BBC News's Grammar Quiz

[NickyJ]

How is it that you can explain what a gerund is and then misspell the plural? Raarrgghh!

Because I wasted too many "little grey cells" on the explanation to remember the punctuation.

 

[Souron]

I object to question 9. "I was sat in the chair" is a valid sentence. It means someone, like a school teacher or captor, physically put me in a chair.

 

[Souron]

I'm not sure that less/fewer can't cause confusion too.

"I work less hours" should mean the hours I work are shorter. (Not that I think you can work shorter hours, but I can't think of a better example, atm.)

"I work fewer hours" means I work for only, say, 5 hours instead of 8.

No, I think "I work less hours" has a different meaning for the word "hours" than the second sentence. Hours refers to the time you work, as in "what are your hours?", which is distinct from hours as 60 minute time segments. Hours of work could conceivably be considered an indiscreet quantity roughly synonymous with "shifts", so the first sentence could be said to be correct, and subtly distinct in meaning from the second. Of course the grammatical distinction here does not imply a practical difference in what's described.

Shorter hours of course means the same as less hours, or "a shorter shift".

 

[Borachio]

But you see it's a gross misuse of the word hours. You seem to be trying to make hours mean time. And in some languages it may well be possible. Though strictly speaking not in modern English, atm.

However, usage is king. And whatever any person's feelings about what is correct, or not, are, language has its own agenda and will go in whatever direction it chooses. It simply can't be controlled, despite it being used by everyone.

 

[Souron]

But you see it's a gross misuse of the word hours. You seem to be trying to make hours mean time. And in some languages it may well be possible. Though strictly speaking not in modern English, atm.

However, usage is king. And whatever any person's feelings about what is correct, or not, are, language has its own agenda and will go in whatever direction it chooses. It simply can't be controlled, despite it being used by everyone.

Not time, an indiscreet quantity synonymous to shift. "What are your hours?" is a way of asking "from when to when do you work?". And work specifically; recreation time would not be called hours. I consider this a common use of the word.

You're right, usage is king. However a person's feeling are relevant, because they explain how that person would use the word. Language is a strange beast because there is no supreme authority to it. It is dictated by what a significant portion of speakers use and understand. Coin a word, and get enough people to use it the same way, and the word becomes part of the language.

 

[El_Machinae]

Am I gerunding 'gerund' right now?

Present participles aren't gerunds, iirc.

So, no?

 

[Souron]

So, no?

I thing the answer's yes. Gerund is a noun. You added "ing" to make it a verb.

In contrast "playing" is not a gerund, because play is a verb.

 

[Kennigit]

seven

 

[Borachio]

I've read about gerunds several times. But it's quite an uninteresting topic to me, so the information just goes straight in and out again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerund

the gerund is a non-finite verb form used to make a verb phrase that can serve in place of a noun phrase. The English gerund ends in -ing (as in I enjoy playing football); the same verb form also serves as the English present participle (which has an adjectival or adverbial function), and as a pure verbal noun.

Am I gerunding 'gerund' right now?

And we gerund the F-word all the time. There's a pun in there, I'm sure.

I don't think "gerunding" is a verb phrase serving as noun phrase there, so no. But that's only my opinion. Hang on. NO! It could be yes.

I'd be inclined to say "I am gerunding" is the present continuous verb form. But then I wouldn't see any fundamental difference in structure between "I enjoy playing" and "I am playing."

The trouble is, I think, that language came first and grammar (as in that written by grammarians) came second to the human mind.

But in "I am gerunding" the verb "to be" is playing the role of auxiliary (and "gerunding" is the present participle), whereas in "I enjoy playing" "to enjoy" isn't an auxiliary verb.

So what's my "final" guess? It's no, "gerunding" isn't a gerund in "I am gerunding". But in "I enjoy gerunding" it would be.

edit: UNLESS by "I am gerunding" you don't mean that you're gerunding at the moment but that you are in actual fact gerunding, itself. Does that make sense? Probably not. To be honest I don't understand what "I am gerunding" could mean in either case.

 

[Luckymoose]

6/10, but I misread a couple of them.

 

[Lighthearter]

Got Hilary and "That vs Which" wrong. The only one I had to guess on was Imperative, Gerund or Model because I've never heard of that stuff before today.

So, in short, 8/10. Not bad.

-L

 

[Evie]

9/10, missed the gerund one.

LoL. Wouldn't have thought this would be my 6000th post.

 

[Azale]

6/10 looooool

I suck.

 

[madviking]

9/10

messed up may/might

 

[Optical]

9/10. The Hilary one got me as well.

 

[phoenix_sprite]

7/10

Not bad, could be better. I need to revise my grammar.

 

[DroopyTofu]

8/10. I didn't think it was too hard, but I'm drilled on this stuff frequently in high school english classes so it's all fresh on my mind.

 

[metatron]

"Hilary" was the one that was contradicted by a later question. The Hilary question used "which" to introduce a restrictive clause; indeed, it was the use of "which" to introduce a restrictive, rather than a non-restrictive, clause that gave the reader adequate information to answer the question. Question 7, however, claims that "which" should not be used to introduce a restrictive clause ("that" should be used instead). If the rule in question 7 is followed, then the original question was simply ungrammatical as written: parenthetical commas should be placed around the "which does not" part of the sentence, and thus nothing can be gleaned from it about Hilary's gender. There is, of course, no rule that prevents "which" being used to introduce a restrictive clause: it is merely a convention or style issue. However, if you are going to use that rule -- and claim that it is a rule -- then you should be consistent about it!

I got 10/10 btw (which is why I posted it here )

EDIT: Oh, wait, it's "who" in the Hilary question isn't it, not "which". I guess that means it's technically not contradictory. Okay, I'll let you off, BBC News Website Magazine Grammar Quiz...

10/10 and i was wondering what you were talking about all the time - of course it was "who".
Admittedly i took a guess at that question, like "this would be just weird enough to be English".
In German the ambiguity is unavoidable since the comma wound be mandatory no matter what you were trying to say.

This is of amazingly little use though. I do most of these wrong all the time (i never use "whose" for starters), but i can do stupid tests.
So i suffered through Latin for something after all.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

6/10

I only have one comment: people who use sentences similar to #3 should have their computers fried with an EMP.