Stewart Gordon
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:08 pm
Post subject: Re: The phrase "which xxx to [verb]" is singular or plural? |
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T. Z. wrote:
| Quote: | Hi. Thank you for the comments.
The biggest question I had was:
The phrase "which xxx to [verb]" is singular or plural?
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Hard to tell, but....
| Quote: | 1. Which letter to send is a difficult problem.
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I think we want a gerund here....
1. Determining which letter to send is a difficult problem.
Gerunds seem to be always singular this far....
| Quote: | 2. Which conditions to apply is a difficult problem.
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Same here.
| Quote: | 3. Which licensing conditions to apply needs to be
determined.
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3. We need to determine which licensing conditions to apply.
| Quote: | 4. Which licensing conditions to deliver to the user
needs to be determined. (I'm not sure about this one.)
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Same here.
| Quote: | The clause "which xxx to [verb]" is like a
shorthand for "The question of which ...".
Is this true?
Where this is true, the phrase is singular.
snip |
Guess you're right. But omitting it sounds, to me, like a shortening of
"Whichever xxx we want to [verb], that xxx is....". Though rather
unidiomatic.
Stewart.
--
My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox, aside from its being the
unfortunate victim of intensive mail-bombing at the moment. Please keep
replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit. |
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