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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 April 22

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April 22

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Grammticality judgement

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Is the following sentence acceptable to native speakers? Is the sentence ambiguous? "He reached me home by car." 14.139.82.6 (talk) 10:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya[reply]

No, it's quite ambiguous. Depending on what you are trying to say, the following sentences would be better:
  • He reached my home by car.
  • He took me home by car.
Since I'm not sure what you're trying to say, I don't know if either of these (or some other sentence) is correct. --Jayron32 10:55, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Or "He reached me at home, coming by car"? AlexTiefling (talk) 12:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And "drove" is usually better than "by car":
  • "He drove to my home."
  • "He drove me home."
Yes, you can drive things besides a car, like a truck, motorcycle, or bicycle, but it's usually clear from the context. StuRat (talk) 12:05, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Only if you're Popeye or Bizarro. Otherwise, it's ungrammatical. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for all these helpful comments. 14.139.82.6 (talk) 12:01, 23 April 2014 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya[reply]

"Me" instead of "my" is a feature of numerous English dialects, but you wouldn't write it down unless you were reporting somebody's speech or trying to be amusing, as in "Some b*stard stole me bike!". Alansplodge (talk) 13:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Eye-dialects and phonetic accents are usually best left alone. But it's the ambiguity of 'by car' that's the real killer here. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for all these helpful comments. 14.139.82.6 (talk) 12:03, 23 April 2014 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya[reply]

I'm a latecomer but anyway: the phrase appears to be Indian English. Indian English doesn't always make sense to British people simply because they aren't familiar with it, even when it is logical (eg 'prepone an appointment' is the opposite of 'postpone'). To a Brit, it doesn't sound right. To an Indian native speaker, I think it's fine.--81.145.165.2 (talk) 14:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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