Names of the schools
Marius Hancu
fill in the forms.
2. These are the names of the schools the parents of whose students
should fill in the forms.
Any ambiguities here? The sentences aren't mine.
Thanks.
Marius Hancu
Mark Brader
> 1. These are the names of the schools whose students' parents should
> fill in the forms.
>
> 2. These are the names of the schools the parents of whose students
> should fill in the forms.
Both versions seem fine to me, except for "fill in". You fill *in*
each individual blank in order to fill *out* the form. This may be
different in Britain.
I would probably have written something like this:
Parents of students at the following schools should fill out the form:
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Truth speak from any chair."
m...@vex.net -- Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum
My text in this article is in the public domain.
franzi
> Marius Hancu:
>
> > 1. These are the names of the schools whose students' parents should
> > fill in the forms.
>
> > 2. These are the names of the schools the parents of whose students
> > should fill in the forms.
>
> Both versions seem fine to me, except for "fill in". You fill *in*
> each individual blank in order to fill *out* the form. This may be
> different in Britain.
It is, or you can "complete" the form and avoid that heartache
altogether.
>
> I would probably have written something like this:
>
> Parents of students at the following schools should fill out the form:
You can stay closer to the original with no disadvantage by writing:
Parents of students at these schools should (your choice) the
form:
--
franzi
Robert Lieblich
>
> Marius Hancu:
> > 1. These are the names of the schools whose students' parents should
> > fill in the forms.
> >
> > 2. These are the names of the schools the parents of whose students
> > should fill in the forms.
>
> Both versions seem fine to me, except for "fill in". You fill *in*
> each individual blank in order to fill *out* the form. This may be
> different in Britain.
>
> I would probably have written something like this:
>
> Parents of students at the following schools should fill out the form:
I agree that the suggested replacement is much better than either
choice offered by Marius, but I'd like to dissent from the approval of
suggested version 2. It's grammatical, if just barely, but it's also
obviously an attempt to repair something that ain't broke, to the
point where it might as well be a hypercorrection. It's a close
relative to sentences that displace adverbs to keep them from
"splitting" verb phrases, leading to such monstrosities as "The
Committee diligently shall investigate the proposed alternatives."
Or, as H.W. Fowler more succinctly put it, there's nothing wrong with
"whose" inanimate. If you must choose between 1 and 2, Marius, cling
tightly to 1 and set 2 adrift.
As for "fill in," I consider it natural and standard in American
English for the entire form as well as individual blanks. I think
this is yet another Pondian difference.
--
Bob Lieblich
And his Book of Nautical Metaphors
ke...@cam.ac.uk
Robert Lieblich <r_s_li...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>As for "fill in," I consider it natural and standard in American
>English for the entire form as well as individual blanks. I think
>this is yet another Pondian difference.
If it is, I think you're on the wrong side of the pond. That is, I would have
said that "fill in" is standard in BrE and that "fill out" is exclusively
American, though I wouldn't know whether Americans use both.
A Brit or three will no doubt shortly be along to contradict me.
Katy
John Lawler
Bob is right. The phenomenon at issue, which is the
difference between
... the schools whose students' parents should ...
and
... he schools the parents of whose students should ...
is known as Pied Piping, and it works with relative
clause formation, when the relative WH-word (here
'whose' because it's possessive, never mind that
it's neuter) gets moved to the front of the clause.
(The technical name for that part is WH-Fronting,
by the way.)
If the WH-word represents a word that's deep inside
one or more prepositional phrases in the relative clause,
one may optionally front the whole prepositional
phrase that the WH-word is in to avoid stranding the
preposition. Optionally.
And one may also -- optionally -- front the head noun
modified by that clause, along with the clause. And,
recursively, if *that* head noun is *also* in a prepositional
phrase, one may optionally do the same thing, again.
Ad hoc, ad libitum, ad finitum.
For example, this is the example sentence that Haj Ross
gave in his 1967 dissertation on movement rules (in
this case WH-fronting) operating over variables (in
this case, the depth of prepositional phrases):
The government specifies
the height of
the lettering on
the covers of
the reports.
So, in a relative clause where 'reports' becomes the
WH-word, the following variants are all more or less
possible:
the reports, which the government specifies
the height of the lettering on the covers of
the reports, of which the government specifies
the height of the lettering on the covers
the reports, the covers of which the government
specifies the height of the lettering on
the reports, on the covers of which the government
specifies the height of the lettering
the reports, the lettering on the covers of which
the government specifies the height of
the reports, of the lettering on the covers of which
the government specifies the height
the reports, the height of the lettering on the covers
of which the government specifies
Frankly, most of them are no easier to understand, nor
are any of them any higher-faluting. Most of them, in
fact, sound dumb; as Bob suggested, it's an attempt
to repair something that ain't broke.
About as useful as shouting "Expelliarmus!" at the end
of the sentence. Neither grammar nor glamour (which
is the same thing historically) really works that way.
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler
People who used magic without knowing what they were
doing usually came to a sticky end. All over the entire
room, sometimes. -- Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
Marius Hancu
Thank you, Professor Lawler.
Thank you all.
Marius Hancu
annily
As an Aussie my understanding agrees with yours. It seems we have gone
with the Brits on this one, as I would always say "fill in" rather than
"fill out".
--
Long-time resident of Adelaide, South Australia,
which may or may not influence my opinions.
the Omrud
Young Brits say "fill out", probably because they've watched too much
Friends and Buffy.
--
David