Period Grammar

[Flyfisher]

Being blessed with the benefit of good old-fashioned schooling before everything in the modern went world when down the pan, I thought this little quiz would be a quick and easy way to reinforce my sense of superiority: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22512744

But that was before I only scored 8/10 (with one of them being a guess).

 

[tobydog]

Being blessed with the benefit of good old-fashioned schooling before everything in the modern went world when down the pan,...

FF - were there any questions on sentence formation? :wink:

 

[Flyfisher]

Right. That's it. The iPad is going in the bin!

I'm blessed with the ability to type reasonably fast, though sometimes faster than my ability to think. So I often revise what I've typed almost as I type it, which is fairly quick and easy with a standard keyboard but horrendously awkward (I find) with an iPad and with the added complication of its auto spelling correction butting in and mangling already-mangled words.

A poor excuse, I know, but there we are.

I'm a definite fan of the iPad as an output device but I have severe misgivings about it as an input device!

Meanwhile, you'll just have to read between my (poorly formed) lines.

 

[worms]

I'm a definite fan of the iPad as an output device but I have severe misgivings about it as an input device!.

Amen to that! And don't even think about trying to Output that which you have Input!

 

[Flyfisher]

Indeed, but this off-topic topic has been deflected too soon, even by PPUK standards.

I was rather hoping someone else would look at the quiz and explain why Hilary can be deduced to be male, because I don't really understand it even after reading the answer.

 

[worms]

They do say some of the questions are debatable, but without looking it up again, it is due to the presence or absence of a comma in the middle of the clause "my brother who doesn't" as opposed to "my brother, who doesn't". The first implies that there is also a brother "who does".

 

[Flyfisher]

Now that really is a very tenuous implication . . . to me anyway.

The initial disclaimer that there are 'no official rules for English' must surely make the recent introduction of SATS grammar tests a bit tricky? Or perhaps they won't burden 11 year olds with things like the 'Hilary' question?

 

[Zebra]

9 out of 10. But two were guesses, and the one I got wrong was indeed the one about Hilary.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Well, as an ex English teacher (probably not a very good one!) I got 8/10. But I don't agree with the distinction between may and might, and I don't agree that the sentence indicates Hilary is male.

A very hard quiz!

 

[Flyfisher]

Well that's a relief. An equal score with Joce is more than enough for me. :wink:

At least the quiz forced me to find out what on earth a 'gerund' is . . . .

 

[skier-hughes]

5 out of 10, guessed two right and new Hilary was male from reading this

 

[Matt Green]

The initial disclaimer that there are 'no official rules for English' must surely make the recent introduction of SATS grammar tests a bit tricky? Or perhaps they won't burden 11 year olds with things like the 'Hilary' question?

As the father of an 11 year old I can vouch for them not being as difficult as the BBC quiz, but are certainly on a par with grammar lessons I received aged 13 at a Grammar School. An institution that served me to little effect given that I managed only a meagre 7/10; failing to discern the difference between may and might and my combined ignorance of both a gerund and the gender of Hilary.

I was always more interested in science anyway. *sniff*

 

[Flyfisher]

I didn't realise that grammar pedantry could lead to medical complications . . . .

 

[piper]

Well, as an ex English teacher (probably not a very good one!) I got 8/10. But I don't agree with the distinction between may and might, and I don't agree that the sentence indicates Hilary is male.

9/10 - and I'm very embarassed at missing the semicolon/colon distinction. I didn't read it carefully enough. The Hilary question is a good one - he says smugly - I think the punctuation does indicate he's male, but it's a bit forced, and English does suffer from having to use punctuation where an inflected language with cases etc. would make such accuracy far easier.
I also know about Gerunds, though as a long-ago ex Latin teacher I'm now bit hazy about the difference between them and Gerundives.

 

[tobydog]

I know you're all desperate to know how Penners managed. I got as far as 2 out of 4 before thankfully getting called to a meeting. I now feel that to complete it would be cheating given what I have learnt here, however, I too lost the plot with Hilary :roll: .

 

[MdB]

I didnt' doo, two well;

(no big surprise there then)

 

[Matt Green]

I know you're all desperate to know how Penners managed [in the BBC test].

I was assuming that Penners had written it.

 

[CliffordPope]

There is an ambiguity in the first question:

"The man next door has a garden that is being overrun with cats."

That implies that he has several gardens, only one of which is overrun with cats. The questioner needs to swat up on his own later question about that/which differentiation.

Also I think "by cats" is better English than "with cats".
"With" implies that someone is using cats as the weapon with which to take over someone's garden, as if they were using soldiers to occupy a foreign country.

 

[Keithj]

As an Oxford comma man, I think the quiz compilers got it wrong. There is in fact no way to tell the gender of the accursed sibling.

There is an Application for the iPad that will switch off the autocorrect so that a positive decision has to be made to accept a suggested change.

 

[CliffordPope]

I like the "comma that isn't there" explanation.

Another answer I have heard is that there is a thing called a "toggle". If you are reading out a list of items that come in two categories, say male and female, then there is a presumption that the category does not change unless specifically stated.

So if you say "This is Amanda, Clara, Bertha and Alice, and this is Fred, George, Hubert and Hilary" the presumption is that Hilary is male, because of the gender toggle.