi-colon question, but didn't like their explanation.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, it is an MS-ism. To excuse them slightly, it's always been more of a thing in the US. But it's thanks to Word that it's become a thing over here too.

As usual, Language Log is informative and sensible!