Latest Terrorist attempt

[Shawnee123]

From the guy who says "people that..." rather than "people who..."

You're not addressing "needs enlightened." To be = extraneous.

[DanaC]

I don't think the collective "us" you speak of needs enlightening

Might be more correct. Whether or not it should be 'need' or 'needs', I'm not sure. Having used 'us' as a collective noun rather than a pronoun, need may be correct. That's an area I always find difficult. Like for instance 'a number of us were/was ...' My natural speech inclination is to use were in that instance, because I'm referring to multiple people. But 'a number of people' could be considered singular. Same with 'team'. The team was on time/the team were on time.

'needs enlightened' jars with me. I don't think 'to be' is exrtraneous. That said, I just automatically insert that as I read it, so it really doesn't matter and certainly doesn't need correcting for it to be clear.

'people that' as opposed to 'people who' is a matter of dialect as much as it is a matter of grammar. Perhaps your ommision of 'to be' is also a dialectical matter.

[Shawnee123]

There was a day when I was very sure of my grammar skills. There was another thread in the cellar, the one about teams and such, that made me think differently. I don't remember anything from school!

I do remember something about "more nearly correct." REasoning was, you can't be MORE correct, so to say more correct is incorrect. It is "more nearly correct." I NEVER understood how that made more sense, or was more, ahem, nearly correct.

I give up on grammar. Let's fight about terrorists again.

[xoxoxoBruce]

People that, is grammatically correct.
The car needs cleaned, is not. :p

[DanaC]

*chuckles*
Actually, that makes sense. More nearly correct rather than more correct, I mean.
I still find grammar problematic. Primarily because my natural dialect is very different from standard (Queen's) English. But also because unless I am writing an academic paper, I don't give it so much thought.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

People that, is grammatically correct.
The car needs cleaned, is not. :p

People are WHOs, not THATs.


"Vegetables are sensual, people are sensuous."
--Dean Wermer's wife

(or is it the other way around?)

And, to transpose, it would have been "the car needs cleaning" since I said "needs enlightening."

I never said anything about cars being cleaned. I was talking about people being enlightened. Besides, I washed my car saturday and now it's filthy with road salt and road dirt and I bought new windshield fluid only to find no fluid is coming out and I was blind half the way home last night and, and, and...

Now, see. The fucking terrorists WON!

[xoxoxoBruce]

People I know are whos, people I don't know are thats. It's grammatically correct.:p

[Shawnee123]

Hell I don't know. Could be. I'm not even sure I'm me, right now.

:headspins:

[DanaC]

Actually, either 'who' or 'that' is acceptable and both are and have been in use for pretty much as long as the English language has existed in its modern (or nearly modern) form. As a quick rule it's generally more acceptable to use 'who' with people and 'that' with objects, but that rule is far from hard and fast.

[xoxoxoBruce]

At least not as hard and fast as she is.

[Shawnee123]

It's my ear that (who?) hates it.

I heard a commercial for some charity the other day:

"You never know how basic essentials are until you have none."

Um, what?

My ear picks up stuff it hates. I don't know if my ear is wrong or right most of the time. Stupid ear.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

At least not as hard and fast as she is.

Hard, not fast.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Not fast, Ms off-like-a-rocket? Pshaw.

[Shawnee123]

Huh? Quick temper, maybe. Fast, not. Two entirely different things. A person that likes 'em fast should know the difference.

[xoxoxoBruce]

No, no, sloooowww ride, take it eaaasssyyy.