old bad advice

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sat Sep 17 23:26:53 UTC 2011


On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 2:45 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> quoted:
> VERBS--...A prevalent form of this error is found in sentences such as: "It is one of the best books that has
> appeared this year." Don't be guilty of this careless slip.

What "guilty"? What "careless slip"? I speak and write sentences of
this type on purpose and without guilt.

> The Qualifying phrase in such cases requires the plural verb, since the "that" refers not to "one," but to the          > several to which the "one" belongs. ...

And a double negarive makes a sentence positive.

Where do prescriptivists get these ideas from, anyway?

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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