Homework 1: Notions of grammar

Question 1

Give two English-looking expressions that exemplify each of the following categories (obviously, the examples discussed in class do not count):
1. Descriptively ungrammatical sentences under any dialect of English.
2. Prescriptively ungrammatical sentences but descriptively grammatical for some dialect of En- glish. (Do not use examples with double negatives, I instead of me and wanna.)
3. Grammatical sentences with semantic anomaly.

Question 2
One of the most influential usage and grammar manuals is Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. To see how popular and politically strong this work is, you can look up some of the people who praise it in reviews on Amazon.com.

To underscore the differences between prescriptive and descriptive grammar, as well as between grammar and style, and the various levels of grammatical correctness, we'll analyse the language used to write this manual.

Use the online version of the book here.
Your task is to search the text of the book, and look for violations of rule 11 ('Use active voice').
That is, you want to find passive sentences (violating rule 11) in the text stating this and other rules.

NOTE: For a sentence to count as a violation, it must include some form of the verb "to be" (e.g., am, are, is, was, were, be) followed by a passive participle form of some verb (e.g., done, written, replaced, calmed, opened, kept).
• A passive sentence could be a short passive that does not include any information about "who did it".
  For example: The windows were covered. The door must be kept open.
• Alternatively, it could be a full passive that includes a "by-phrase" with information about "who did it".
  For example: The windows were covered by Mary. The windows were covered by a dark cloth. The door must not be opened by anyone.

Your task: Find four (4) violations. At least two violations should use a by-phrase (e.g., 'The book was opened by the wind'), two others may also use the by-phrase or they may be short passives (e.g., 'The book should be opened').
Quote the violating sentence, and tell me which rule it's from.