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Talk:English usage controversies

Double copulae
A distinction needs to be made between disputed usage and incorrect usage. In the case of the double copula, it's simply incorrect. Does any source say otherwise?81.157.63.47 (talk) 10:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes:, , , , and , though some of those consider it correct only in a non-standard register or in a more specific grammatical context. -- Beland (talk) 20:59, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I added it back to the list of examples. -- Beland (talk) 21:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Many reversions over "Double modal"
I took the "Double modal" out of the list of examples, justifying the edit with
 * " Double modals are not generally regarded as ungrammatical. See citation in Double modal article. If you want to claim that there's a dispute over that, please cite it."

It has been reverted back and forth several times, here are the various comments:
 * TJRC undid, with: ""not regarded as correct grammar", "Nonstandard" per Double modal and its references"
 * 99.163.50.12 re-did, with: "This article is about disputes, not "nonstandards". If everyone agrees it's nonstandard, there's no dispute, is there?"
 * Weasel Fetlocks re-undid, with: "double modal is widely used & also widely regarded as ungrammatical - I.E. its usage is disputed."
 * 99.163.50.12 re-did, with: "'widely regarded as ungrammatical' - cite that. The Double Modal article doesn't say that, quite the contrary."
 * TJRC re-undid, with: "'generally not regarded as correct grammar'" [as stated in Double modal]

OK, so, let's do this here instead of in an ever-lengthening list of edit summaries.

Statements in support of removing "Double modals" as a construction of English under dispute:
 * 1) At first, I thought that the Double Modal article said "These kind of double modal phrases are generally not regarded as incorrect grammar", followed by cautions. Well, I admit, I read it wrong. It does indeed say "generally not regarded as correct grammar", after all. OK, neverminding the hilarity of the author who wrote "These kind...", which I think we all can agree isn't Disputed English but is just wrong, I still maintain that no evidence has been provided supporting the statement that "These kind [much less any other kind] of double modal phrases are generally not regarded as correct grammar". The citation provided, http://www.bartleby.com/68/3/2003.html, which I do accept as a respectable source, only recommends that one not use them except in the most informal of situations, and only spoken ones at that. The reason for that recommendation is that the specific examples given are regionalisms. It doesn't say "Double modals in general...", nor even "These examples in particular...", "...are regarded by at least some authorities as ungrammatical and wrong in English". See Shibboleth.
 * 2) The Double Modal article very clearly contains examples of double modal construction of the kind not limited to regional dialects, and these double modal constructions are not among those perceived as ignorant or incorrect ("might be able to"). Since double modal constructions exist which are not disputed, double modals as an all-encompassing category should not be said in this article to be disputed, even if there are specific examples ("might could") which repulse some listeners. Double modals on the whole are clearly not in dispute as to their correctness.
 * 3) As I requested, citation should be provided of English-language authorities or references stating that Double modals in general, or even specific double-modal phrases, are in dispute or incorrect, if this is to be included in this article. So far, no citations have been provided, and there are demonstrable contradictions to the claim.

Statements in support of including double modals in this article:

 * 1) "Nonstandard as per Double modal and its references." I respond: Nonstandard isn't the same as "disputed", not by a long shot. We will need a citation that says "incorrect" or "not universally regarded as correct". "My nana taught me" won't count, and neither will a Wikipedia article - though the references of one might, if they're proper. In this case, the indicated reference does not support the claim - in either article.
 * 2) "double modal is widely used & also widely regarded as ungrammatical - I.E. its usage is disputed." Regarded as ungrammatical, or disputed, by what authority? The "wide regard" of some population of English speakers, even if that were citable as fact, would not constitute an authority. I am as aware of this wide regard as anyone else is, but it doesn't mean it's right. See Split infinitive. As a matter of style or register, one may wish to avoid such construction, but such avoidance can hardly be justified as a strict matter of grammar.
 * 3) "'generally not regarded as correct grammar'" [as stated in Double modal]. The current state of the Double modal article does not count as a reference, because the claim that's being made is not cited. The citation that's offered there doesn't state what the article says it does. There's also a huge difference between the "general regard" of speakers of English and that of scholars of English, so, if this is to justify the reversions, a reference which is a little more authoritative than "generally everybody I know".

My main objection is to the categorization of double modals on the whole as disputed. If there is a specific phrase or construction which actually IS disputed (a scenario which I expect is a more likely one), then let's by all means include it as one example of disputed English which happens to be a double modal, not as an example that all double modals are disputed. And let's not forget the citations. And those citations should say that there's a dispute, not that it's incorrect. Meanwhile, I have made a change to the article which I hope is satisfactory to all concerned while the rest of this is worked out. Thanks for participating, --99.163.50.12 (talk) 00:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

 * To me it's obvious that many speakers have double modals as part of their grammar, while most speakers (myself included) consider them to be ungrammatical; hence, it's a matter of dispute. I do agree that we should have references — we should always have references — but I disagree with you on two points. First of all, you seem to feel that this must be removed until references are added; I disagree. I think that we should let obvious statements stand, while seeking references for them, and I believe that these statements are obvious. At the very least, when a clear and strong majority of editors support the statement, they should be given a reasonable amount of time to find references, rather than being forced to engage in a series of reverts simply to keep the information from disappearing into the bowels of the edit history. Second of all, I disagree with your statement that “those citations should say that there's a dispute, not that it's incorrect”; I don't see why that's necessary. —Ruakh TALK 01:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

 * By the way, part of the issue here seems to be a matter of definition; see http://www.bartleby.com/68/18/3918.html for the definition of "modal" n. that most of the editors here are using, and notice that it doesn't include "be able to". If you feel that the statement needs to be modified to clarify the definition it's using, or even to use different (less ambiguous) terminology, I think that's fine; but this difference in definition is not a reason to remove the statement. —Ruakh TALK 01:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

None
Should the usage of "none" as a singular or plural be included? Many people insist that "none" must go with a singular verb, however plural verbs have been used with "none" in texts such as the King James Bible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deadpotatoes (talk • contribs) 14:54, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Dangling participles and gerunds preceded by objective pronouns
This article is one of those that ties together many articles helping wandering readers to find related articles and, as many others, it is in a messy state. English words with uncommon properties was deleted having fallen in utter disrepair, so it is possible to loose lengthy and old articles, I hope this does not happen here. Despite the above, I arbitrarily think that in the list dangling participles and gerunds preceded by objective pronouns should be added as they are quite important. --Squidonius (talk) 08:33, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Lede and citations
The lede should clarify whether these are disputes between reliable sources on English or simply between average English speakers. For example, is there really a dispute between reliable sources on English on whether it is incorrect to use a conjunction such as "and" or "but" at the beginning of a sentence?

Given that some of these disputes may not actually be between reliable sources, I suggest that these "disputes" should be sourced. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * For that example, there's a reference on Conjunction (grammar), documenting a dispute between the Chicago Manual of Style and K-12 teachers. (And see reply generally in the next section.) -- Beland (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

What are we doing here?
This is a terrible article. The idea of "disputed" grammar is not even sourced. If it was, it would help steer the article. If the dispute is between reliable sources, the "disputes" then would juxtapose ideas between reliable sources. If the "disputes" are between non-reliable sources ... well, that's more challenging to source, but it could be done through reliable secondary sources. Yet, that would also focus the article.

Finally, it looks like WP:OR throughout. If no one finds a notable source to define the article's title soon, I'll recommend this be deleted or merged. If a source is found, we should be able to narrow the scope of the article and remove some of the original research. Airborne84 (talk) 22:20, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

 * If I remember correctly, there's a chapter on grammar disputes and the proscriptivist-descriptivist conflict in The Language Instinct, and various controversies are also covered in Eats, Shoots & Leaves. I agree some of the general claims need to be better referenced; these are at least a start.  The individual controversies are better referenced in the individual articles, such as Conjunction (grammar), Split infinitive, and Preposition stranding.  I agree those should be propagated here.  They document that sometimes there are in fact conflicts between textbooks, style guides that are widely used, or used by respected publications; sometimes the conflict is between professional publications and what is taught in K-12 education.  I think the textbooks and style guides are what you mean by "reliable sources", though that's not what I would call them, since there is no single correct English grammar about which they can reliably report.  Certainly even if professional style guides all agree, it would still be interesting to document in this article that a significant percentage of speakers considers a certain construction in a formal register incorrect and a significant percentage consider it correct.  And ideally we'd have some source that can point to a reliable survey, or at least an expert or forum that hears people argue both sides. -- Beland (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Removing unsourced material
I'm pasting the examples section below. I reviewed a nomination for deletion in 2009 and that suggests that there will be resistance to a nomination now. Why? Because the article probably hasn't changed much since then: it is almost all without sources. There were a number of people who said that it just requires work. But no one is doing it. Thus, I'm going to remove some of the unsourced material and put it here until it is sourced because I believe that including some of this material will cause further misconceptions by people coming to Wikipedia looking for information.

Examples
The following are disputed usages in Standard English:
 * Generic you – e.g. "Brushing your teeth is a good habit." as opposed to "Brushing one's teeth is a good habit"
 * Split infinitives – e.g. "To boldly go where no one has gone before." as opposed to "To go boldly where no one has gone before"
 * Conjunction beginning a sentence – e.g. "But Mom said not to jump on the bed!"
 * Double genitive – e.g. "a friend of theirs" as opposed to "a friend of them" or "their friend"
 * Gender-neutral language in English
 * Me mistaken for I - e.g. "It is me." as opposed to "It is I."
 * The use of like as a conjunction – e.g. "Like I said," as opposed to "As I said,"
 * The validity of aren't as a negative First Person Singular conjunction for to be in interrogative uses – e.g. "Aren't I the one you were talking about?"
 * Whether to use the subjunctive mood – e.g. "I wish I were/was a better man."
 * Whether to use who or whom in various contexts
 * Whether to use the active voice or passive voice in various contexts
 * The use of less or fewer with count nouns
 * The use of whilst, amidst, and amongst

The following are non-standard English usages, which are nonetheless popular:
 * Double negatives – e.g. "We don't need no education."
 * Certain double modals – e.g. "You might could use it."
 * The use (spoken and written) of the word ain't and other similar constructions.Airborne84 (talk) 20:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

 * And it is not clear to me that the one source above is identifying a dispute. It looks to me to be more of a misconception. Airborne84 (talk) 20:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

 * From a neutral point of view, it's difficult to maintain a distinction between a dispute and a misconception, given that the descriptive definition of a dispute is that some people think it's incorrect while others think it's correct. There's no objective truth against which one can be misconceived, unless perhaps the number who find something incorrect is negligible. (In which case it's not worth documenting here.) -- Beland (talk) 18:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly certain all of these are real disputes. I'll go through and add sources for them, though in many cases the sources can already be found in the linked articles. -- Beland (talk) 18:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * When it comes to sourcing (and the article title) I think one problem is the use of the word "dispute", which might be understood as implying that reliable sources describe rational arguments for and against a purported rule. I would like to say that a sufficient criterion for inclusion is met if a reliable source describes the existence of a purported grammatical rule and describes the rule as having no rational basis, as being a myth, superstition, or misconception. However, if we are to use that as one possible (sufficient) criterion for inclusion,I would prefer to use a word other than "dispute", both in the article title and in the body of the article. Another restriction is the use of the word "grammar" in the title. It is important that we
 * # avoid original research (though the boundary may be a little unclear) and
 * # restrict ourselves to issues of grammar (in the wider sense)
 * Inclusion should require reliable sources indicating that
 * # a purported rule exists
 * # the purported rule explicitly or implicitly defines a grammatical error
 * # the purported rule is either disputed or incorrect.
 * To take, for instance, the "rule" on the split infinitive: Strunk & White is probably not a valid source in support of inclusion, since the authors do not make any claim (explicit or implicit) that the "split infinitive" is ungrammatical; they merely state that "the construction should be avoided unless . . .". If we are to include controversial stylistic advice, we should remove the word "grammar" from the title, However, the Cambridge Grammar can be used as a source, because it describes the "split infinitive" as "probably the best-known topic in the whole of the English pedagogical grammatical tradition" and also states that there is "no rational basis for the prescriptive rule".
 * --Boson (talk) 19:47, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

 * From a descriptivist point of view, there doesn't really have to be any rational explanation behind a rule. Though it is certainly interesting when reasons are put forward, whether or not they are rationalizations after the fact.  If 99.9% of speakers agree something is incorrect, then it's not correct English.  If 50% think it's correct and 50% think it's incorrect, whether or not there is any particular reason, to me that certainly sounds like a disagreement or dispute.  If you don't like "dispute" in the title, what would you prefer?  We could also say "usage" or "language" instead of "grammar" since in some cases it's word choice and not really syntax. -- Beland (talk) 17:00, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposed retitle and merger with Common English usage misconceptions
I propose this article be renamed Disputes in English usage, which usage says includes "points of grammar, syntax, style, and the choice of words". The list of examples in this article already includes issues which are arguably not grammar.

After the referencing of examples in this article as bona fide disputes is complete, I propose merging part of Common English usage misconceptions here, because on a topic like this where there is no objective truth beyond actual usage and the opinions of speakers, "misconception" is simply a POV position that deems incorrect any contrary opinion that a construction is incorrect. All items currently referenced as "misconceptions" would of course need sources confirming that some people do in fact find them incorrect (which is probably already the case since sources complaining that people are wrong about something effectively document that some people have the opposite opinion).

That would leave two overview articles on this topic: Disputes in English usage, which covers examples more complicated than a single word or phrase, and List of English words with disputed usage, which covers specific words and phrases indexed alphabetically (and where the remainder of Common English usage misconceptions) would go). -- Beland (talk) 21:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

 * I would prefer the title English usage controversies, but I agree that a different name is necessary if the article is to contain controversies that are not of a grammatical nature.
 * I also agree with splitting Common English usage misconceptions and merging relevant material here.
 * I agree with avoidance of the term "misconceptions" in the title, though it may be appropriate to indicate the mainsteam view of linguists on individual purported rules in the content.
 * --Boson (talk) 23:10, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * PS: In the text, I would possibly include information about misconceptions, so it might (later) be appropriate to add something like "and misconceptions" or "and misunderstandings"  to the title, especially if we wish to deal separately with the controversies and any misconceptions (on which the controversies may be based). For instance, there appears to be a controversy about the use of the passive voice, with some (e.g. George Orwell) saying  "never use the passive where you can use the active" and others (e.g. Professor Joseph M. Williams) saying "the passive is often the better choice".  Connected to that – but separate – there appears to be a common misunderstanding about what the passive voice is. It appears to be prevalent among followers of The Elements of Style  though in the case of Strunk himself it may simply be a case of bad writing rather than a misconception.--Boson (talk) 09:01, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, moving to English usage controversies. -- Beland (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Changing the name here to controversies doesn't help the root problem: the topic of this article is not well-defined (is it controversies between reliable sources or non-reliable sources such as bloggers?) and this article is still very much lacking sources. I disagree with merging Common English Usage Misconceptions here. As has been covered on that talk page, that article covers not just when people disagree about something, but when many people say "x, or y is true or false," or "z must be done to be correct," but reliable sources state that the idea in question is incorrect.
 * There could certainly be some topics covered in both articles. For example there could be some sources arguing that one should not end a sentence in a preposition. That would not change that there are (as noted by reliable sources) many people who think that you cannot or must not do it. That remains a misconception and is sourced as such on that page. Airborne84 (talk) 15:52, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This is why I think it might be necessary to add something like "and misconceptions" or "and misunderstandings" to the title (if we find that there are some noteworthy misconceptions that have not also led to controversies and cannot, therfore, reasonably dealt with under such a title). Since there are differing views at the level of the topic as well as at the meta level, it is, in my opinion, more sensible to have a single article, where the differences can be presented without forcing editors to make implicit decisions on which view is correct by deciding what to incude in which article. If there is one article, all relevant views can be presented in one place with due weight and the mainstream view presented as such. Even if all reliable sources state that one view is correct and the opposing views are held only by bloggers, that does not mean that there is no controversy. There can still be a controversy (possibly based on ignorance) with reputable authors and linguists on the one side and hordes of clueless bloggers and misguided school-teachers on the other. And we can discuss this controversy if we have reliable sources stating that a controversy exists (or existed in the past). If a reliable source states that a "widely held belief" is "prescriptivist poppycock", "a superstition" or a "myth", or "has no rational basis", I think this can be treated as implying such a controversy. I agree that citing an unauthoritative blog with one view and a reliable source with a differing view is not sufficient to document that there is a controversy, but there may also be cases where the existence of a controversy is obvious, and some blogs (e.g. those by professors of linguistics) may be reliable sources. --Boson (talk) 19:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If we, as Wikipedia editors, are going to choose to exclude what reliable sources state as misconceptions and discuss only in different terms, then Wikipedia has a bigger problem. For then, other articles, such as List of Common Misconceptions, and many similar articles (see the "See Also" section on that page) will have to go as well. For there are many topics in those articles that people also dispute and for which controversy continues to exist (such as the science and religion topics).
 * If articles discussing the dispute or controversy aspects of these topics, to include the English usage one, are adequately linked in the "misconception" articles, that should be sufficient to point readers to further reading. Thanks. Airborne84 (talk) 13:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To "exclude what reliable sources state as misconceptions and discuss only in different terms" is not what I am suggesting, and I don't understand anyone else to be suggesting such a thing. Especially if there is disagreement among the general public about whether some of the issues are misconceptions, it is better to have all the views in a single article, where it is possible to discuss them and present the mainstream view. Having separate articles is not conducive to a neutral presentation of the issues. I have no objection to stating that a particular issue represents a misconception where this is true, but this does not require a separate article including only those issues which are universally considered misconceptions.--Boson (talk) 19:12, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia appears to indicate that a stand-alone article that comprises English usage misconceptions is notable. The first sentences at WP:NOTABILITY state: "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article. Article and list topics must be notable, or 'worthy of notice'. In general, if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." Common English usage misconceptions is extensively sourced with reliable sources. It meets the criterion for notability and a stand-alone article.

On a side note, merging two articles should also take article size into consideration. Merging the two articles would create one over the 50kb threshold at which Wikipedia indicates and article may need to be split. And given that this article sorely needs to be further developed, the size is likely to increase. But this is just an aside since the main concern, notability of the topic of the misconception article, is covered adequately in WP:Notablity. Thanks. Airborne84 (talk) 23:14, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

 * As I see it, in this context, and especially given the NPOV concerns, notability is a necessary, not a sufficient condition, and presumption is not proof. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one and wait to see what others have to say. If necessary, we could start an RfC, in order to get more opinions. --Boson (talk) 07:11, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK. Airborne84 (talk) 13:55, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If you'd like to start an RfC, please do so on Common English usage misconceptions since that is the article that stands to be removed if a consensus agrees. The question of whether it is a notable topic is better discussed on that talk page. Thanks. Airborne84 (talk) 13:58, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merger with List of English words with disputed usage
So, hum, yeah, I think the other merger should'nt be done, cuz if there's consensus in dictionnaries to say "this is bad usage", then it should be taken as bad english usage (not going to enter into those "good" or "bad" debates, but this page relies HEAVILY on dictionnaries, saying yes OR no while the common english usage misconception just talks about what dictionnaries consider as wrong ("saying YES"), so it's definitely not the same) And so, controversies are ALSO discuted in List of English words with disputed usage, so i think it would be merged. (if someone can replace those parenthesis and the text between them the way to say YES to the poll, please...)

Erm... questionable (that is "fragwürdiger" :P) article
Pardon my being so blunt, but the list of "controversies" is - erm, I don't know - pretty dodgy? (ok, the first few are anyway, I didn't get very far yet...), and the citations (again, those I've seen) are laughable. I realise the discussion above is related to this topic in a certain manner (as is that on the article referenced for merger), but I don't have time to go through that right now. I promise I will read it before touching the article or making any concrete suggestions though :) ! 37.209.42.230 (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2015 (UTC) P.S. - my view is that this article is at least as "unneutral" as the other one...

P.P.S. What's with the section marked in red??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.209.42.230 (talk) 15:00, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Rewrite the intro?
The intro seems terribly MOS:INUNIVERSE, the universe in question being the murky one of language "experts" who create and perpetuate fictions about language. Let's take a look:

Yes, sometimes. Or else they're just personal preferences that so-called language experts -- by which I do not mean actual linguists -- have developed into their own rules.

Language teachers and writing-style guides are not prescriptive authorities. (To do justice to writing-style guides, the better among them do not purport to prescribe authoritatively; they merely suggest and advise.) And even if they were authorities, they would not determine the grammatical correctness of various usages. That's simply not how grammaticality judgements work. (Nobody told me that "Put it away" is grammatical and "Put it further" is ungrammatical; I unconsciously figured this out for myself.)

This presupposes that the language busybodies are language authorities. Very few of them are.

The article is a lot more level-headed than this introduction suggests; the introduction doesn't do it justice. Rewrite? -- Hoary (talk) 09:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

 * I agree that the introduction needs a complete rewrite. --Boson (talk) 19:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

 * Here's a first stab at it: I'm sure that I'll find fault with this within as little as twenty minutes, but I'll stand back for a time and let others comment. -- Hoary (talk) 07:45, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

 * No other taker? Here's a second stab at it: How's this? (Pinging Boson!) -- Hoary (talk) 00:20, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * "Debunked" might be read as implying a point of view, so I would, perhaps end with something like "or its rationale is challenged". Otherwise looks good to me. --Boson (talk) 10:25, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Done! -- Hoary (talk) 22:14, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello Chas. Caltrop. What's your objection, exactly? -- Hoary (talk) 01:23, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

 * A reply

The flouting of the Wikipedia rules, in order to publish personal opinion — misrepresented as fact — in contradiction to the Wikipedia rules: No reliable source, no publication. How are you two editors exempt from the rules of Good Faith? Deleting substantiated text with a reliable source and replacing it with opinions that are those of the editor who "re-wrote" facts to his taste is legitimate? Given that the source is a legitimate source, an Oxford companion, that is impressive. I missed the Ph.D. graduation, sorry.

Chas. Caltrop (talk) 11:12, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

 * I don't understand your references to "the rules of Good Faith" or to a "Ph.D. graduation".

 * I wonder at the asymmetry here. I posted objections to the lead, and a suggestion, above. I waited; I let people agree or disagree; none disagreed more than trivially; I rewrote the introduction (incorporating the one quibble). By contrast, you simply rewrite.

 * So here (after REF-stripping) is what you have the article say:

 * ''In the English language, there are disputed grammatical constructions that native speakers identify either as a correct usage or as an incorrect usage. The roots of English usage controversies are the differences between formal and informal speech, and among the dialects of the language; thus, informal speech and non-standard dialects sometimes are identified as incorrect usage.

 * In spoken language, the correct use of a given register or of a dialect, can be perceived as a marker of education, of culture, and of group identity. Prescriptive authorities, such as language teachers and a writing-style guide, determine the grammatical correctness of English-language usages; hence, usage disputes arise when language authorities disagree with each other, or disagree with an actual (non-standard) usage spoken among the population.

 * Each paragraph is sourced to "The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992), Tom McArthur, Ed. pp. 1072–73." It strikes me as very odd to cite mere page numbers from within an Oxford Companion. I have a copy of the book in front of me. These two pages are from within a longish article: "Usage", by Robert E. Allen. I don't recall having read it previously. I like what I've quickly (re)read of it. Allen talks of "controversies" and "disputes" but I don't notice any example of any real dispute, in which some native speakers "identify [whatever] as a correct usage" and others "as an incorrect usage". Rather, he talks of usages that are identified by some as incorrect.

 * (I started a short paragraph above with the construction "WONDER at [noun phrase]". I didn't thereby "identify it as correct usage": I simply used it, because it's part of my idiolect. Had it been an item within a grammaticality judgment experiment, I'd have okayed it and thereby identified it as grammatical; but it wasn't.)

 * If these are "controversies" (and I really wonder), then one "side" simply uses the "controversial" item, and the other objects on any of a number of grounds, including those you say but also others (analogy, etymology, etc) as Allen says on the very two pages that you cite.

 * Or do I misunderstand something here? -- Hoary (talk) 12:45, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * There are controversies or at least heated debates about a lot of the grammatical pet peeves also among "experts". It would be a good idea to look at Pinker's recent book "Sense of Style" for descriptions of different usage controversies. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:07, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * My regional library network has nearly five dozen copies of that Pinker book, one of which is on the table next to me right now. Thanks for the recommendation.
 * A while ago, someone gave me a copy of John McWhorter's "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue", which describes the creolization that led to English having bits of Celtic structure commingled with Germanic vocabulary. Later, Scandinavians had a pidginizing influence, "knocking off the corners" as McWhorter puts it, when the inflection of English lost many of its case markers. With such a history, it should come as no surprise that prescriptive "experts" disagree. Just plain Bill (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

 * snunɐɯ (and/or others), I have a borrowed copy of Pinker's The Sense of Style in front of me. I skimread much of it once, and found it sensible and pleasant enough, but only mildly interesting -- perhaps unavoidably so, given the subject matter. (If you want one book by Pinker, try The Blank Slate.) Sorry, but I've no desire to reread great swathes of it. Much of the long chapter "Telling right from wrong" is devoted to dismissing prescriptivist peeving. The boundaries of the meaning of "controversy" are fuzzy, of course, but what I skim-reread doesn't rise to what I'd call "controversy". It's just the refutation -- or, if you're unconvinced, the purported refutation -- of peeves or bugbears or "rules". (Or am I missing something there? Does the chapter for example describe actual controversies among prescriptivists?) I might use the term "controversy" for arguments over prescriptivists' bugbears if some of these prescriptivists fought back -- whether against Pinker, against Geoffrey K. Pullum (Language Log, passim), against Oliver Kamm (Accidence Will Happen); or, further back, against Jim Quinn (American Tongue and Cheek), or, I suppose, against various others I can't immediately think of or haven't heard of. Do prescriptivists do this? (I really don't know.) ¶ To take another approach, let's look at the first example this article gives of a "controversy", the one about impersonal you. Here's what it says:
 * [An online dictionary] lists "one; anyone; people in general" as a definition without qualification that it is non-standard / [A high school] requires replacing "you" with another word unless it means "you the reader".
 * Well actually no, the high school did not require this. What it said (with my added emphasis ) was:
 *  In formal writing the pronoun you should be used only to mean "you the reader." In most cases a noun should be substituted for you.
 * (And note the mild "should", where "must" could have been used in its place.) I don't see any disagreement between what's said by the two sources, let alone any "controversy". ¶ Incidentally, while I'm no great fan of The Sense of Style, it deserves a better article. The only mention of Strunk within the current article is: Building upon earlier guides, such as Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, [The Sense of Style] applies science to the process of writing.... But Pinker writes (in the Prologue) of Strunk and White that they justified their peeves with cockamamie rationalizations. He also refers (in the context of "masterful", within the alphabetical list of peeves) to "Fowler's harebrained schemes to tidy up [English]". These books aren't the foundation for his newer alternative. -- Hoary (talk) 08:48, 7 December 2017 (UTC) ... tinkered with 22:50, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

 * Really, this is pretty bad. Consider:
 * The validity of aren't as a negative first-person singular conjunction for to be in interrogative uses
 * A "negative first-person singular conjunction for to be". By to be, I think the writer means the lexeme BE. By "conjunction", the writer probably means "contraction". However, it isn't a contraction. "She's a fine pianist, isn't she?" is, I think, not "controversial". Let's try "uncontracting" it: *"She's a fine pianist, is not she?" No, this is ungrammatical. (Or it is for me, anyway.) For me, the grammatical version without so-called contraction is "She's a fine pianist, is she not?" Hardly contractable; instead, there are two different structures. ¶ And there are more problems. -- Hoary (talk) 14:02, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

OR in the lead?
diff @Chas. Caltrop: What, specifically, do you consider to be original research in the lead? In particular, what assertions in the lead are OR, not sourced in the body of the article? Just plain Bill (talk) 22:28, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Me vs I content
In received English, the sentence "George and I went to the shops" would be correct because if I were to remove the words "George and", the sentence would still make sense. Mr anonymous username (talk) 21:04, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

The example for singular 'they' is bad
"A man does not go to war to get killed, but they do get killed". That's not a singular they, it's a generalization on the previous sentence. ie. "A man does not go to war to get killed, but [men that go to war] do get killed." 2601:84:8A01:A4B0:256D:2419:320B:F4E (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I replaced it with clearer examples. Botterweg14  (talk)  19:52, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

"open/close to denote turn on/turn off"
This section shouldn't exist. It is not, to my knowledge, used by native speakers of any dialect (and the section doesn't claim it is). If we were to list every construction that any non-native speaker of English may use, we would have an infinitely long list. Moreover, I don't know of any sources (and none have been given), prescriptivist or descriptivist. which regard this as an acceptable or correct usage.

Unless a source claiming it's used by natives is provided, this section does not belong here. 94.241.72.241 (talk) 19:15, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I fixed the link on the citation. It does seem to imply that it is used. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 22:07, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:English usage controversies


text:
Polkowice

Polkowice (Polkwitz) is a town in south-western Poland. It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship. The town is the seat of Polkowice County and of Gmina Polkowice.

Geography
Polkowice is located in historic Lower Silesia, about 15 km northwest of Lubin. The nearest airport is Wrocław Airport, located 72 km from Polkowice.

Situated in a traditional mining region, the town is part of the largest industrial copper-extraction area in Poland, with a copper-processing plant operating nearby. Nearby Polkowice Dolne is the site of a former State Agricultural Farm (PGR) and, since 1998, of a Volkswagen diesel engine plant, another major employer in the region.

Designated as an urban-type settlement from 1945, Polkowice regained town status in 1967. In 1975–1998 it was in the former Legnica Voivodeship.

History

The name of the town is probably derived from Slavic (Old Polish) Boleslaw, meaning "great glory", a favoured dynastic name in the Polish royal House of Piast. According to legend, The Silesian duke Bolesław I the Tall (1127–1201) had a hunting lodge erected near the later town, later called Bolkewice or, adjusted to the German pronunciation, Polkovicz (1333). In the Statuta synodalia episcoporum Wratislaviensium from 1475 the town is named Polkewicze and Polkowice. As a result of the fragmentation of Poland into smaller duchies, it became part of the Duchy of Silesia, and later on the Duchy of Głogów. Polkowice was mentioned as a town (civitas) in a 1276 deed. It remained part of the Duchy of Głogów, ruled by the Polish houses of Piast and Jagiellon, including future Polish kings John I Albert and Sigismund I the Old, until the duchy's dissolution in 1506, when it was incorporated into the Bohemian (Czech) Kingdom.

Parts of the medieval town were destroyed by a blaze in 1457, it suffered further damages during the Thirty Years' War and by a plague epidemic in 1680. After the First Silesian War in 1742, it was annexed by Prussia and later incorporated into the Province of Silesia. During the Napoleonic Wars, the town was visited by Napoleon twice, in 1807 and 1812. Between 1871 and 1945 the town was part of Germany and was renamed Heerwegen in 1937 by German Nazi authorities during a campaign of erasing placenames of Polish origin. During World War II, a German forced labour subcamp of the prison in Jawor was operated in the present-day district of Polkowice Dolne. On January 11, 1945, the German administration evacuated the population, leaving only the army in the town. On February 9, 1945, the town was captured by the Red Army. Afterwards the abandoned town became again part of Poland in accordance to the Potsdam Agreement and was repopulated by Poles, many displaced from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.

In 2005 the neighbouring village of Polkowice Dolne was included within the town limits.

Education

 * Lower Silesian College of Enterprise and Technology (Dolnośląska Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczości i Techniki)

Sport

 * Górnik Polkowice – football team, playing in the Polish third division. The team played in the country's top flight in season 2003-2004
 * MKS Polkowice – women's basketball team, 3rd place in Sharp Torell Basket Liga in 2004/2005 season
 * CCC Polsat Polkowice – Road Cycling Team UCI Professional Continental team

Twin towns – sister cities
See twin towns of Gmina Polkowice

Notable residents

 * Fritz Thiel (1916–1943), German resistance fighter
 * Hans Kratzert (born 1940), German screenwriter and film director

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Polkowice


text:
Talk:Abraham Isaac Kook

name of subject of article
is הכהן part of his name or not? --142.163.195.253 (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Nelamm (talk) 13:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC) It's a title, which is usually included in his name in Hebrew but not in English.

Bnei Moshe
I agree with that a book on soccer is not a good source for this article. However, Haparsi's claim that there was no such community as Bnei Moshe is wrong. There are many sources on the group and its interaction with Rav Kook. For example, this source. Search for "Bnei Moshe" and "Kook" (including the quotes) at Google Books and Google Scholar for more. Probably the literature in Hebrew is much greater still. Someone who is more familiar with this subject than I am should add a paragraph to this article. Zerotalk 01:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

The book "Zionism and Religion" edited by S. Almog et al has a lot on Bnei Moshe. Enough that it ought to have its own article. Zerotalk 02:15, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Bnei Moshe were no a community but more of a club in the style of free masons. The whole description as being the majority in Jaffa and inviting Kook to be their Rabbi is weird. The claim that they were related to the Subbotniks is again false. The book also describes Zvi Nishri as being Christian. Haparsi (talk) 07:59, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The free masons consider themselves a community; let's not debate the meaning of words. Bnei Moshe was a small organization that might have become important but never did. You are certainly correct that it did not form a majority in Jaffa. I don't find it bizarre that Ahad Ha'am would have sought the involvement of Rav Kook, but I don't have a source for it. Zerotalk 10:33, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Titles
WP style, per MOS:SURNAME, is to use a person’s title (rabbi, rav) only in first mention. Please undo your changes User:Chandlerjoe. 2A03:C5C0:107E:C49D:8596:73EA:FAD3:81E6 (talk) 08:36, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

First Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi ever
HaRav Kook was the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi ever in Palestine. It was a position that was introduced by the British. During the Ottoman times there was only a Sefardi Chief Rabbi. Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 23:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Abraham Isaac Kook


text:
New Frontier Party (Japan)

The New Frontier Party (新進党) (NFP) was a big tent political party in Japan founded in December 1994. As a merger of several small parties, the party was ideologically diverse, with its membership ranging from moderate social democrats to liberals and conservatives. The party dissolved in December 1997, with Ichirō Ozawa's faction forming the Liberal Party and other splinters later joining the Democratic Party of Japan in April 1998.

Foundation
The party was founded on 10 December 1994 by former member parties of the anti-Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) opposition coalition led by Morihiro Hosokawa who had resigned in April. During the formation of the succeeding Hata cabinet, several coalition parties formed a joint parliamentary group. But at the same time, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and the New Party Sakigake withdrew from the eight-party coalition and left Hata without majority. In June, the LDP returned to power by striking a "grand" coalition deal with the JSP under which the Socialists would receive the prime ministership. Hata resigned before an impending no-confidence vote submitted by the LDP: In less than a year, the anti-LDP coalition had broken down. After the electoral reform initiated by the anti-LDP coalition had been passed by the new LDP-JSP coalition in November 1994, the opposition parties negotiated on creating a unified force to contest the newly introduced First-past-the-post voting single-member electoral districts that now elect the majority of the House of Representatives: In December, the Japan Renewal Party, a part of Kōmeitō which had split a few days before, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), the Japan New Party and the Jiyū Kaikaku Rengō ("Liberal Reform League" a federation of several small groups of Diet members who had broken away from the LDP) formed the New Frontier Party, becoming the largest single party formed in post-war Japan other than the LDP.

Internal conflicts
On 8 December 1994, the Diet members of the future party elected former LDP Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu as leader, Kaifu received 131 votes, former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata 52 and DSP leader Takashi Yonezawa 32 votes. In 1995, Kaifu was succeeded by Ichirō Ozawa who led the party from 1995 until its dissolution in 1997. Ozawa won the leadership election among party members and registered supporters (tōyū) in December 1995 with 1,120,012 votes against Tsutomu Hata who received 566,998 votes. Ozawa was reelected just a few days before the party dissolved in a vote among NFP Diet members and delegates from NFP prefectural federations in December 1997, defeating Michihiko Kano by 230 votes to 182.

The party held onto 156 seats in the 1996 general election, losing a net four seats and failing to attack the LDP-SDP government majority, but remaining the largest opposition party. Unlike the other major, nationwide parties (mainly LDP and DPJ, the SDP was already in the advanced stages of its decline to a micro-party), In 1996, Ozawa's NFP made little use of the possibility to nominate dual candidates that stand in both the majoritarian and the proportional election at the same time under the new parallel electoral system. Thereby, the party lost a string of experienced politicians who were not "insured" by a dual candidacy on a proportional list. In total, more than 40 NFP incumbents who sought reelection lost their seats in 1996.

Dissolution and aftermath
After the New Frontier Party dissolved in 1997, its remnants collated into several small parties: The latter two parties immediately joined the Democratic Party in one parliamentary group (then renamed 民主友愛太陽国民連合, Minshu Yūai Taiyō Kokumin Rengō, "Democratic Fraternity Sun People's League", abbreviated as 民友連, Min'yūren). They were joined by two parties who had broken away from the NFP earlier – the Sun Party of Tsutomu Hata in 1996 and the From Five of Morihiro Hosokawa in 1997 – and another party from the former anti-LDP coalition that hadn't joined the NFP: the Minshu Kaikaku Rengō ("Democratic Reform League"). The joint parliamentary group gave the DPJ the role of leading the opposition in the Diet. Three member parties together formed the Minseitō ("Democratic" or "Good Governance Party") a few weeks later. All member parties of the parliamentary group eventually merged with the Democratic Party to form the ("New") Democratic Party of Japan in April 1998.
 * The New Peace Party (Shintō Heiwa) and the "Dawn Club" (Reimei Club) of former Kōmeitō members, these merged later in 1998 with the still existing Kōmei to re-establish the ("New") Kōmeitō,
 * the Liberal Party of Ichirō Ozawa which later participated in a coalition with the LDP under Keizō Obuchi, but eventually merged into the Democratic Party in 2003,
 * the Reform Club (Japan, 1998) (Kaikaku Club) of Tatsuo Ozawa that later joined the LDP-Liberal Party-Kōmeitō coalition,
 * the New Fraternity Party (Shintō Yūai) of Kansei Nakano and
 * the "Voice of the People" (Kokumin no Koe) of Michihiko Kano.

Ideology
In terms of policy, the New Frontier Party took a hawkish position on foreign, security policy and related constitutional matters (which had been the main dividing line between political left and right in the 1955 System) similar to the LDP, but pushed for more deregulation, decentralization and political reform. It thereby tried to attract disgruntled LDP voters who would seek for new answers to the political challenges posed in the wake of the burst bubble economy and by the dawning demographic transition. In contrast, the Democratic Party of Japan that was formed two years later to provide an alternative to the old LDP and the Ozawa-dominated NFP, took a similar stance to the NFP on economic reform, but a more dovish position on foreign policy, thereby also becoming appealing to traditional JSP voters.

title: New Frontier Party (Japan)


text:
New Revised Standard Version

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches, the NRSV was created by an ecumenical committee of scholars "comprising about thirty members". The NRSV relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. A major revision, the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), was released in 2021.

Used broadly among biblical scholars, the NRSV was intended as a translation to serve the devotional, liturgical, and scholarly needs of the broadest possible range of Christian religious adherents.

The tradition of the King James Version has been continued in the Revised Standard Version and in the New Revised Standard Version. The full 84 book translation includes the Protestant enumeration of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament; another version of the NRSV includes the deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament, which is normative in the canon of Roman Catholicism, along with the New Testament (totalling 73 books).

The translation appears in three main formats: (1) an edition including the Protestant enumeration of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament (as well an edition that only includes the Protestant enumeration of the Old Testament and New Testament); (2) a Roman Catholic Edition with all the books of that canon in their customary order, and (3) the Common Bible, which includes the books that appear in Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox canons (but not additional books from Oriental Orthodox traditions, including the Syriac and Ethiopian canons). A special edition of the NRSV, called the "Anglicized Edition", employs British English spelling and grammar instead of American English.

History
The New Revised Standard Version was translated by the Division of Christian Education (now Bible Translation and Utilization) of the National Council of Churches in the United States. The group included scholars representing Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christian groups as well as Jewish representation in the group responsible for the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament. The mandate given the committee was summarized in a dictum: “As literal as possible, as free as necessary.”

Committee of translators
The following scholars were active on the NRSV Committee of translators at the time of publication.

 * William A. Beardslee
 * Phyllis A. Bird
 * George Coats
 * Demetrios J. Constantelos
 * Robert C. Dentan
 * Alexander A. DiLella, OFM
 * J. Cheryl Exum
 * Reginald H. Fuller
 * Paul D. Hanson
 * Walter Harrelson
 * William L. Holladay
 * Sherman E. Johnson
 * Robert A. Kraft
 * George M. Landes
 * Conrad E. L’Heureux
 * S. Dean McBride, Jr.
 * Bruce M. Metzger
 * Patrick D. Miller
 * Paul S. Minear
 * Lucetta Mowry
 * Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm.
 * Harry Orlinsky
 * Marvin H. Pope
 * Jimmy Jack McBee Roberts
 * Alfred v. Rohr Sauer
 * Katharine D. Sakenfeld
 * James A. Sanders
 * Gene M. Tucker
 * Eugene C. Ulrich
 * Allen Wikgren

Improved manuscripts and translations
The Old Testament translation of the RSV was completed before the Dead Sea Scrolls were available to scholars. The NRSV was intended to take advantage of this and other manuscript discoveries, and to reflect advances in scholarship.

Gender language
In the preface to the NRSV Bruce Metzger wrote for the committee that “many in the churches have become sensitive to the danger of linguistic sexism arising from the inherent bias of the English language towards the masculine gender, a bias that in the case of the Bible has often restricted or obscured the meaning of the original text”. The RSV observed the older convention of using masculine nouns in a gender-neutral sense (e.g., "man" instead of "person"), and in some cases used a masculine word where the source language used a neutral word. This move has been widely criticised by some, including within the Catholic Church, and continues to be a point of contention today. The NRSV by contrast adopted a policy of inclusiveness in gender language. According to Metzger, “The mandates from the Division specified that, in references to men and women, masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as this can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of ancient patriarchal culture.”

Reception
Many mainline Protestant churches officially approve the NRSV for both private and public use. The Episcopal Church (United States) in Canon II.2 added the NRSV to the list of translations approved for church services. It is also widely used by the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the United Church of Christ, the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Canada, and the Uniting Church in Australia.

In accordance with the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 825.1, the NRSV with the deuterocanonical books received the Imprimatur of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, meaning that the NRSV (Catholic Edition) is officially approved by the Catholic Church and can be profitably used by Catholics in private study and devotional reading. The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition also has the imprimatur, granted on 12 September 1991 and 15 October 1991, respectively. For public worship, such as at weekly Mass, most Catholic Bishops' Conferences in English-speaking countries require the use of other translations, either the adapted New American Bible in the dioceses of the United States and the Philippines or the English Standard Version and Revised New Jerusalem Bible in most of the rest of the English-speaking world. However, the Canadian conference and the Vatican approved a modification of the NRSV for lectionary use in 2008. The NRSV, along with the Revised Standard Version, is also quoted in several places in the English-language edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the latter of which summarizes Catholic doctrine and belief in written form.

In 1990 the synod of the Orthodox Church in America decided not to permit use of the NRSV in liturgy or in Bible studies on the grounds that it is highly "divergent from the Holy Scriptures traditionally read aloud in the sacred services of the Church."

NRSV Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE)
The New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE) is an edition of the NRSV for Catholics. It contains all the canonical books of Scripture accepted by the Catholic Church arranged in the traditional Catholic order. Because of the presence of Catholic scholars on the original NRSV translation team, no other changes to the text were needed.

An Anglicized Text form of the NRSV-CE, embodying the preferences of users of British English, is also available from various publishers.

Liturgical use and approval
The NRSV-CE received the imprimatur of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1991, granting official approval for Catholic use in private study and devotional reading.

In 2007, the Canadian conference and the Vatican approved a modification of the NRSV for lectionary use beginning the following year. The NRSV-CE, along with the Revised Standard Version (RSV), is also one of the texts adapted and quoted in the English-language edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

NRSV Updated Edition (NRSVue)
The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue) is a major revision of the NRSV. A three-year process of reviewing and updating the text of the NRSV was announced at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The update was managed by the SBL following an agreement with the copyright-holding NCC. The stated focuses of the review are incorporating advances in textual criticism since the 1989 publication of the NRSV, improving the textual notes, and reviewing the style and rendering of the translation. A team of more than fifty scholars, led by an editorial board, is responsible for the review. It was released for digital purchase on December 25, 2021, with the first print editions following in 2022.

Study editions

 * The Harper Study Bible (Zondervan, 1991, ISBN 0-310-90203-7)
 * NRSV Reference Bible with the Apocrypha (Zondervan, 1993, ISBN 0-310-90227-4)
 * NRSV Student Bible (Zondervan, 1996, ISBN 0310926823)
 * The Cambridge Annotated Study Bible (Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-521-50777-4)
 * The HarperCollins Study Bible with Apocrypha (Society of Biblical Literature, 1997, ISBN 0-06-065527-5)
 * The Access Bible with Apocrypha (Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-528217-5)
 * The Spiritual Formation Bible (Zondervan, 1999, ISBN 0-310-90089-1)
 * The New Interpreter's Study Bible with Apocrypha (United Methodist Publishing House, 2003, ISBN 0-687-27832-5)
 * The HarperCollins Study Bible: Fully Revised & Updated (HarperOne, 2006, ISBN 978-0060786854)
 * The Green Bible (HarperOne, 2008, ISBN 978-0061951121)
 * The Discipleship Study Bible (Westminster John Knox, 2008, ISBN 978-0664223717)
 * The Life with God Bible (Renovaré, 2009, ISBN 978-0061627644)
 * Lutheran Study Bible (Augsburg Fortress, 2009, ISBN 978-0806680590)
 * The Wesley Study Bible (United Methodist Publishing House, 2009, ISBN 978-0-687-64503-9)
 * The Guidebook: The NRSV Student Bible (Zondervan, 2012, ISBN 978-0061988189)
 * The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0190461850)
 * The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, 5th edition (Oxford University Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0190276072)
 * NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan, 2019, ISBN 978-0310452683)
 * Baylor Annotated Study Bible (Baylor University Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1481308250)
 * The Word on Fire Bible, 7 volumes (Word on Fire, 2020–ongoing)

Canon
The New Revised Standard Version is available in an 84-book Ecumenical Bible that includes the Old Testament, Apocrypha and New Testament; a 66-book Protestant Bible that only includes the Old Testament and New Testament; and a 73-book Catholic edition containing the Catholic enumeration of the Old Testament and the New Testament. A third edition incorporates the Eastern Orthodox canon.

title: New Revised Standard Version


text:
Dwarf elliptical galaxy

Dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs) are elliptical galaxies that are smaller than ordinary elliptical galaxies. They are quite common in galaxy groups and clusters, and are usually companions to other galaxies.

Examples
"Dwarf elliptical" galaxies should not be confused with the rare "compact elliptical" galaxy class, of which M32, a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy, is the prototype. In 1944 Walter Baade confirmed dwarf ellipticals NGC 147 and NGC 185 as members of the Local Group by resolving them into individual stars, thanks to their relatively little distance. In the 1950s, dEs were also discovered in the nearby Fornax and Virgo clusters.

Relation to other elliptical galaxy types
Dwarf elliptical galaxies have blue absolute magnitudes within the range −18 < $M$$V$ < −14 : fainter than ordinary elliptical galaxies.

The surface brightness profiles of ordinary elliptical galaxies was formerly approximated using de Vaucouleur's model, while dEs were approximated with an exponentially declining surface brightness profile. However, both types fit well by a more general function, known as Sersic's model, and there is a continuity of Sersic index (which quantifies the shape of the surface brightness profile) as a function of galaxy luminosity. This is interpreted as showing that dwarf elliptical and ordinary elliptical galaxies belong to a single sequence.

An even-fainter type of elliptical-like galaxies, called dwarf spheroidal galaxies, may be a genuinely distinct class.

Origins
Dwarf ellipticals may be primordial objects. Within the currently favoured cosmological Lambda-CDM model, small objects (consisting of dark matter and gas) were the first to form. Because of their mutual gravitational attraction, some of these will coalesce and merge, forming more massive objects. Further mergers lead to ever more massive objects. The process of coalescence could lead to the present-day galaxies, and has been called "hierarchical merging". If this hypothesis is correct, dwarf galaxies may be the building blocks of today's large spiral galaxies, which in turn are thought to merge to form giant ellipticals.

An alternative suggestion is that dEs could be the remnants of low-mass spiral galaxies that obtained a rounder shape through the action of repeated gravitational interactions with ordinary galaxies within a cluster. This process of changing a galaxy's morphology by interactions, and the removal of much of its stellar disk, has been called "galaxy harassment". Evidence for this latter hypothesis has been claimed due to stellar disks and weak spiral arms seen in some dEs. Under this alternative hypothesis, the anaemic spiral arms and disk are a modified version of the original stellar disk of the now transformed spiral galaxy.

At the same time, the galaxy harassment scenario can not be the full picture. The highly isolated dwarf elliptical galaxy CG 611 possesses the same physical attributes as dE galaxies in clusters – such as coherent rotation and faint spiral arms – attributes that were previously assumed to provide evidence that dE galaxies were once spiral galaxies prior to a transformation process requiring immersion with a cluster of galaxies. CG 611 has a gas disk which counter-rotates to its stellar disk, clearly revealing that this dE galaxy's disk is growing via accretion events. If CG 611 was to fall into a galaxy cluster, ram-pressure stripping by the cluster's halo of hot X-ray gas would strip away CG 611's gas disk and leave a gas-poor dE galaxy that immediately resembles the other dEs in the cluster. That is, no removal of stars nor re-shaping of the galaxy within the dense galaxy cluster environment would be required, undermining the idea that dE galaxies were once spiral galaxies.

title: Dwarf elliptical galaxy


text:
Talk:Subject complement

Original researchhi
Is this original work? RickK 05:37, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The It's I/It's me debate is really a specific example of the usage of subject complimnts. This content should therefore be moved to an article with such a name, and use this an example of the dispute. Lofty 15:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Obviously so. — Nightst a  llion  (?) 19:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

 * "This is she" sounds very odd in colloquial British English, but I believe this is not the case in American English - in an episode of Friends, Rachel says "This is she" when answering a phone call. (Edmund1989 13:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC))

 * The whole section on that is a mess now. It's clearly nonsense anyway - people are trying to explain it coming from different viewpoints and they don't mix. Personally I would go with the French disjunctive pronoun argument, because clearly, it IS gramatically incorrect to say "it is I" but people reject this based on their prescriptive grammars (Edmund1989 (talk) 23:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC))

'Tis I
I just tossed in  'tis I parenthetically into the first line. To my ear, you can say 'tis I, but not 'tis me, even if we all accept "it's me". Agreement?samwaltz 15:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Popular references
There is a New Yorker cartoon in which the newly minted college graduate calls home and introduces himself with "It is I." In fact, that is the entire text of the cartoon. (Robert Day, 1956) This topic and problem are certainly well-known, if not known well. Shenme 01:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Accuracy?
It seems to me that there are several things wrong with this article:

1. The opening statement "It is commonly held that..." Is it? By whom? I've yet to see a dictionary that lists "be" as a transitive verb, so you would need to be ignorant of grammar to suggest that 'be' can take an object. If this statement is to stand, I'd like to see it justified.

2. Who are the "prescriptive grammarians" (I've already changed the nonce word 'grammaticans') who regard "It's me" as a mistake? Certainly no current English grammar would say so, I think.

3. The use of "It's me" versus "It's I" is described as "rather common", which I think is inaccurate - it's later described more accurately: "the use of the subjective in the subject complement has almost entirely disappeared".

4. I agree that this should be part of the Subject complement article.

Unless there are objections, I'll return and make changes.

--Nyelvmark 20:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I disagree with this merger. Subject complement is a very general concept, found in many languages. The debate over "It's I" versus "It's me" is quite specific to the English language. FilipeS 20:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

December 2007
Note on French - "moi" is the disjunctive pronoun, which is why I have reverted to theprevious edit (Edmund1989 (talk) 18:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC))

May 2008
What cases such as the following:

a) The boss took me to lunch.

b) The boss took Fred to lunch.

c) The boos took Fred and I to lunch.

The third usage is sadly common in spoken English, as the general lack of understanding of grammar seems to lead some speakers to prefer 'I' where 'me' would be correct.

I'm not sure that this is the proper page for this observation, but my guess is that someone else will know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smitty1e (talk • contribs) 01:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

June 2009
What about Me and Jane went to the store.

Everybody seems to talk like this these days.

Me thinks, I will soon be replaced with generalized me.

On the other hand, some people still use the subject pronoun (not the object pronoun) form:

It is you and I. Between you and I. This is she [answering the phone].

 * "It is you and I," and "This is she" are perfectly correct. "Between you and I" is simply wrong; "between" is a preposition.

Chinese language example doesn't make sense
"For example, in Mandarin Chinese "It is red" is rendered as tā hóng..."

This sentence seems like a statement with a truth value of false. "Tā hóng," like "It red," is not grammatically correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.0.231.224 (talk) 03:36, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

and as such they prove
"Prove"? What are the premises, the rules of inference, and the conclusion? 79.178.69.9 (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I reworded around this. -- Beland (talk) 22:02, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Explain
What is the difference between subject complement and predicative expression? Why do there need to be two separate articles? W. P. Uzer (talk) 12:04, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear! --Kent Dominic·(talk) 02:45, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

May, 2019: The Emperor's New Clothes
I'm the child who has the temerity to point out what linguists' groupthink has ignored: The notion of a subject complement that "complements the subject of the sentence" is as fundamentally flawed as it is incontrovertibly accepted. The flaw stems not from the premise that a stative complement " is a predicative expression that follows a linking verb (copula)" but from two enthymematic assumptions:
 * 1. That an adjectival adjunct (e.g., "Only the crops unaffected by the drought are suitable for sale") is excluded from the subject complement definition.
 * 2. That a subject complement completes the meaning of a subject.

That second enthymematic assumption is exposed in such examples as follows: The third example most clearly illustrates the fundamental flaw in the subject complement paradigm: the word, "not" complements the copula rather the subject. My ESL students can grasp that explanation while they're interminably confused by the subject complement verbiage in textbooks.
 * Where is your phone? Here it is. (I.e., "here" is either the subject of the sentence or an adverbial subject complement that doesn't follow the copula but instead modifies "is".)
 * Is that your phone? Yes, it is. (I.e. "it" is either the subject of the sentence or a subject complement that doesn't follow the copula.)
 * Is it new? No, it's not. (I.e. "not" is a prototypical subject complement under traditional linguistic analysis, however...)
 * Where are they? < "Where" adverbially modifies the verb, "are" rather than the subject, "they."
 * They're home. < "home" adverbially modifies the verb, "are," rather than the subject, "they."
 * Was she sure? < "sure" modifies the verb, "was" (i.e. her status) rather than the subject, "she."
 * She sure was. < ibid

ESL students who attempt to apply the traditional subject complement paradigm can't easily determine whether "Where" = "they," whether "They" = "home," etc. ESL students have further difficulty interpreting the difference between, e.g.:
 * 1. How was the deadline? (I.e. whether "How" constitutes a noun, pronoun, or adverb confounds ESL students who nonetheless use such questions by rote.)
 * 2. The deadline was fine. (I.e. "fine" as an adjective that corresponds to "deadline" is readily grasped by ESL students.)
 * 3. When was the deadline? (I.e. whether "When" constitutes a noun, pronoun, or adverb confounds ESL students who nonetheless use such questions by rote.)
 * 4. The deadline was on Friday. (I.e. "on Friday" as an adverbial phrase is readily grasped when explained in terms of the deadline's "was" status.)
 * 5. The deadline was Friday. (I.e. "Friday" as an adverbial that corresponds to "was" is not readily grasped due to limitations of the subject complement paradigm.)
 * 6. The deadline was Friday. (I.e. "Friday" as an noun that corresponds to "deadline" is readily grasped.)
 * 7. Yesterday was the deadline. (I.e. "deadline" as a noun that corresponds to "yesterday" is readily grasped.)
 * 8. The deadline was yesterday. (I.e. "yesterday" as an adverbial that corresponds to "was" is not readily grasped due to limitations of the subject complement paradigm.)
 * 9. The deadline was yesterday. (I.e. "yesterday" as an noun that corresponds to "deadline" is readily grasped.)
 * 10. The deadline was on yesterday. (I.e. "on yesterday" as an adjectival phrase that corresponds to "deadline" is typical of ESL students' errors in their attempt to apply a flawed subject complement paradigm that construes predicative expressions vis-a-vis their correspondence to subjects rather than their correspondence to copulas.)

Conclusion: The term subject complement, as universally adopted and typically explained, attempts to illustrate the nexus between a subject and predicative expression while obfuscating the more basic (and more practical) nexus between a stative verb and its argument. So instead of subject complement it should be stative complement. Such a paradigm shift would obviate explanations for sentences like, "It sure was," "They're here," and "The book-signing was Sunday afternoon." Kent Dominic 11:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Replaced "Since copulas are stative verbs"
In the top section, I've replaced "Since copulas are stative verbs" with "Since linking verbs are intransitive". The original was incorrect in three ways:

 * 1) Copulas aren't all verbs. In some languages they're suffixes or even non-existent.
 * 2) Linking verbs aren't even all stative verbs. "Because" is both a linking verb and an action verb (non-stative verb).
 * 3) This statement is incorrectly given as the reason the verb doesn't affect subject complements. It's inherent in being a subject complement -- rather than an object -- that verbs don't affect it. It's about whether the verb is intransitive, not whether it's stative.

I would also support removing the phrase altogether since the rest of the sentence stands on its own in the context, and talking about transitivity could be read to imply that subject complements are some kind of object. Atkinson (talk) 19:06, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Recent changes to the lede
Recently, Hildeoc has attempted to insert predicative nominative and predicate nominative as synonymous terms for subject complement in this article's lede. Such attempts are misguided. The terms are not synonymous. The former terms are hyponyms while the latter term is a hypernym. I.e., a subject complement may correspond either nominally (e.g., "Sean is a carpenter"), adjectivally (e.g., "Sean looks cool"), or adverbially (e.g., "Sean was here" or "Where is Waldo?"). I make those observations with a full apology for the shortcomings of this article as a whole, which neglects the extent to which the stative complement protologism is rightly supplanting subject complement as a term that has outlived its linguistic usefulness. For the uninitiated, a stative complement considers the predicative relation of an adjectival, adverbial, or nominal element vis-a-vis a stative verb rather than vis-a-vis a subject. Kent Dominic·(talk) 14:15, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

NOTE: According to the third sentence of the lede, "An adjective following the copula and describing the subject is called a predicative adjective ." Thus, the terms predicative nominative and predicate nominative (which include only nouns and pronouns) are too narrow to constitute synonyms re subject complement. To reiterate, they're hyponyms.--Kent Dominic·(talk) 17:32, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

 * @Kent Dominic: Alright. I've now adjusted the terminology and removed the external links, as they all were referring to the terms questioned by you. Are you fine with that? Sorry for the inconvenience in the first place. Greetings, Hildeoc (talk) 18:07, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Your most recent changes seem pretty harmless. My main concern is that some of your prior changes were needlessly packing antiquated terms onto the sinking linguistic ship traditionally known as a subject complement. As it stands, the article here is fraught with major linguistic holes. E.g., "In grammar, a subject complement is a predicative expression that follows a linking verb (copula) and that complements the subject of a clause by either renaming or describing it" is laughably lame IMHO. It would more accurately be (for purposes of this article), "In traditional grammar, a subject complement is a predicative expression corresponding to a stative verb that is most commonly construed as a linking verb or copula. Thus, a subject complement complements the subject of a clause by characterizing or describing it." There's no requirement of following a verb (e.g., "Sorry seems to be the hardest word.") There's no "renaming" of anything, per se.
 * Modern grammar doesn't approve of the subject complement terminology either as described in the article or as restated above. It's used in an entirely different way - always as an adjunct. E.g., "Editors at Wikipedia are volunteers" or "clouds [that were] seen in the distance threatened rain," or "How is it that you disagree?" In my own work, I have five separate modern definitions for subject complement and a sixth that reads, "an outmoded taxon (invented in 1923) intended to classify a nominal word, nominal phrase, or nominal clause that complements a stative verb." It's true that grammarians expanded that 100-year-old term to include adjectival and adverbial characterizations, but that bit of trivia is beyond the scope of my own work, which presents definition #6 merely as a historical relic.
 * To be clear, I'd much rather see this article updated in the manner of the Preposition stranding article (i.e., "Historically, grammarians have described subject complement as XYZ..."), but I'd rather not be the editor who causes that riot. Kudos to you or Doric Loon or whomever else takes on that task. Kent Dominic·(talk) 18:49, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, feel free to lend a hand. I didn't write this article. In principle, I actually just tried to make the article more consistent with regard to it being the previous target of predicate nominative. But as this is no issue here anymore, I won't deal with it any longer since I don't have the capacities for revising the actual content. Best, Hildeoc (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * PS: I've also diverted the corresponding redirects. Hildeoc (talk) 18:11, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

My recent wholesale changes
I've made a lot of changes, mainly to the lede, in order to make the entry comprehensible to an ordinary reader (although how comprehensible is a moot question). I've tried not to modify the actual content too much.

One has to go back to about July 2011 to find a succinct lede that actually makes sense. Since then accretions of various kinds have built up to make the lede into a confusing jumble of almost unrelated statements. It's like a small neat bush that has eventually grown into a very unruly tree that randomly sprawls across the fence. (One of the worst edits in terms of coherence was the removal of (1) and (2) from the start of the lede where the function of subject complements was said to be "either (1) renaming it or (2) describing it", where "it" is the subject of the sentence. Without those two numerals the coherence of the lede was broken, leaving readers to wander through an increasingly aimless collection of sentences.)

I do not mind if other editors edit my first attempt, but if you fancy yourself any kind of expert on language, please remember key concepts of cohesion and coherence. A piece of prose is not a wayward collection of random sentences. It should be guided and mustered, with signposts that tell the reader what the point is and where it is going. Somehow, in the last 13 years it gradually lost that as different editors had their way. Bathrobe (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Kent Dominic has made a number of constructive changes to the entry. However, there is one edit that I would like to query. The article now states that "is" and "was" are cognate forms of "be". This is problematic in two ways:
 * 1. "be", "was", and "is" do not appear to be cognates. From a cursory glance at Internet sources they are etymologically unrelated.
 * "be" is from Old English bēon; akin to Old High German bim "am", Latin fui "I have been", futurus "about to be", fieri "to become", "be done", Greek phynai "to be born", "be by nature", phyein "to produce".
 * "was" is from Old English wæs, 1st & 3rd singular past indicative of wesan "to be"; akin to Old Norse vera "to be", var "was", Sanskrit vasati "he lives, dwells".
 * "is" is from Middle English, akin to Old High German ist "is" (from sīn "to be"), Latin est (from esse "to be"), Greek esti (from einai "to be")
 * 2. Whether "be", "was", or "is" are etymologically unrelated is actually irrelevant. What is relevant is that they all form part of the paradigm of the verb "to be" (infinitive, past simple singular, present simple 1st and 3rd person singular, respectively), and that the verb "to be" is generally identified as the "copula" in English. The conjugation of the verb "to be" in English is, in fact, exceptional in not consisting of etymologically related forms.
 * I would ask Kent to fix this inaccurate and irrelevant change to the entry. Bathrobe (talk) 15:49, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Good catch. Lesson learned: haste makes waste when knowing inflection is wrong and having false cognates in mind but linking cognate instead. Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure were is an inflected cognate of was, which are etymologically unrelated to been and being(participle) as inflected cognates of be (infinitive), while you're right about is, which is an inflected cognate of am, or vice versa, depending on the recollection of anyone who's survived the Proto-Germanic era with a contempory understanding of morphology.
 * Anyway, neither cognate nor inflected is contextually accurate re the article, and false cognate is somewhat true but admittedly misleading unless qualified. A generic word that's true of all modern-day be forms is concomitant. I'll go with that to see if it un-wreaks the havoc. Kent Dominic·(talk) 18:11, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the word is suppletion. Although the traditional word conjugation would also work fine. In fact, a table showing the conjugation of the verb to be in a range of Indo-European languages can be found at that entry. See also realizational morphology. Bathrobe (talk) 19:43, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't agree that conjugation, which involves inflection, would work fine. I agree that suppletion is the right linguistics term, but a practical consideration is whether to aim for technical accuracy of general accessibility for the sake of average readers. How many of them would relish navigating the phalanx of what an irregular suppletive form means in the case of be, which is defective since only being and been are bona fide conjugation via the inflection associated with suppletion?
 * Granted, concomitant might not be an everyday word, but it has a less daunting ring to my ear. Regardless, I'm not averse to the substitution of suppletive (as long as it's linked to "suppletive" < as parenthetically formatted) for concomitant, so do the honors if you're so inspired. Kent Dominic·(talk) 21:04, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you demonstrate that concomitant has this meaning? I've never heard it and couldn't find it. Bathrobe (talk) 10:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Passive participle as a subject complement
Recent edits by Bathrobe deleted the article's assertion that "Since linking verbs are intransitive, subject complements are not affected by any action of the verb." That poorly-worded assertion had troubled me. In one sense, a passive voice construct involves a so-called copula expressive of a state rather than action. A copula nonetheless predicates a passive participle, which may be construed to passively affect the subject, e.g. "They were shocked" conveys the sense of a subject being affected by the operation of the copula. Thoughts, anyone? Kent Dominic·(talk) 01:53, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

 * "Since linking verbs are intransitive, subject complements are not affected by any action of the verb" bugged me, too, but I couldn't think of a truly appropriate replacement. That's why I used the term "object" -- according to the general understanding, subject complements are not objects of the verb, which it seemed to me was what was meant here.
 * IMO, "They were shocked" can have two meanings.
 * One is the passive: "They touched the live wires and they were shocked".
 * This cannot (normally) be intensified as "They were very shocked".
 * The other is with "shocked" as an adjective meaning something like "extremely upset or amazed in a bad way".
 * This one is a subject complement and can be intensified as "They were very shocked" (not just a little shocked).
 * That's why couching the statement in terms of the grammatical category of "object" is better than vague semantic expressions like "not be affected by" . Bathrobe (talk) 10:37, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Truth be told, I started this tread more to troll the article than to elict comments. My obsessive interest in linguistics often makes me read Wikipedia articles on grammar (as well as Huddleston & Pullum stuff, et al) when I need a good laugh or cry.
 * Traditional grammarists who can't distinguish syntax from semantics would be shocked and dismissive regarding how I view stative complement in contrast to how this article and most traditionalists view the term. IMHO, the article's treatment of a stative complement as "a predicative a predicative expression that follows a copula (commonly known as a linking verb), which complements the subject of a clause by means of characterization that completes the meaning of the subject" is 100% accurate, but only 25% complete.
 * My brain is wired to apply literal interpretations to both subject and complement rather than subscribing to an arbitrary term that accounts for 1/4 of what a subject[*attributive noun*] complement rightly may be construed to comprehend. To see a Frankenstein scientist's mad sense of subject complement, do an Alt-F search on "LOVE to" in this talk page, then read that paragraph and the ensuing text. If you find anything enlightening there, you'll likely agree that it'll take no small amount of time for much of those novel-yet-reasonable articulations to gain traction in the relavent Wikipedia articles. Talk page indulgences are another matter.
 * P.S. Thanks to you, I'm conflicted whether to edit my posts on that page by substituting "suppletive forms" for "cognates", or to let it remain as a memorial to how arcane linguistic terms sometimes get the better of us.
 * Cheers. Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:31, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't bother using "suppletive form". I would simply state that (for example) "was" is the "3rd person simple past form of the copula be".
 * Of course, that introduces more grammatical terminology, so to simplify things you could state that it's a "form of the copula be". Or "a form of the copula be (3rd person simple past)". To avoid completely dumbing it down, put a link to the entry on "suppletion".
 * "Suppletion" is only arcane, by the way, because us moderns no longer know any Latin. Bathrobe (talk) 19:44, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * With regard to subject complement, I think the problem is that whereas most transitive verbs (in Latin, I assume) were followed by nouns in the accusative case etc., a small group of verbs obstinately took the nominative. To explain this they resorted to the concept that the following noun somehow "completed" the sense of the subject. Extend this to adjectives and you have the traditional treatment.
 * Then, of course, you have some other tricky constructions that you decide to call object complements. It doesn't matter how you do it, sorting all these troublesome phenomena into boxes is akin to a problem some men might experience when putting on their underpants in the morning: they can't fit it all in. Bathrobe (talk) 19:58, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Subject complement