This one looks simple, but the more I think about it, the more mind-bending it becomes.
“We must visit Mr. Chen or Mr. Lee who lives in Taipei.”
Who lives in Taipei, Mr. Lee or Mr. Chen too?
If it’s both, how would you express just the latter, Mr. Lee?
please?
“We must visit Mr. Huang, Mr. Chen or Mr. Lee who lives in Taipei.”
Do we know where Mr. Huang lives?
Your verb is singular, so it only refers to the last person. But you’d be better off with a comma before the ‘or’, to help clearly split off this last item. “We must visit Mr. Huang, Mr. Chen[color=red],[/color] or Mr. Lee who lives in Taipei.” And in speaking there would be a longer pause before ‘or’, and no pause between ‘Lee’ and ‘who’. Then we have plenty of info telling us only Mr. Lee lives in Taipei.
Hi,…
“We must visit Mr. Chen or Mr. Lee who lives in Taipei.”
You can answer your question by considering subject verb agreement:
• verb + -s agrees with 3rd person singular subjects (even in relative clauses-- of course, only when the antecedent is functioning as the subject of the R clause). Observe:
Mr Lee lives in Taipei.
Mr Lee and Mr Chen live in Taipei.
We must visit Mr Lee or Mr Chen who lives in Taipei. (The antecedent of who is Mr Chen.)
We must visit Mr Lee or Mr Chen who live in Taipei. (The antecedent of who is Mr Chen and Mr Lee)
To me, the second sentence sounds sloppy. I think this is clearer:
“We must visit Mr Lee or Mr Chen, who both live in Taipei.”
• The pause/comma sets the relative clause off, letting the listener/reader know that what is about to follow may be additional information-- one could add: …,who – by the way-- both live in Taipei.
• “both” modifies “or”, which emphasizes both coordinates.
• The verb shape indicates that the subject is not 3rd person singular.
Hope this helps.
LP
Thanks for your help - it was helpful, but still problematic. I forgot he comma before the “or”…
However, the conjuntion “or” singles out each noun separately. My example of Mr. Lee and Mr. Chen with an “and” seems fine. With or, however, it is still unclear.
I tried to simplify the example, but here is the actual text I am working on. Are both nouns or just the latter engaged? If so, how would we xxpress the alternative?
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in a terrestrial broadcaster, relay-only cable
operator, or program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting);
thanks again.
I meant all nouns not “both nouns”…
regards
Better yet:
We must visit Mr. Lee or Mr. Chen, each of whom lives in Taipei.
[quote=“viba”]Thanks for your help - it was helpful, but still problematic. I forgot he comma before the “or”…
However, the conjuntion “or” singles out each noun separately. My example of Mr. Lee and Mr. Chen with an “and” seems fine. With or, however, it is still unclear.
I tried to simplify the example, but here is the actual text I am working on. Are both nouns or just the latter engaged? If so, how would we xxpress the alternative?
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in a terrestrial broadcaster, relay-only cable
operator, or program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting);
thanks again.[/quote]
OK, the example you gave originally is different from this.
In this one it truly is unclear if it is referring to just the last one or all three. I would be inclined to say all three, but it really is unclear.
I think it means all too…My inability to give a clear answer is landing me in hot water though…
It’s not your fault it’s badly written.
I do think it refers to all three though, but my reason is more feeling (and logic) that grammar. The omission of a repeated article (“a”) would lead me to assume it refers to all three too.
An example of the repeated “a” would be:
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in a terrestrial broadcaster, a relay-only cable
operator, or a program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting);
In that case the repeated “a” would separate the three a little bit more.
thx…yeah…a similar situation was coming to me too. The second paragraph refers to just the last noun. the article “a” making the distinction…
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in a terrestrial broadcaster, relay-only cable
operator, or program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting);
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in a terrestrial broadcaster, relay-only cable
operator, or, a program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting);
If you are interpreting text which is already written, I agree with IrishStu that it is unclear; if you are writing, and the situation is that only the last is so engaged, use this version of yours:
[quote]A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in a terrestrial broadcaster, relay-only cable
operator, or, a program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting);[/quote]
and if all are so engaged, use this:
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold an equity interest in any of the following which are engaged in X: a terrestrial broadcaster, relay-only cable operator, or program provider…
why not put that first, for clarity.
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in: a program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting); a terrestrial broadcaster; or a relay-only cable
operator.
[quote=“viba”]A foreign government or foreign person may not hold,
(a) an equity interest in a terrestrial broadcaster, relay-only cable
operator, or program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting); [/quote]
If it presented the information as follows it would be a lot clearer:
A foreign government or foreign person may not hold an equity interest in,
(a) a terrestrial broadcaster or relay-only cable
operator
(b) a program provider that is engaged in jong-hap-pyeon-
sung (multi-genre programming) or bo-do (news reporting);
It would then preclude ownership of the means of transmission, but not of the means to create content unless the content fell into a certain category.
As they didn’t make this distinction clear, the logical assumption would be that it’s OK to own the transmission network, or the program provider, but only if you stay away from the specified categories.
In either case, foreigners have to stay away from certain types of content and the debate is about whether foreigners can own certain resources? So I’m guessing someone wants an opinion from you about whether an investment or project is legal?
Tell them ‘it depends’.
It’s ambigious. Regulations are usually exceedingly carefully worded to avoid problems like this. If the context doesn’t give away the true meaning, use whatever interpretation suits your purpose.
thx for all your feedback
For those who are interested, this text was taken from The Korean / American trade agreement.
I guess this section was written in Korean first.
I proofread all text that goes through my department. Sometimes, it’s mind-bending stuff like the regulations above.
Sometimes it’s quite simple: After you use the teapot please wash it and stand upside down on the counter.
Other times, I think they do it on purpose - just to keep me busy : To analyze the above issues, there some measures including collecting the related articles, adopting the deeper interview, holding the focusing discussion and undertaking the survey, so as to come up with some suggestiives to the promotion of the public access channel for the Cable TVs and realize the goal of the public access to the media, which enables the channels as resources to be well known and used by the public to live up to the merits of making legal statue for the public access channel of Cable TVs .
Once again, thx
[quote=“viba”]I proofread all text that goes through my department. Sometimes, it’s mind-bending stuff like the regulations above.
Sometimes it’s quite simple: After you use the teapot please wash it and stand upside down on the counter.[/quote]
They don’t want you to stand it upside down? They want you to stand upside down on the counter. For how long? Why? I bet nobody drinks much tea at your place.
You’d be surprised. I went into our office kitchen yesterday, which is small enough anyway, and there were four people standing upside down on the counter.
Had they already drunk their tea, or realised with a flash of panic that they had finished using the pot as soon as they had poured four cups?
A: We must follow regulations!
B: But I haven’t drunk my tea…
A: Shut up. I am the teapot monitor. The regulation is plainly printed on the door. Put the cup down and get on the counter.
B: Aw, what about those guys?
C&D: But we only…
A: Quiet! Up you get. Quickly, that foreign guy is coming. Do you want him to see you breaking the rules? You could be jailed for failing to show proper patriotism when dealing with the lower races.