Mostly grammar

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/36968>:

<< Not all verbs are the same. (snip) some verbs are action verbs and
some are linking verbs.(snip) However, "is" and other forms of "to be"
("am," "are," "was," "were" and, if you want to include archaic forms,
"art," "wast," "wert") don't express action and never take an object.
They merely *link* the subject to further information about itself:
"Her name is Mary;" "She is a pretty girl;" "She is married," etc. If
what follows the verb is a noun, it's called a predicate nominative
because it *renames* the subject ("nomen" means "name," as does
"noun"). "Mary" renames "name": "girl" renames "Mary"). If what
follows is an adjective, it's called a predicate adjective (for
obvious reasons).

Here's a website (not Wikipedia!) that explains it all in an enjoyable
way, and even brings in words other than the "to be" verbs that can
function as linking verbs and therefore take the subjective rather
than the objective case:
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/linkingverb.htm >>

Thank you for explaining it in a way that I understand. I don't
*agree* that 'to be' is not an action, and when I read that website, I
disagreed even more about 'turn', 'seem', and 'feel' not being actions.

But having slept on it for several days, and perhaps inspired by
Miles's post
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/36963> about
German, it occurred to me that this probably DOES explain what the
ancients were thinking: they were in the habit of having all nouns
(and and adjectives?) after 'to be' in the nominative, not just
pronouns. While we moderns have the nouns in the objective and the
adjectives don't have case.

Miles wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/36996>:

<< from the PS movie, in the first flying lesson Madam Hooch says:
"I see a single broom in the air, the ONE riding it will find
THEMSELVES out of Hogwarts before THEY can say 'Quidditch'!"

Doesn't it feel odd for a native speaker to switch to plural, although
the sentence starts addressing single persons? I asked a native
speaker who assured me that the sentence is correct, because both male
and female persons are addressed. >>

On the contrary, the natural thing for native speakers of English is
to use the plural for 'everyone', 'everybody', and in this example,
'one'. Grammarians cry and whine that 'everyone' is singular, so
'everyone has his book', and 'everyone has their book' is incorrect,
using plural for singular. Real life speakers know that 'everyone'
means everyone in the group means a plural number of people and
therefore the plural is right. Right beats correct every time.

When grammarians whine about 'they' being a plural used for a singular
person, I tell them to go whine about 'you' being a plural used for a
singular person, and they never bother to answer.

'Everyone had their book' rather than 'his book' long before anyone
worried about the sex of the people in the group. It's not as if it
would be correct to say 'everyone had her book' if all the group were
female. Your native informant gave you the wrong reason.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37005>:

<< wondering what Madam Hooch thought of having her threat completely
undermined by Professor McGonagall, who rewarded Harry for breaking
her rule by making him the Gryffindor Seeker >>

Hoochie is just so pleased whenever she sees Minnie being
Quidditch-mad that it never occurs to her to complain to Minnie about
dissing her authority over students.