Sheila left the fundraising dinner early because she had had her fill of lame political jokes and leathery prime rib.The first approach is often better because it produces a more concise sentence. is and just keep because or (2) use that in place of because. There are two easy fixes: (1) eliminate the reason . . . It’s therefore best to avoid the reason . . . The reason is and because mean the same thing. is because is uniformly panned by grammar texts and usage guides, largely because in addition to being grammatically suspicious, it’s redundant. But unlike is where and is when, the reason . . . This sentence is snarled because because, like where and when, begins an adverb structure, not a noun or adjective structure, which should ideally follow to be. The reason Sheila left the fundraising dinner early was because she had had her fill of lame political jokes and leathery prime rib.is because is an expression that routinely springs to mind when we have some explaining to do. New Year’s Day is when many people resolve to kick nicotine forever.Īn even more widespread problem, the reason . . .Like where, when is generally acceptable after the verb to be when its use is logical-that is, when its subject refers to a time. Unity results when all the sentences in a paragraph stick to the main point, as stated in the topic sentence.This sentence is just as incorrect as the is where sentence above. The word when refers to time, but unity is not a time. Unity is when all the sentences in a paragraph stick to the main point, as stated in the topic sentence.Consider this illogical sentence, which regrettably appears in an online writing guide from a California college: Is when wreaks the same sort of havoc in writing as is where. China is where the art of paper-folding originated, but Japan is where it is most widely practised.It’s generally agreed that when the subject of the sentence is a place, it’s fine to use is where. Nowadays, however, only the most prescriptive grammarian would condemn the structure outright. Strictly speaking, this means that following to be with where should produce a grammatically disjointed sentence every time. But where, a conjunction that refers to place, always begins an adverb clause. If you’re a grammar keener, you’ll know that to be is a linking verb, and like all linking verbs it needs to be completed by either a noun or an adjective, or a phrase or clause that serves as a noun or an adjective. The grammatical problem is more complicated.
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