Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 September 21

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September 21

Minor Grammatical difficulties, writing English.

Hey, I have some minor grammatical difficulties, writing English. I'm supposed to be a good English speaker/writer, but now I find myself uncertain about these silly things. I need you tell me left from right.

1) He feels so welcome there and find the place to have a ... 2) He feels so welcome there and findS the place to have a ...

1) He means well but fail to see that the village is poor and might benefit from the income from tourism. 2) He means well but failS to see that the village is poor and might benefit from the income from tourism.

I know the rule; "He feels", "They feel", "He finds", "they find" etc. But when there's a second verb following shortly after the first verb, like in the sentences I have provided, is it wrong to remove the 'S' and simply write 'find' or 'fail' ? My teacher told me I had done these mistakes, and I can't argue against it. She's probably right, but it somehow don't seem wrong to me regardless. So I'm quite uncertain. So I wanted to ask native speakers of English about your input. Am I wrong? Or are both versions of the two sentences correct?

One more thing... Another sentence I am slightly uncertain about; His discovery of this village seem/seems somewhat accidental. Are both seem and seems correct, or is one of them wrong ?

Thanks, 84.211.184.66 (talk) 17:07, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

It is wrong. Subject-verb agreement in English is based usually on the subject of the verb. If you break the sentence into two distinct sentences, the verb doesn't change when you compound them back to one. So:

• He feels welcome there...
• He finds the place to have...

Therefore the combined sentence is:

• He feels so welcome there and finds the place to have

On the second one, remove all modifiers to get the subject noun to find agreement. "Discovery seems" is the correct agreement. The other words and clauses all just modify the word "discovery", but since "discovery" is the subject, the verb agrees with that. --Jayron32 17:26, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. That was really helpful. You explain well, Jayron. 84.211.184.66 (talk) 19:34, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Btw, you wrote "it somehow don't seem wrong to me ". You should have written "doesn't" instead of "don't". HOTmag (talk) 21:08, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

You could also use alternate words:

1) He feels so welcome there and FOUND/MAY FIND the place to have a ...

2) He means well but FAILED/MAY FAIL to see that the village is poor and might benefit from the income from tourism.

3) His discovery of this village SEEMED/MAY SEEM somewhat accidental. StuRat (talk) 21:21, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

• Perhaps the OP's unease comes from remembering a sentence like He was delighted to arrive there and find ..., in which find is infinitive. —Tamfang (talk) 07:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)