George Thornton Emmons (was one) of a handful of ethnographers who (committed) (their life) (to studying) the Tlingit culture of the Northwest Coast. (No error)The answer is “their life.”
Obviously their life is wrong and aparently should be fixed to “their lives”. However, to me its really ambiguious between “his life” and “their lives”. How do we know if “who” is referring to George(singular) or the handful of ethnographers(plural)?
Second Question
A flurry of do it yourself books on the market today (are inspiring homeowners to do their own repairs).
The answer is “is inspiring homeowners to do their own repairs” which i agree with the “is” part because “flurry” is singular.
But the other answer “is inspiring homeowners into doing their own repairing” sounds right too? I heard its to do with idiom/preposition with gerunds and infinitives but I have seen some idiom lists and very angry that this question seems out of logic.
Is there any way to do these questions? whats the idiom in this question? (never seen “nspire to” in a idiom list)
Thanks in advance.
For your first question, when in doubt, ascribe the pronoun to the nearest possible antecedent.
For your second question, “inspiring into” is non-idiomatic. “Inspire to” is the correct idiom.
All idioms are “out of logic,” sadly. I don’t know where to find the best idiom lists, but I believe some people have compiled good ones on this site.
Thanks marvin,
I have another question
From 1566 until 1576 Santa Elena, now an excavation site in South Carolina, was the capital of Spanish Florida; however, it has become an English settlement by 1735
Why is “has become” a error and is changed to “had become”. I thought it should just be past tense;(became), cuase it doesnt make sense to be perfect past when 1735 is more recent than 1566.
Could someone please explain?
“By [date or time in the past]” requires past perfect. We also can’t use “has become” there because it’s used for past events that are continuing (this one isn’t) or past events without a specified time (“have you seen that movie?” is okay, but “have you seen that movie yesterday?” is not).
But cant we use simple past tense? in this case?
As I said above, “By [date or time in the past]” requires past perfect.
By the time ,as the best @marvin100 said, is always use as past participle.