English is far more flexible than most people realize, even those who think of themselves as experts in grammar. Thank you for the breath of fresh air. And do not worry about the comment from Hairyscot. It is clear that she or he wants to avoid addressing your argument, which I do not understand given the interesting points you raise.
Fascinating discussion! Found the link to see what objections there might be to "someone else's," as in "I think this is someone else's pen, not mine!
I don't chew my pens. However, someone else is some person other than the speaker, the other interlocutor, or some person previously mentioned in the conversation or text. See - no red squiggle! If the freaking morons who create spell-checkers and they're not morons, but they can be pains in the ass hold on to that idea think passersby is correct, it must be!
Yes - but that is one word. Not touchesdown. See - red squiggle! But BrockawayBaby, your logic is flawed - interesting, but flawed. Let's look back at the discussion I know - it's 8 months old - so what? Neither is touchdown. By can be used as a preposition, of course, but also as an adverb. It answers the question "Where did the passers pass? A touchdown is a similar construction - the score occurs when the player touches down in the end zone.
It has become a one word noun, so of course its plural is touchdowns. A push up is a form of exercise in which one does pushups. No red squiggly line! But you COULD say, "After several pushes up the stairs, we stopped for breath; that's when that old refrigerator came sliding back down the stairs and crushed Up, down, etc.
So - work on this: I have two mothers-in-law, having been married twice. I walked into a room of mother-in-laws! What an odd convention! I'll bet you no more than a nickel, Brock-o-baby, that both are correct - and I really have no idea why Someone else's turn!
Stupid squiggly red line! Grmrtchr Apr Grammarteacher sorry, I'm a stickler for vowels beat me by two months in refuting BrockawayBaby's claims, and much more elegantly than I could have. Actually, I have nothing to add to this conversation other than admiration for the previous post. I should probably just navigate away from this page Brennan Jun Our impasse regards identifying parts of speech. While you may be able to make that argument with 'touchdown' because of the ambiguity between 'a touch' noun and 'to touch' verb , the same argument cannot be made with passerby.
You say that 'touch' is clearly a verb. You say that we can tell because you can ask a question like, "Where did the passers pass? In the case of 'touchdown,' as I mentioned above, you have a point. It is possible to understand 'touch,' here, as a verb. But it is also possible to consider it a noun: the player scores by a 'touch' within the end zone. Where is the touch understood here as a noun? He or she made the touch down on the field in the end zone. Similarly, my other examples seem to be open to the same ambiguity you are seizing on to make your argument.
Thank you for pointing that out. BrockwayBaby Aug When it comes to compound nouns, you can see some general principles, as have been discussed above, but there are many exceptions. You simply cannot draw up a hard and fast rule which covers everything.
This is when you really do need a dictionary. Warsaw Will Aug Obvious that BrockawayBaby is open to both sides. I wish we all could be more open to some of the ambiguity in English. WellSid Aug Hmmmm Nov It is specifying a consensus generally, as opposed to a consensus of a narrow class. Jeremy Wheeler Nov Hmmmm - redundancy has nothing to do with grammar; it's about style and usage.
And in informal discourse there's nothing wrong with a bit of redundancy here and there. In fact in spoken language it often helps understanding. This preoccupation some people have with redundancy is really quite beyond me - it's part of what I think of as "English by numbers".
Warsaw Will Nov Nobody above has mentioned the added level of awkwardness when it comes to the possessive forms of these words.. You get these:. Both of the sisters'-in-law families attended the wedding. That just sounds bizarre. Who would ever say: All passers'-by faces fell when they saw what was happening in the street.
I got an ignorant red squiggle because of that closing inverted comma! Skeeter Lewis Jan I'd simply change to possessive "of" in these cases - "The faces of all the passers-by fell Seems somewhat clearer and reads better, I think.. Warsaw Will Jan Don't waste my time or anyone else's It isn't. Troy C Nelson Feb Someone else's baby Someone else's eyes are blue Someone else's baby Someone else's five-foot-two.
Oh, who's got a hold up Nine carat gold love I wonder who's in the loveseat Who's got a heartbeat, like thunder. If I acted bad I could steal his fairy queen I know he'll be mad But I can't resist the thought of being kissed.
By someone else's baby Someone else's special date Someone else's baby Someone else is kinda late. He'd better mind out She's gonna find out I love her This little fellah is gonna tell her That someone else is me.
Well, if I acted bad I could steal his fairy queen I know he'll be mad But I can't resist the thought of being kissed. Oh, he'd better mind out She's gonna find out I love her This little fellow is gonna tell her That someone else is me. John Gibson Feb To BrockawayBaby and those who commented with regards to Baby's first comment ; Passer-by is a hyphenated word. Playoff like blastoff has been reduced to a single word, without hyphen.
The plural of passer-by is passers-by, just as simply as it was described above although I do admit it even sounds strange at first. I mean, we can all see it. Mothers-in-law; anti-inflammatories, etc.
However, for words like playoff or blastoff, they are not hyphenated words, and as such, would only be pluralized at the ending. After all, in any other such case with compound words, when would you randomly insert an S into it?
Breakdown would be breakdowns, not breaksdown; countrysides, not countriesside. Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong and I know I'm 4 years late to this party Lexi Jun Some dictionaries list is as a compound word and others list is as hyphenated. The strange thing is that, even when it is listed as a compound word as in Merriam Webster's online dictionary , the plural is made by inserting an 's' into the word, making the plural of 'passerby' the compound version 'passersby' in direct contradiction of what you are saying.
I see that my browser is red-lining the former, but I can think of no reason why - of course it's correct. It seems that spellcheckers are about a hundred years behind the time on this one. As has been pointed out, passer-by is sometimes hyphenated British dictionaries , and sometimes not in some American dictionaries , yet it's the passer part that always gets the S.
So whether or not it's hyphenated is not where the answer lies. And as Brockaway Baby shows, compound nouns ending in adverbs usually take the s at the end; passers-by seems to be a bit of an exception here. And the S goes doesn't depend on the the grammatical nature of the components either.
For example, from the phrasal verb break out, we get outbreaks, but also breakouts. Daniel British. Libby British. Mia British. Karen Australian. Hayley Australian. Natasha Australian.
Veena Indian. Priya Indian. Neerja Indian. Zira US English. Oliver British. Wendy British. Fred US English. Tessa South African. How to say anyone else in sign language? Numerology Chaldean Numerology The numerical value of anyone else in Chaldean Numerology is: 4 Pythagorean Numerology The numerical value of anyone else in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7.
Jack Kent Cooke : The guy Haberkorn — who is a professional personal injury lawyer — did a number on me, then he looked me up, found out who my dad is, and saw dollar signs when he learned my name. I would ask: Does anyone else have problems with?
Is one of them more correct than the other? I have checked wr definitions but most of the hits were about "does anyone have vs. Thank you. Click to expand Last edited: Oct 19, I would say Anyone have problems? This is an ellipsis of Does anyone have? I react to Anyone has problems? But Has anyone problems? Note that Have any of you? If you ask a question and keep the same order of words, the verb does not change.
But we don't ask questions like this in English, except in special cases like yours He has three children, right? However, anyone seems to be a special case compare No one has a clue? Why I don't know, except that I have heard it so often that I react immediately to Anyone has? If you ask a question and keep the same order of words, the verb does not change Biffo Senior Member England.
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