I was horrified last night by my earlier blog post. I was staring at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep, singing the monkey song in my head (yes, I am trying to find a middle ground between the numbers and the words), and I was struck by the realization that I have been party to bad grammar. Shame, shame on me.
10 points for the first person to point out the embarrassing grammar mistake in my interpretation of the monkey song:
"Five little monkeys sitting in a tree, one falls off and now there's three."
shanti,
mjh
10 comments:
i'm thinking it has something to do with a certain comma......
A bonus five points for noticing that the comma should actually be a semicolon. Since Lily doesn't know that I am mentally punctuating the song (yes, I mentally punctuate), this is really just a typing mistake...so...5 points.
yes... that was my wife!
;)
I kept waiting for someone else to mention it first, but I think it should be "and now there are three".
Babs Christy
Yay, Mrs. Christy! I'm giving you the ten points. You and I are on the same wavelength...though there is another side to this page.
I have been thinking about this (way too much) throughout the day, and it seems that either way ("now there is" or "now there are") could be correct; it all depends on what is not being said.
The first option is to have the word "three" serve nominally: "now there is (a group of) three." If "a group of" is silent and understood, then the singular "is" stands correct. Therefore, "now there's three" is actually grammatically accurate.
The second option (this is where Mrs. Christy gets her points) is to have the word "three" serve adjectivally: "now there are three (monkeys)." If "monkeys" is silent and understood, then the plural "are" stands correct. Therefore, "now there are three" is also right.
Is anyone actually still reading this? I imagine that glassy look I used to get from my students right about now.
I didn't actually look any of this up, so believe it at your own risk.
Many thanks to Dee, Wallace, and Mrs. Christy for weighing in on my blog! I'm giving Wallace a participation point; Dee, don't give him too hard of a time about the 4-point lead.
Class dismissed (let's hope for a long while).
Thanks for the points Matt :). Just one more comment and I'll not bother you again, but I thoroughly enjoyed your ABC vs 123 post because it is just like John and I. He is the math major and everything is numbers. I was the English major and therefore think in rhyme. And to show you that I have way too much time on my hands now that I have an empty nest, I actually googled the 5 little monkeys rhyme to see how it went. You'll have to look it up - they were swinging in a tree and it involves a rather gruesome encounter with an alligator! Babs Christy
Woohoo! a point!
i was thinking that maybe it shouldn't be "there's' becuase its not posessive.
and i did not read the whole response to mrs christy. you were right, it was too much. :)
Mrs. Christy, you can "bother" me anytime. I love blog discussions, so I appreciate anyone's input, feedback, opinions, etc.
Blog conversations > blogging alone.
(some math for Mr. Christy and Alison).
I'll be googling the actual song later today. The alligator sounds exciting!
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