[natural language grammar]
Hi Tom,
At 2023-03-09T07:39:00+0000, Tom Schwindl wrote:
> as I'm not a native speaker, I wonder if the "be" is correct in this
> context. I haven't changed it for now because it's likely that it's
> just me who thinks that this sounds awkward.
[...]
> Please CC any relevant developers and mailing lists that may
> know about or be interested in the discussion.
In this respect, English is subject to mechanical analysis to resolve
the issue. You will observe the presence of a coordinating conjunction
("and" or "or"; there are others but these are by far the most common).
You can decide the grammar of the sentence by eliminating one of the
branches of the conjunction.
...that (may (know about) or (be interested in) the discussion).
Possibly one of the sources of confusion here is that the conjunction is
applied after the modal auxiliary verb "may".
While that's not non-standard,[1] it does reveal that a recast to more
clearly apply the coordinating conjunction after the _sub_ordinating
conjunction "that", as follows.
...that (may know about) or (may be interested in) the discussion.
The fact that I need fewer pairs of parentheses to suggest the
recommended parse might indeed recommend it over the former alternative.
Do not underestimate the power of conjunction elimination; I frequently
use this tool to decide grammatical questions in my own writing.[2] I
cannot think of a time that it has led me to an incorrect construction.
Lest anyone feel badly, I note that native English speakers often screw
up much simpler applications of coordinating conjunctions than this.
*Jackie and me are going to the beach.
*This discussion is to be kept between you and I.
Both are wrong, wrong, wrong, but you run into them all the time even in
attempts at formal writing (particularly the latter--people get anxious,
it seems, and think that this error somehow puts their text into a
higher register).
Regards,
Branden
[1] Example: "The market is full of things that you might need or want."
[2] which can get highfalutin' and florid, to say nothing of loquacious
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