the purpose of language is to communicate ideas, not using it such that everything you write/say is as pristine as the list of women you have slept with
on one hand this is not relevant to the topic, and on the other hand it actually matters in professional situations
she is probably marking proper english whereas you were writing in actual english which is what is spoken and written by your average english speaker. The only thing that I would have said differently is "which was caused by" but I see nothing wrong with what you've said.
For perspective I am an American high school student.
"The author states x. Whatever was stated is believed to be true."
thats something i only imagine a complete degenerate would say
ur teacher probably confused "they believe it to be true" to not mean "author believes it to be true" but instead "[most] people believe it to be true", if that's ur own essay it's possible but to assume u'd mean that is to assume u're retarded so i'd be triggered if i were u
You are retarded. 1) is obviously wrong, 2) is wrong as well. Not sure about the last example though. Seems fine to me.
EDIT: the tense of last the example seems fine to me
@clockwerkula
since she marked all "they"s, "their"s, or "themselves"s i'm rather inclined to think that she got no idea that singular they exists
also i made the context as clear as possible, replacing "they" by "the author" in phrases where they might have been misinterpreted
stop calling me clockwerkula asdhaghuasdt7afdabvsdashd79yeh23rohj2380dfjwei0
grammar aside the whole "The author states x. They believe it to be true." is reatrded, unless theyre quoting why wiould they state it if they dont believe it to be true in the first place?
Idk about the tenses without seeing the rest of the paragraph. If america's oil boom is current then maybe using is instead of was makes sense. Tense rules are very odd to me anyway cus there is nothing technically wrong with using passive tense but it's frowned upon for some reason.
For the first thing your use of they is wrong but her solution is stupid. Because we've gotten so fucking pc around here people forget that english doesn't have a gender neutral pronoun when referring to a specific person, but that doesn't make it ok to use they because they refers to a group of people. So you default to he. That's also why their opinion is wrong, is should be his opinion.
Correct:
The author states x. He believes it to be true.
The author states his opinion by...
You use the normal English.
She use the perfect English.
She is better then you.
If she is retard.
You are idiot amount retard.
Report over.
Sorry for my broken England.It's just been boom by techies.
![[Lk].Zano](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/b9/b98e01ce6ef4a5e926a44cdd1564d0e8e5fbfa36_full.jpg "[Lk].Zano")
English still doesn't have a recognized standard form, so you'll encounter several teachers who'll evaluate you based on what they beleive to be correct or what their specific institution tells them is correct.
Also, I think the use or at least the acceptance of "they" as a singular neutral pronoun is relatiively new, so it's still frowned upon in several places.
You could say it's not yours or your teacher's fault, it's the circumstances. But hey, if your teachers never told you what they considered to be correct before that test, then they are the retards.
It looks like nitpicking by your teacher for the most part.
I might do it differently, however, given the assumption of neutrality.
'Invoker has been given a test back by the English teacher, Miss Generic, with errors marked on it. Invoker, of course, believes the errors to be the error.'
Invoker referring to the DB person posting, who's gender is unknown to me, at the moment of typing this.
Let us reword it.
'Invoker has been given a test back by the English teacher, Miss Generic, with errors marked on it. They, of course, believe the errors to be the error.'
Either way would be fine. But I think most people would understand the first sentence structure with more ease, however, than the second.
And yes! I do, indeed, love commas!
It is like my fetsh; don't judge, please.
Syntax is everything, but it would really dependsthough. You get nailed for using tenses, and order incorrectly when writing formal, or higher education material(s).
1. Whatever the author states, is believed to be true.
2. The stated opinion of the Author is x.
3. She is correct on this one. However, she does seem like she's being a bit pedantic about the tenses as this something she could have had let slip easily.
As far as I know "they" is technically correct. It does vary depending on the variant of English being spoken but from my perspective it is okay. The only problem with using "they" in that situation is that it could be ambiguous, like през горите през полята already said.
The tense stuff is impossible to say without seeing the full sentence. For example saying "the text at hand discusses americas oil boom, that was caused by the discovery of oil in Alaska" is perfectly correct. However you need "is" for a sentence like: "the text at hand discusses americas oil boom, that is caused by the ongoing demand for petrol". The determining factor is whether the cause of the oil boom was an even in the past or an ongoing event.
Still its impossible to be sure about anything in English without knowing which variant is in use. In South Africa and the UK its spelt "colour" but America spells it "color" which just looks plain wrong to me but is the correct spelling in America.
Tbh grammar and even dictionary definitions r bullshit. Language evolves, words mean what society uses it for, and grammar precedents shudnt matter unless it causes a confusion of ideas. If the message is soundly conveyed language is working, if the message is mistaken then either ur use of the language or the language itself is flawed.
You're learning in the french system aren't you?
I wouldn't be fussed about this, french people learn english by learning the rules by heart since that's how french works but english isn't a language that functions like that
English is far more instinctive so often there are "mistakes" like the ones you made that are actually correct, but teachers learnt it in a particular way so will consider them as mistakes
Most of what you wrote does sound awkward but is correct, what she corrected you with sounds equally messy so I wouldn't trust her corrections
So apparently is not technically wrong but using they as a singular is discouraged in American English but is becoming more popular. I was always taught in formal English to use he when gender is unknown.
There is nothing wrong with using "they" for a single person who could be male or female. I am from America and am a native English speaker. Sorry for your teacher's mistake.
And here I'm with my chemistry teacher who scolds me saying there shouldn't be a phone on the table during class.thing is it's break time
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she handed us our test papers back today and she marked several grammar errors that don't seem to be errors to me at all
1) unknown gender of the person you talk about
example: "The author states x. They believe it to be true."
afaik i believe that as soon as u don't know the gender, you either use a generic he, or "they", she marked this as an error and advised me to use the passive form instead,
"The author states x. Whatever was stated is believed to be true."
I also used "their", as in i.e. "The author states their opinion by...", another "error"
Edit: i don't believe the passive form to be wrong, i think it's good to spice it up, i simply don't think using "they" is wrong
2) tenses
at one point i stated something like "since the US altered their position ...", she marked "altered" with a note saying that i should use "has altered" instead since "since" implies present perfect, but dunno, it sounds wrong & she marked several things that don't seem wrong at all to me, i.e.
"the text at hand discusses americas oil boom, that was caused by...", marking the "was", stating it is an tense error
so is she retarded or am i??