[Ads-l] Clark University students told they can't say 'you guys' because it might be sexist | Daily Mail Online

[Benjamin Barrett]

> On 11 Sep 2016, at 10:25, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 11:43 AM, Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> it doesn’t seem particularly uncommon.
> 
> 
> Ain't that the sad truth?
> 
> Why not
> 
> "Let all the poison, that lurks in the mud, hatch out"?
> 
> Or even
> 
> "Let all the poison hatch out that lurks in the mud"?
> 
> Those are far clearer ways to separate to separate the relative clause out,
> so that the reader can connect the following verb to the subject.
> 
> Maybe it's just a simple case of different strokes for different folks
> combined with language change in progress.

FWIW, I think what happens is that the writer gets to the “hatch out” part and gets the vague feeling that a comma is needed because they feel the syntax disjuncture, but doesn’t get the same urge after “poison” because it doesn’t exist. (As an aside, we can also have fun switching between singular and plural verbs.) BB
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