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ylboy
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:15 am
Post subject: A basic grammer problem |
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Dear Sirs,
Would you please advise me which verb I should use in the following sentence:
The milk and bread (is, are) my favorite food for breakfast.
Thank you. |
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Martin Ambuhl
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:15 am
Post subject: Re: A basic grammer problem |
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ylboy wrote:
| Quote: | Dear Sirs,
Would you please advise me which verb I should use in the following sentence:
The milk and bread (is, are) my favorite food for breakfast.
|
Taken as a unit:
Milk and bread is your favorite food (singular) for breakfast.
Taken as two kinds of food:
Milk and bread are your favorite foods (plural) for breakfast.
The initial 'the' can have a use, but it would be rarer than the above. |
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Bill Bonde ('by a commodi
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:16 am
Post subject: Re: A basic grammer problem |
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ylboy wrote:
| Quote: |
Dear Sirs,
Would you please advise me which verb I should use in the following sentence:
The milk and bread (is, are) my favorite food for breakfast.
The sentence doesn't make sense. How can you have the two favourite |
food? You can say: "Milk and bread are my favourite foods for
breakfast." Notice plural 'foods' and no definite article.
--
"Throw me that lipstick, darling, I wanna redo my stigmata."
+-Jennifer Saunders, "Absolutely Fabulous" |
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Adrian Bailey
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:59 pm
Post subject: Re: A basic grammer problem |
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"ylboy" <ylboy.tw@yahoo.com.tw> wrote in message
news:72339006.0504241840.2fa9d38b@posting.google.com...
| Quote: | A basic grammer problem
|
grammar
| Quote: | Would you please advise me which verb I should use in the following
sentence:
The milk and bread (is, are) my favorite food for breakfast.
|
The milk and bread are consumed as separate items: "Milk and bread are my
favourite food for breakfast."
The milk and bread are consumed as a single dish: "Milk and bread is my
favourite food for breakfast."
Adrian (UK) |
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Matti Lamprhey
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:09 pm
Post subject: Re: A basic grammer problem |
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"ylboy" <ylboy.tw@yahoo.com.tw> wrote...
| Quote: | Dear Sirs,
Would you please advise me which verb I should use in the following
sentence:
The milk and bread (is, are) my favorite food for breakfast.
Thank you.
|
In Britain we would probably say:
Bread-and-milk is my favourite breakfast food.
"Milk and bread" is not idiomatic in this context, especially not when
prefixed by "The". The hyphens aren't always added, but I feel the need
for them to emphasize that we are not referring to bread and milk as
separate items.
Matti |
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Carmen L. Abruzzi
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:19 pm
Post subject: Re: A basic grammer problem |
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ylboy wrote:
| Quote: | Dear Sirs,
Would you please advise me which verb I should use in the following
sentence:
The milk and bread (is, are) my favorite food for breakfast.
Thank you.
|
Milk-toast is my favorite breakfast.
But that's sad.
Try some pancakes with real maple syrup, or a couple of poached eggs
with your toast. |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:43 pm
Post subject: Re: A basic grammer problem |
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ylboy wrote:
| Quote: | Dear Sirs,
Would you please advise me which verb I should use in the following
sentence:
The milk and bread (is, are) my favorite food for breakfast.
Thank you.
|
I see that others have tendered their advice. All that remains for me to do
is to make use of a tag line I stole from another poster:
Questions about grammar are acceptable in this group. Questions
about grammer should be directed to alt.english.usage.
-- Peter Moylan (11/24/1997)
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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ylboy
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:18 pm
Post subject: Re: A basic grammer problem |
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Thanks for your help.
I did not raised a proper question. Actually, my question is which
verb I should use if the subject of a sentence is the combination of
two uncountable nouns. For another example,
The consuming time and power (is,are) heavy in that system.
From your kindly help, I think the answer is "are". Am I right? |
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Peter Moylan
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 7:17 am
Post subject: Re: A basic grammAr problem |
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ylboy turpitued:
| Quote: | Thanks for your help.
I did not raised a proper question. Actually, my question is which
verb I should use if the subject of a sentence is the combination of
two uncountable nouns. For another example,
The consuming time and power (is,are) heavy in that system.
From your kindly help, I think the answer is "are". Am I right?
|
Before answering this, we need to rephrase the example, because
the phrase "The consuming <noun>" is not idiomatic in English.
Here are two possible rewordings:
The consumption of time and power is heavy in that system.
["is", because the subject of the verb is "consumption"]
Both time and power are consumed heavily in that system.
["are", because the subject is the composite "time and power"]
As it happens, most native speakers of English would probably use
a completely different rewording that put "That system" as the
subject; but of course that change would avoid answering your
question.
Use "are" whenever the subject of the sentence consists of two
or more separate things. On the other hand, you must use "is"
when the two things are so closely bound together that they form a
single unit; for example, "whisky and soda is a popular drink".
--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software) |
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