IS this sentence correct?

“You and Mr. Lee are like beauty and the beast.” – Mr. Hii

It is correct as a sentence, but some words should be capitalized since they are names of characters from a fairy tale. It should therefore be:

“You and Mr. Lee are like Beauty and the Beast.”

Poor Mr Lee! Maybe he will turn out to be a prince, as in the fairy tale.

Assassination

Isn’t the word “assassination” reserved for political figures? Some entertainment websites had the headline, “Jihadist calls for Letterman’s assassination.” As far as I know, David Letterman is not a politician. Also, I have never heard anyone say or write “John Lennon’s assassination”. – Nasir

The word “assassination” is mainly, but not exclusively used for the murder of a political figure. It can also be used for the murders of other prominent and famous people, and even iconic pop stars like John Lennon.

David Letterman, though not a politician, is famous enough as a talk show host for a call to kill him to be termed “a call for his assassination”.

Coming back to John Lennon, the word “assassination” was used for his murder, by the BBC, which in 2007 produced an educational DVD titled The Assassination of John Lennon, which was a TV programme in a series called Infamous Assassinations.

The word was also used by the British newspaper The Guardian in an article the day after Lennon’s murder. The last sentence of this article reads:

“Yesterday the tragedy was treated as the most important news story in America and the media likened the assassination to that of John Kennedy.”

Contradictions

Contradictory tenses make me fume. Here’s something I read online:

Patents on software and “business methods,” with vague, broad claims, were now accepted. – sm

I take it that what made you unhappy in the sentence you quoted was the use of “now” with the past tense.

There is nothing wrong with this in the context of the article it came from. One of the definitions of the adverb “now” given by the online Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is: “used in stories or reports of past events to describe a new situation or event.” An example is given: “It was getting dark now and we were tired.”

If you look again at the two sentences before the sentence you quoted, you’ll realise that the acceptance of patents on such software and “business methods” was a new thing in the mid-90s:

“IBM Corp. latched on to TI’s lead in patent licensing in the mid-90s, when it was down on its luck. That coincided with courts broadening the types of patents allowed. Patents on software and “business methods,” with vague, broad claims, were now accepted.”

The Oxford English Dictionary in its definition 4. of the adverb “now”, has this to say – “At this time; at the time spoken of or referred to.” – thus acknowledging that “now” can have a past as well as a present meaning. Here are two of the sentences cited by the dictionary to show this:

“The war was now practically concluded.” (G.Bancroft, Footprints of Time, 1874)

“The assurance he had at first displayed was now succeeded by an air of embarrassment.” (M.Pattison, Essays, 1884)

Percentages and weights

1. Do you say “50% of the population are males”, and “1% of the population is affected”? Then, what do you say when it is “0.2% of the population”? Do you also use “is”?

2. Do you say “500 grammes of meat were used in the recipe”? Is it then correct to say “0.5 gramme of salt was added”? – Annie

1. When a percentage of a population is the subject of a sentence or clause, the verb can be either singular or plural, irrespective of whether it is 1% of the population, less than 1% of the population, or 99% of the population.

In the case of “50% of the population are males”, however, “are” is used. This is because of the plural noun after the “be” verb. It would be very odd to say “50% of the population is males”. However, we can say “50% of the population is male”, using “male” there as an adjective.

As for “1% of the population is affected”, we can also say “1% of the population are affected”. Likewise “0.2% of the population” can take either a singular or a plural verb.

Below are some examples drawn from the Internet, of the use of “are” and “is” after 1% of the population, less than 1% of the population, and 50% of the population:

“... but it’s even more extraordinary in Japan where only 1% of the population is Christian.” (BBC, Aug 7, 1999)

“An estimated 1% of the population are transgendered in some way ...”

“In western Europe and the United States, 0.1 to 0.2% of the population are infected with the hepatitis B virus.”

“Experts estimate about 0.5% of the population is harbouring undiagnosed hepatitis C or other viral liver diseases.” (BBC website, Jan 8, 2005)

“In terms of social class, across the UK, around 50% of the population is classified as being skilled manual ..., semi-skilled ... or unskilled ..., according to the 1998 General Household Survey ...”

(from Prospects, the UK’s official graduate careers website)

Situated in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Australia, 50% of the population are directly descended from Fletcher Christian and his band of mutineers. (About Norfolk Islands, from BBC website, June 5, 2002)

2. Amounts and quantities of things, when expressed as decimals, are followed by plural nouns, whether the decimals are over 1 or below 1. So we say 0.5 grammes (not gramme) of something. However, when amounts and quantities expressed as whole numbers as well as decimals are used as subjects, they take singular verbs, even though the noun used to indicate the amount or quantity is plural.

So we say “500 grammes of meat was used in the recipe.” and “0.5 grammes of salt was added”. But we say “1 gramme of sugar was also added.”

Colour me white

Please advise on whether these sentences are grammatically correct or otherwise.

1. The shirt colour is white.

2. The colour of the shirt is white.

3. The shirt is in white colour

4. The shirt colour is in white. – David Tan

Sentences 1 and 2 are correct, but 2 sounds better. What would be even better is: “The shirt is white.” You don’t need to use the word “colour”, since everyone knows that white is a colour.

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