In english can you grammatically start a sentence with my?
Sure you can. My brain says so.
English Grammar: When is it correct to use 'everybody were' ?
Whenever you are speaking of something that will happen, use the "were." Example: "If everybody were to use the term 'was,' it would be popular but still incorrect." or, "If these people were to use the term "was," it would be popular but still incorrect." "Everybody has a nose." There is no correct use of "everybody have" but you could use, "everybody will have" or more precisely, "everyone will have." "I have; he, she, it has; everybody has."
What are some basic grammar rules to abide by?
The basic rule to speak and write a correct sentence that it must containPersonMeaning TenseAnd verb.I can play cricketPerson IMeaning can shows capacityTense is presentAnd verb in infinitive formBrJp
Grammar: Why is this sentence "in some cases an employee is working in a job that suits neither their skills nor their personality " correct when the writer first use "an employee",but later "their"?
The sentence you describe employs what is called the "singular they". It involves an apparent mismatch between the grammatical number of the pronoun (plural) and the grammatical number of the antecedent (singular). Note that I say grammatical number--- the actual number is not relevant to the operations of the grammar. Generally, pronouns in English agree in grammatical number with their antecedent. However, in some cases, they is used with a number mismatch. What are these cases? It turns out that there's a very regular reason behind it.Singular they is used when the antecedent is : a) third person b) singular c) non-specific d) gender unknown or irrelevantIf the antecedent is first person (me, us, etc) or second person (you, y'all, etc), then the pronoun reflects that person and matches for grammatical number.In your sentence, there is no specific employee being mentioned, it's an indefinite, non specific employee, which varies for each of the "cases" described. You don't know which employee it is for each case.The grammatical gender here doesn't matter--- the employees might be male or female, and in each of the "cases" described, you don't know which gender applies, since you don't know which employee it is.Since all the conditions apply, they appears for the pronoun.I say it's an apparent mismatch, because for all we know, they is the actual form for the right pronoun, given the following: 1. Pronouns tend to agree with their antecedent's grammatical features. 2. Grammatical features often bundle together. For instance, she has three features bundled together: feminine, singular, and subject. It also has the same referential information (that helps us pick out who she is).3. It's commonly found in linguistics that "third person" is not a feature. Instead, it reflects the lack of either a speaker feature (first person) or a listener feature (second person). We might also hold that singular number is the lack of a number feature. So, we can re-cast the four conditions as follows: Singular they is used when the antecedent has : a) no person feature b) no number feature c) no identifying feature (an anaphoric index, etc) d) no gender feature In the lack of all these features, they appears. For all we know, we have two they pronouns in English. One for when you have third person feature and plural number feature... and one for when you have no features at all. In that case, there is not actually a mismatch.
Is the sentence, "That Don't Make No Sense," grammatically wrong? I've seen it in many movies!
The original question is:Isn't the sentence "That Don't Make No Sense" grammatically wrong? I've seen it in many movies!Answer:Yes, it is grammatically wrong in two ways. It contains a double negative ("don't" + "no"), and uses the third person plural ("don't) where the singular ("doesn't) is called for. The educational system in the U.S. is working in reverse: the vernacular of the schoolyard is becoming the official language of the schoolroom. The sentence with correct grammar should be either, "That doesn't make any sense," or "That makes no sense."Note: We in general are coming up against a multitude of points-of-view, where one group says, in effect, "away with all grammatical rules and say whatever you want," another says "abide by the established rules for clarity's sake," and another says "let's each pick and choose the rules and exceptions to them." Why bother to ask about grammar anymore? There is no "authority" who can judge or dictate, and rule books such as dictionaries just happily add all variants and say "they're all OK!" In other words, all grammar is equally valid. In the future if someone on Quora asks a question as to whether something is grammatical or not, I will reply by the rule book that was in effect before the Internet made everybody equal in terms of establishing their own grammar—or lack of it. If anyone disagrees with this viewpoint, then I feel that to avoid disputes, they should post their views as answers to the original grammar questions, not as comments to other people's answers.
Why these sentences are unacceptable by native English speakers?
"Hopefully, we'll make it through the winter without snow." Strict grammarians will tell you that "hopefully" is an adverb meaning "in a hopeful manner." This sentence uses it to mean "I hope" or "Let's hope." English doesn't have a word comparable to, for example, the German "hoeffentlich," so many native speakers use "hopefully" in day-to-day speech, but it's still considered incorrect in formal, written English. "My friends wanted to quickly leave the party." The problem here is what's called a "split infinitive." "To leave" is the infinitive form of the verb, and the strict rule (again, many native speakers violate the rule on a regular basis) is that you can't split the infinitive by putting anything between "to" and "leave." The source of this rule is the fact that in Latin, the infinitive form of a verb is a single word and therefore can't be split. Some English speakers think the rule is silly, since English and Latin are different languages, but some take it very seriously. If you want to abide by the rule, you should say "My friends wanted to leave the party quickly." (The most famous split infinitive in English is a phrase from "Star Trek" -- "to boldly go.")
If William Shakespeare wrote in broken English grammar, why is he so famous for his literary works?
Just to augment Marcus' excellent answer:English was far more unstable in Shakespeare's time than in our own. Spelling wasn't standardized, nor was pronunciation. Grammar was fluid. Which is as much to say you can't break something that wasn't fixed.And most of the time, if you're reading one of Shakespeare's works, it has gone through 400 years of editors modernizing spelling, grammarizing punctuation, and sometimes modernizing text. Even if you are reading a version from Shakespeare's lifetime, it has gone through at least one scribe and at least one compositor between Shakespeare's hand and the printed work, and writers weren't given copy approval before a printing - the whole process was just too labor and time intensive. Which is as much to say, you can't really say what Shakespeare wrote, only what people printed with his name attached.Shakespeare also used various rhetorical devices which used English in ways that may lead to one describing it as 'broken.' Chief among them (for the purposes of this question-I'm not suggesting that these are his chief rhetorical devices): hyperbaton, which basically is using words out of grammatical order for effect; anthimeria- using one part of speech for another (verbing, nouning); and as Marcus has pointed out, asyndeton and polysyndeton, the removal of or addition of necessary or unnecessary conjunctions.Lastly, since I seem to be parsing this question, is to take issue with your term 'literary.' Shakespeare wrote for the stage - publishing for him was its performance in front of an audience, not the printing of the codex. His only 'literary' works that he approved for publication are the long poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, both of which have very regular poetic structure.
Is it possible to start an English sentence with "because" or "and"?
There is a persistent belief that it is improper to begin a sentence with a conjunction, but this prohibition has been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon times onwards.But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. (Gettysburg Address)And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. (Declaration of Independence.)And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. (KJV Bible)And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. (US Constitution)But be contented when that fell arrest. Sonnet 74But do thy worst to steal thyself away. Sonnet 92 (Shakespeare)If use use a conjunction to start a sentence, you’ll be in good company.
Can we start a sentence with "but" or "so" ( in a story)?
Strictly speaking it is ungrammatical, but rules are made to be broken. Starting sentences like that is often done.
In American English, why do they use 'I' instead of 'me' sometimes?
This is a grammatical rule which is in the process of changing. For people my age, "it's fine with your mother and me" is the correct form, while "it's fine with your mother and I" is pretty much bordering on the illiterate. As other answerers have pointed out, it is a hypercorrection, and it tends to be used by those attempting to engage in some social climbing. Politicians are particularly prone to this error (Gordon Brown, for instance, if you can still call him a politician).However, one day, when people my age are dead, it will cease to be an error and will become normal usage, and grammar books will consider that using "and" represents some limiter on the scope of prepositions so that they no longer require the object case for referents on the other side of the "and". Such a change has already occurred in English regarding the scope of longer noun phrases conjoined with "and" to require pluralisation of "there was" to become "there were". For example, near the beginning of Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859) there is the sentence: "There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France."A mere century and a half or so later, and this is no longer grammatically acceptable in English. Today, we have to say: "There was a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face on the throne of England; there was a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face on the throne of France." Today, you can probably still get away with saying "There were a king and a queen on the throne of England", but make it any more complicated than that, and you'll have to change it to "was".We can protest all we like, but languages change. That's how they work.