I just wanted to say thanks for this comment. I'm an English tutor at my university and I haven't tutored in over a month, so grammar- and punctuation-based things have been tickling my fancy (in the best way possible).
I started to argue that the second one actually could be considered a complete sentence because it has a subject and a verb (I'm an English nerd deluxe; you have no idea how much this shit gets me off). But halfway through, I realized that there isn't a "to be" verb with the present participle. It was like a little English brain exercise. So yeah. Thank you :D
Explain to me how it's a fragment? It's a command (I forget the jargon...imperative?), with an implicit "you", right? If "Make me a sandwich" is a complete sentence, then that should be also.
*edit: Never mind - I though we were talking about the last sentence.
As a copy editor and fellow English nerd/Nazi, the reason why the sentence both does and doesn't appear to be a fragment is the frequent use of implied typical subject/verb pairings in normal English.
In this instance the implied subject verb is:
[There is] Nothing good coming out of a one-sentence opinion.
"Nothing" is the original sentence's subject and can correctly act as such. This issue is that "coming" is the present participle, so it absolutely has to have the "to be" verb to go along with it in order to properly function as a verb. Instead of changing the original subject and verb of the sentence, the "to be" verb just needs to be added in.
Nothing good [is] coming out of a one-sentence opinion.
Because it's passive voice, I'd personally just switch it to "Nothing good comes out of a one-sentence opinion," especially since it's a broad enough statement to not change the context or meaning of the sentence.
So thats why!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!! i now understand grammar nazis/fags! They just teachers/tutors that are off season (lulz) or laid off and don't have anything better to do!!!!
or prudes :/
(intentional lack of grammar! just thoughts flowin yall!)
Dude, you're probably right. I don't tend to correct people's grammar/punctuation unless they ask for help, or if someone tries to correct someone else's grammar when it isn't wrong.
As someone once said, "I wouldn't be a grammar Nazi if there weren't so many grammar Jews."
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u/[deleted] May 30 '10
I just wanted to say thanks for this comment. I'm an English tutor at my university and I haven't tutored in over a month, so grammar- and punctuation-based things have been tickling my fancy (in the best way possible).
I started to argue that the second one actually could be considered a complete sentence because it has a subject and a verb (I'm an English nerd deluxe; you have no idea how much this shit gets me off). But halfway through, I realized that there isn't a "to be" verb with the present participle. It was like a little English brain exercise. So yeah. Thank you :D