The grammar debate part 2

I hope you enjoyed reading my hub entitled The grammar debate! Now that you have done so, I will provide you with some answers and explanations pertaining to the linguistic conundrums I embedded into paragraph six!

Answer 1:

The article on X was very fantastic and I hope you all enjoyed it.

To make this sentence correct, you would change the intensifier very to the intensifiers absolutely or really. Therefore, the sentence would read:

The article on X was really fantastic/absolutely fantastic and I hope you all enjoyed it.

The word fantastic is a strong adjective, which means that it can be matched with the intensifiers really and absolutely, however it cannot be matched with the intensifier very.

Other strong (or ungradable) adjectives include incredible, amazing, terrible, astonishing, shocking, gorgeous and exquisite and the list goes on.

Base adjectives (otherwise called gradable adjectives) such as good, bad, pretty, nice, short, tall, etc. can be used with the intensifiers really and very, however not with absolutely!

So you could say: That meal was really/very nice. However, you couldn't say: That meal was absolutely nice.

A good trick with these word combinations is to read them out loud and see if they sound right. Those of us whose first language is English will probably find this easier than those whose first language is not (however well done for being bilingual, unlike me)!

In summary, here is the pattern (a nicer word than rule)!!

Base (gradable) adjectives - Intensifiers used: very/really

e.g. good, bad, pretty, nice, short, tall, beautiful, clever

Strong (ungradable) adjectives - Intensifiers used: absolutely/really

e.g. fantastic, incredible, amazing, terrible, astonishing, shocking, gorgeous, exquisite

Answer 2:

We went to the childrens’ musical last night and had a great time. This sentence should read:

We went to the children’s musical last night and had a great time.

Why is this so? The word children is a noun in the plural form. It’s a special type of plural, though. Regular plurals look like this:

1 boat 2 boats

1 pen 2 pens

1 elephant 2 elephants

The word children is an irregular plural, however. Irregular plurals look like this:

1 child 2 children

1 woman 2 women

1 man 2 men

The possessive form for regular plurals looks like this:

Both the elephants’ ears were big. (as in more than one elephant)

The possessive form for irregular plurals looks like this:

The two women’s bags were made of leather.

Answer 3:

List five adaptations of the platypus and explain why these have helped it to survive in the harsh Australian environment?

The correct sentence (actually a phrase, as it does not contain a subject) should read:

List five adaptations of the platypus and explain why these have helped it to survive in the harsh Australian environment

While it may appear to be asking a question, it has been written in the imperative form. The imperative can be likened to issuing a command. It starts with a verb in the base form (its simplest form) and is thereby instructive. Other examples of the imperative include these phrases:

Pour the milk into the cake mix

Navigate the maze to the best of your ability

Sing for five minutes

As I said, these are phrases, not sentences, so you don’t need to put a full stop at the end of them!

I hope that these explanations and examples were clear and if you have any comments re. my comments, especially if you have a Masters of linguistics, please feel free to record them here. This is a learning/sharing community after all!