Who Killed Videogames? (A Ghost Story)

[Key-Glyph]

edit: or should that be "is more people"?

Is. "The last thing you want" is a singular subject, and the verb has to agree with it by being singular too. If you break down a sentence the correct choice is usually easier to see: "The thing is..." versus "The thing are..."

No worries though, dude. Only chiming in because you asked.

/english major

[Inazuma]

No. The last thing I want are more people without jobs.

edit: or should that be "is more people"? Too tired to care about fixing grammar right now.

I loved reading this post. Why? Because it's nice to see someone caring about grammar.

[o.pwuaioc]

edit: or should that be "is more people"?

Is. "The last thing you want" is a singular subject, and the verb has to agree with it by being singular too. If you break down a sentence the correct choice is usually easier to see: "The thing is..." versus "The thing are..."

No worries though, dude. Only chiming in because you asked.

/english major

But if you switch it around, you get "more people are the last thing you want without jobs".

[Key-Glyph]

But if you switch it around, you get "more people are the last thing you want without jobs".

The direct switcheroo of the original sentence would be "More people without jobs / is the last thing I want."

I think your sentence is technically correct, o.pwuaioc, but you've jumbled the parts of the original beyond a simple subject/predicate swap, which negates the validity of the check. Your new sentence means something different. You made "people" the subject, which does call for that plural verb you've put in there, but your new sentence is saying something like "More people, as opposed to horses or dogs, are those I least want to see with fewer jobs," instead of the simple "I don't want to see larger quantities of people without jobs."

But if you flip yours it becomes "The last thing I want without jobs are more people," which isn't right. So I'm wondering if the swap doesn't work in all cases, if your sentence isn't grammatically sound to begin with, if the use of "more" is throwing a monkey wrench into the works, or if you've just broken my brain.

EDIT: I just want to add that this (sub-)discussion is all in good fun. Your Next-Gen status and Dark Knight icon intimidate me! Have mercy...

[o.pwuaioc]

Anyone can get a high post count, but it does help to be getting a PhD in Classics with a background in languages and linguistics.

I'm more just pointing out that it's a bit tricky substituting ellipses for "everything after the subject", as we were taught . If you were to consider it a noun phrase, you'd read it wrong by reading it "people...are", because "people without jobs" would be read as a singular idea, while reading it as the "people" who don't have jobs as being the modifier of "thing", then reading it "people...is" would be wrong because it's the people that is undesired, not the state of people not having jobs.

I know I'm being unfair by throwing in some trick sentences to the rule, but hey, isn't that what academia is all about? Welcome to life of pointless argumentation!

By the way, have you a particular focus for your English major yet?

[Key-Glyph]

I know I'm being unfair by throwing in some trick sentences to the rule, but hey, isn't that what academia is all about? Welcome to life of pointless argumentation!

Seriously, you have no idea how much I love talking about language, grammar, and grammar in different languages, so I'm thrilled that 1) Opa Opa asked the question and 2) it sparked a mini discussion.

You have a PhD in Classics with a background in languages and linguistics?! That is awesome. We should be friends (although I might be the only one of us to gain anything from it).

I actually got my degree in 2008. I majored in English Literature and minored in Philosophy, but didn't have a focus because I wanted to take courses all over the map. Right now my dream is to take an intensive foreign language program and become fluent in Japanese. Languages themselves are really my passion, and I know in my heart they're what I want to pursue. I'll have to save up for several more years before I can make that a possibility, though.

[Opa Opa]

Should we change the thread title to "Who Killed the English Language"?

[J T]

Should we change the thread title to "Who Killed the English Language"?

It's "whom" killed the english language.

[Opa Opa]

^That's reason enough.

[Zing]

Video games are a leisure activity designed to pass time in an entertaining manner. If the game is designed for the user to pay extra to speed up certain processes or essentially "cheat", then the game isn't very good at what it is supposed to be doing. If the game is boring without the increased speed or efficiency of throwing money at the publisher, then it wasn't designed to be entertaining.