疯狂英语阅读：GrammerSmart2

文章作者 100test 发表时间 2007:09:15 13:12:46
来源 100Test.Com百考试题网

Male: In fact, your ears are your most effective teaching tools. The 1)trick is merely to fine tune them, to hear more 2)subtle problems in the language. For instance, you hear a mistake in the following sentence? “Sister Cody does the hoochie-coochie like a true professional.”

Female: Well, not in the grammar anyway. I’m not sure about sister Cody though.

Male: Well, be that as it may, you’re right about the grammar. In this case the 3)subject, sister Cody, is 4)singular and so is the verb “does” Ñ. “she does”.

Female: Well, how about this? “Sister Cody, not to mention her many disciples, Mona Foot, Perfidia, Head of 5)Lettuce, and of course Lester Loud, all of whom learned to apply their many trades under the 6)watchful eyes of the same master teachers, do the hoochie-coochie with style and grace.”

Male: And you thought my example was strange. No, I hear no errors in that sentence either.

Female: Well, that’s where you’re wrong and that’s where so many people 7)run into problems. Remember, the basic rule you want to follow is that singular subjects must have singular verbs while 8)plural subjects should have plural verbs. In very brief sentences, this isn’t tough to hear.

Male: As it was with, “Sister Cody does the hoochie-coochie.”

Female: Right. But in longer sentences with lots of extra phrases and clauses, separating the subject from the verb, the agreement can be harder to hear.

Male: As it was with, “Sister Cody, not to mention her many disciples, Mona Foot, Perfidia, Head of Lettuce, and of course Lester Loud, all of whom learned to apply their many trades under the watchful eyes of the same master teachers, do the hoochie-coochie with style and grace.”

Female: What’s the subject in that rather 9)convoluted sentence? In other words, who is actually doing the 10)hoochie-coochie?

Male: Sister Cody.

Female: Right, but look at the verb. The sentence reads “do the hoochie-coochie”. Now you’d never say, “Sister Cody do the hoochie-coochie.” Would you?

Male: I’d never say, “Sister Cody do” anything.

Female: But as it’s 11)stated now that’s exactly what the sentence is saying only you don’t hear it, because there are so many other plural nouns in between the subject and verb.

Male: But those plurals are introduced by the phrase “not to mention”. Doesn’t that add them to the original subject and make them all plural?

Female: Nope. I’m afraid not. “Not to mention” as a matter of fact, keeps the items that it introduces separate from the subject of the sentence. We’ll cover that problem in greater detail later. For now, just take my word for it. The 12)sure-fire way to 13)side-step this little problem, one that crops up time and time again in both spoken and written English is to remove the stuff from between the subject and the verb and then see if they agree. When the subject and verb are placed right next to each other, there’s no mistaking whether they agree.

Male: That’s how you came up with “Sister Cody do”.

Female: Exactly. Now it’s easy to fix. Just change the verb to agree with the subject, they should both be singular. Go ahead.

Male: All right, but I’m a little nervous.

Female: Oh for Pete’s sake, just do it.

Male: Well Ok. But...

Female: Do it!

Male: “Sister Cody, not to mention her many disciples, Mona Foot, Perfidia, Head of Lettuce, and of course Lester Loud, all of whom learned to apply their many trades under the watchful eyes of the same master teachers, does the hoochie-coochie with style and grace.”

Female: There, now wasn’t that easy?