Go!

From Twitter:

Without a subject, what is the implied subject in a sentence?
What is the subject in this sentence?

“Go!”

a. I
b. you
c. we
d. no subject is implied


Photo: Nicolas Hoizey

Answer And Explanation:
The answer is b., you, because in an imperative (like a command), the implied subject is always the second person pronoun or proper noun; it is ‘you.’.

Clubs

The Boys Club of America teaches young men leadership skills, camping and social skills.

From Twitter:

Which is correct?
Boys Club
Boy’s Club
Boy Club
Boys’ Club

Answer And Explanation
Well, they are all correct except number 2, but they all mean different things:
First, number 2 is incorrect without an article, as in A Boy’s Club;

Boys Club means a place you can go to find boys
Boy’s Club means one boy’s club, owned by him.
Boy Club either means a club for boys or a club of boys or both.
Boys’ Club means a place of , for and owned by boys

I have no purpose except to teach you style (which includes punctuation). There is no inappropriate reference here. I thought of this, because all around Tokyo one sees ‘Girl’s Bar,’ which is incorrect. It means one girl owns a bar, and it is incorrectly written. I didn’t use the example of a “girly bar” (the correct usage), because I think these places are sad, exploit women, fleece lonely and incapable men and ruin relationships; tragically, they offer jobs to young women who deserve to be offered government education and training programs. I did not want to call attention to girly bars. Also, in America, the Boy Scouts is sometimes referred to as a “boys club.”

Photo: Kyle Glenn

Sentence Tree: Do & What

From Twitter:

Do (.) Do is a statement; it means something like “go ahead.”
……・you (?) “Do you?” is a tag question, meaning “do you (+ an implied basic verb)?”
……….・know (?) “Do you know?” asks whether the listener(s) are aware.
………………..・what (?) “Do you know what?” is an interjection and audience.
……………………….・time (?) “Do you know what time?” asks an event time.   
……………………………….・it is? “Do you know what time it is?” (asks the given time or the time of an event.) 
……………………………………….・we should be there? “Do you know what time we should be there?asks about an expected or desirable arrival time.
………………………………………・it starts? “Do you know what time it starts?” asks about the time something begins, like a movie-start-time. 
………………………………………・where (?) “Do you know where?” asks a location.
…………………………………………………..・it is (?) “Do you know where it is?” asks about the placement or location of a third-person specific object.
…………………………………………………..・we are? “Do you know where we are? asks whether the listener(s) knows the location of the the speaker, him- or her-self and the listener(s).    
…………………………………………………..・should be ? “Do you know where we should be?” asks what location the speaker and listener(s) and (an)other(s) must be in or are expected at.
………………..・me? “Do you know me?” asks whether the listener(s) knows the speaker as a person or his or her identity.
………………..・the Ims?* “Do you know the Ims?” asks whether the listener(s) knows the Im family. *a family name
………………..・it? “Do you know it?” asks whether the listener(s) knows something that’s been referenced.
………………..・how (?) “Do you know how?” asks whether the listener(s) is aware of a method.
………………………….・to go? “Do you know how to go?” asks whether the listener(s) are aware of a way or path or route.
………………………………・do it? “Do you know how to do it? asks whether the listener(s) are aware of a specific method already referred to.

Photo: Monic Melton

He Never Bought The Farm

From Twitter

Neil Armstrong had a farm after NASA, so he never bought the farm during the Korean war, as a test pilot nor on either of his two space missions.

“He bought the farm” means:
a. to pay for a farm
b. to pay for the farm
c. to get a farm
d. not pay
e. none of the above.

Answer And Explanation
The answer is: e. none of the above. He bought the farm means to die and was originally coined by pilots who crashed into farms in test flights or in air battle.

Famed astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon during the historic Apollo 11 space mission in July 1969, served for seven years as a research pilot at the NACA-NASA High-Speed Flight Station, now the Dryden Flight Research Center, at Edwards, California, before he entered the space program. Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (later NASA’s Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, and today the Glenn Research Center) in 1955. Later that year, he transferred to the High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards as an aeronautical research scientist and then as a pilot, a position he held until becoming an astronaut in 1962. He was one of nine NASA astronauts in the second class to be chosen. As a research pilot Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100A and F-100C aircraft, F-101, and the F-104A. He also flew the X-1B, X-5, F-105, F-106, B-47, KC-135, and Paresev. He left Dryden with a total of over 2450 flying hours. He was a member of the USAF-NASA Dyna-Soar Pilot Consultant Group before the Dyna-Soar project was cancelled, and studied X-20 Dyna-Soar approaches and abort maneuvers through use of the F-102A and F5D jet aircraft. Armstrong was actively engaged in both piloting and engineering aspects of the X-15 program from its inception. He completed the first flight in the aircraft equipped with a new flow-direction sensor (ball nose) and the initial flight in an X-15 equipped with a self-adaptive flight control system. He worked closely with designers and engineers in development of the adaptive system, and made seven flights in the rocket plane from December 1960 until July 1962. During those fights he reached a peak altitude of 207,500 feet in the X-15-3, and a speed of 3,989 mph (Mach 5.74) in the X-15-1. Armstrong has a total of 8 days and 14 hours in space, including 2 hours and 48 minutes walking on the Moon. In March 1966 he was commander of the Gemini 8 or (more at https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-111-AFRC.html)


Get Him to Do It

I need a cosplay costume.
Can ya make one?
Not what I want.
Which is?
A Mercury spacesuit!
① Ryan Nagata (@ryannagata) do it!
We’re not buddies!
Pay him!
I’m not rich.
② him to do it with a favor!
Like?
Dunno.
him!
I’m not a gangster!

get
have
make

Photo of Scott Carpenter, NASA

Try it!

From Twitter
You can do it!
Teacher: _①_ you study, you’ll do well. Student: _②_ I’m a genius!
Teacher: Yeah, ah–right.

Choices:
1 problem has 2 possible answers; Choose wisely:
a. whether or not
b. unless
c. provided
d. as long as


Answers And Explanations:
as long as or provided because these mean ‘if’
unless because it means but not if + S + Subject Complement/Predicate… / if + S am not + Gerund/if + S + don’t + Bare Infinitive

Whose Mask?

Is this mine or yours? It’s hers. Or–is it his?


Jo (a guy) and Mo (a gal) took ① masks off & left ②. Later they are confused as to who owns what, and Bo helps them sort it out.

Jo: Is this ③ mask or is it Mo’s?
Bo: It’s ④.
Jo: Where’s ⑤?
Bo: ⑥ here.
Jo: And yours?
Bo: ⑦ on me!
Mo (to Jo): Does Bo have ⑧ mask?
Jo: Yes ⑨ has it.

Choices
my
their
she
her
it’s
them
hers
mine
your

A


Clean Your Hands

From Twitter
1. What are they doing?
A) It is sanitize itselves.
B) They is sanitize theyselves.
C) The dog and cat is sanitizing themselves.
D) They are sanitize themselves.
E) They dog and cat are sterilizing their paws.

T or F?
2. We use sanitizer to cure our hands.
3. It doesn’t help

Answers:
1. E shows proper tense and proper subject/verb agreement
2. False, because sanitizer kills germs, it doesn’t cure.
3. False, because sanitizer does help.

Reporter & Person

From Twitter:

Reporter: Do you have (1.)_ you (2.)_ to protect (3.)_ the Corona Virus?
Person: Well, I take a bath each week, whether I need it or not; if someone sneezes, I go home.
Reporter: Excuse- …1 bath a week?
Person: And I carry knives, forks, spoons, a cup.

deed
against
action
do
take
protection
precautions
from

Answers And Explanations:

Answers 1 & 2 are: precautions and take, because you need a noun after ‘have’, and take is the verb that goes with it or, deed and do, because, again, we need a noun after have and do is the verb that goes with it.

Answer 3 is against or from. Come to class to learn why from is not the best answer here without a pronoun, but is passable.



Fashion?

From Twitter:
A. (1.)_ your style?
B. Style? Look!
A. That?
B. Do ya (2.) _ western men? If we’re not rappers, gangsters or
A. Wha?
B. Gay (sorry; nothing’s wrong with (3.) _)–we don’t _ up–or for our girlfriends.
A. Why?
B. It’s silly, a waste, girly–not (4.) _.

*confident
*dress
*LGBT
*confidence
*get
*That’s (Added after the tweet was posted–in a comment)
*What’s
(Added after the tweet was posted–in a comment)

Answers And Explanation:
1. What’s
2. get (meaning understand)
3. LGBT (meaning Lesbian, Gary, Bi-sexual, Transgender)
4. confident (Here, confidence would work, but confident is better, because we are using adjectives in the other cases in the sentence–describing the dressers.)

Note: No one should get the idea from this post that the male speaker (B.) is anti-gay or homophobic; although there is a trend in the West and on social media for the neo-liberal-left to criticize, vilify, misrepresent and “cancel” people who make nuanced comments, essays, posts on social media or jokes about or related to vulnerable or sensitive groups (such as religions, cults, age groups, ethnicities, sexual persuasions and nationalities), the truth is that this onslaught on free speech has nothing to do with fairness and is a kind of repression of opinions more than a protection of groups. This trend is a huge cultural, social and political phenomenon detested and resisted by many courageous scientists, philosophers, politicians, pundits and people of all walks of life and is recognized as political correctness, which opponents of it say is ruining communication, language, freedom, institutions and person’s lives. Some even feel it is because of this disingenuous and repressive behavior that a backlash to it played a significant part in achieving the election of Donald Trump. So, think twice before blaming someone before you understand what he or she means.