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Today we were learning some easy grammar stuff. Semicolons and colons. While reviewing a paragraph about the history of yo-yos, the teacher points out this sentence as being incorrect due to a reason other than the semicolon absence that we had to correct.
In Europe they played with yo-yos; in the Philippines they used them for more serious purposes.
My teacher says the sentence is incorrect because it has incorrect pronoun usage. She said the grammar workbook made a mistake because it should say
In Europe Europeans played with yo-yos; in the Philippines Filipinos used them for more serious purposes.
It especially bothers me because she is an obnoxious and elitist person who advocates absolute perfect use of grammar in an area where people really don't give a shit. Personally, as long as you can actually understand what someone is saying then grammar doesn't really matter to me.
Anyway...I think she is exaggerating the unclear usage of pronouns in this case. It is pretty easy to assume that "they" meant Europeans and Philippians in the second part. The sentence is in the middle of the paragraph about the history of yo-yos, so nothing really crazy such as aliens would happen. If the writers were intending something different and more specific, then they would have been more specific right? With using "they", the writers were certainly implying that it was the average person in Europe or Philippines.
I did ask, "Isn't it pretty easy to assume that they were referring to Europeans and Philippines?"
She said, "Well you know what happens when you assume?"
I couldn't say anything else because unless it would've been a very short one-lined reply, her elitist self would have interrupted me mid sentence and embarrass me in front of the class.
Poll: Is the original sentence correct?No (63) 88% Yes (9) 13% 72 total votes Your vote: Is the original sentence correct? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
edit: Changed poll for clarity.
 
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Calgary25981 Posts
You can get the meaning but it's not correct unless the preceding sentence is one about human beings.
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Your sentence is grammatically ambiguous, so your teacher is right about that. However, it's not like it would be ambiguous in context with what you are writing, and especially not to anyone with a grain of common sense.
Edit: That isn't to say that it is right at all though, both the original sentence and your teacher's fix are just not good writing.
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Hmmm...
Well, my mother tongue is German so maybe I'm the wrong one to give you an advice, but it's comparable to german here.
In German a suitable word would be "man", which is an indefinite pronoun of third person. As far as I know, the English counterpart to it is "one" (surprised me, but my teacher said so). Using an indefinite pronoun would be the save approach for this sentence.
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I think replacing 'they' with 'people' might be better. The teacher's correction is just a very awkward sentence, even if it's gramatically correct.
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Remembering back to high school, I'm going with chill. If there are appropriate context clues in the passage before that sentence, the antecedent of the pronoun "they" is understood to be people in those regions.
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isnt it Filipinos, not Philippians?
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On October 01 2010 05:57 metaphoR wrote:
isnt it Filipinos, not Philippians?
It is indeed.
I dunno, the first sentence seemed perfectly understandable to me, but I'm not exactly an english professor.
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On October 01 2010 05:57 metaphoR wrote:
isnt it Filipinos, not Philippians?
Maybe the article was about the ancient Greeks bringing the yo-yo to the Philippines.
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Canada8031 Posts
Technically, the first sentence is incorrect. It'd be absolutely fine in everyday usage though.
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United States22883 Posts
Grammar is important. If you ever take the LSATs, you'll see how assumptions like that are a problem.
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On October 01 2010 05:57 metaphoR wrote:
isnt it Filipinos, not Philippians?
This.
Philippians are people of the ancient city of Philippi. It is also the title of a letter written by the apostle Paul to the church in Philippi.
Ofc, this has nothing to do with your main question, but it is a little bit funny your elitist teacher made a very simple mistake like that (assuming you quoted accurately).
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On October 01 2010 06:00 mucker wrote:
Maybe the article was about the ancient Greeks bringing the yo-yo to the Philippines.
So it's not so obvious after all, and the original sentence is wrong!
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United States10774 Posts
well there are a grammar rules that are more or less forgotten in everyday speech. but yeah it is technically incorrect.
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ya i definitely didn't quote accurately. fixed it
also, I would like to emphasize that it was used in the middle of a paragraph with four sentences before it talking about different cultures using yo-yos
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well whatever the correct grammar is, you cant take your professor too seriously. cant let her get to you that easily.
she will still probably be that way even after you challenge her and prove her wrong. some people are like that.
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The "corrected" sentence is so awkward lol. Anyway, trusting your English teacher is a good heuristic. They're usually pretty competent on the subject of "correct" grammar.
On the other hand, linguistically that string of words is obviously a sentence in the English grammar. It's important to make this distinction so that we do not mistake pedantry for knowledge.
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While your teacher said:
"In Europe Europeans played with yo-yos; in the Philippines Filipinos used them for more serious purposes."
You should add a comma after Europe and Philippines as well.
It should read:
In Europe, Europeans played with yo-yos; in the Philippines, Filipinos used them for more serious purposes.
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I do not believe the object of a preposition can be used as an antecedent, which is probably the rule that your teacher is being anal about.
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you should tell her that it's absolutely ludicrous to write in the fashion of the correction, and that no self respecting writer would ever do that without some crazy reason.
It's sadly correct but then again it's not incorrect for someone to be ejaculating in your hair but you don't want them to be doing that either.
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EPT
