Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 April 24

= April 24 =

English (UK) grammar
Hi everyone, brief grammar question for you. Is the sentence 'the earth and its mature is accessible to each and every one of us' grammatically correct in UK usage? I have been told the 'is' ought to be an 'are'. Neither sound particularly incorrect to me but I would tend towards my original option so I was hoping to get your opinion on this? Are there any relevant articles on Wikipedia (or elsewhere) I could read up on? Thanks very much in advance for your help. Bw,82.132.186.97 (talk) 08:37, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit puzzled by "mature" which can be an adjective or a verb, but not a noun as far as I know. Alansplodge (talk) 09:13, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It's obviously a typo for "nature", and "are" is correct. --Viennese Waltz 09:21, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * D'oh! Alansplodge (talk) 17:59, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

This is discussed (and examples given) by Otto Jespersen in "Part II: Syntax, First Volume" of his classic A Modern English Grammar on Historic Principles. In section 6.521, he says "if two or more subjects connected by means of and form one conception, the verb is put in the sg, as in Jevons L 289 Accuracy and precision is a more important quality of language than abundance." Of course, this is a limited exception to the general rule that would normally requite the plural verb (and it could be debatable which conjoined subject nouns form "one conception")... AnonMoos (talk) 10:02, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I would have thought that this would apply more to things like "the Rose and Crown is a nice pub". -- Q Chris (talk) 10:31, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Certainly in that case. But "the earth and its nature" is similar, in the sense that one cannot access the earth without also accessing its nature, and vice-versa. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  10:37, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Are they part of the same conception though? "The earth" is a physical thing, "its nature" is one of its attributes. It's not the same as "The man and his wife", it's more like "The man and his knowledge". (By the way, I have no idea what it means to access the earth, or its nature. Are we talking about an alien astronaut-philosopher?) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:02, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Q_Chris -- that sentence involves the Use-mention distinction: you're not referring to a rose and a crown as separate objects at all, you're referring to a single entity (neither a rose nor a crown) which goes by the name of "the Rose and Crown". Similarly, you would say "The Simpsons is an entertaining cartoon" etc. AnonMoos (talk) 10:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Idiom rather than grammar, but referring to "the earth and its nature" reads a little oddly to this BrE speaker, even though it's not grammatically or factually wrong. English commonly refers to 'Nature', without 'the' and often capitalized, as an almost (or actually) personified concept, and also usually capitalizes 'Earth' when referring to the planet rather than to soil, and may optionally omit "the" as well. Consequently, the phrase "the earth and its nature is accessible . . . ." sounds like a referral to the characteristics of soil, perhaps in a particular place (see terroir). I suspect the OP's intended meaning would be better conveyed by "Earth and Nature are accessible . . . ." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 01:16, 25 April 2017 (UTC)