Rooting For Grassroots

My senior told me, if you are referring to the root of the grass, then it's grassroot, and if there are many roots, it's grassroots.

However if you are using the term in reference to people, then it must never be grassroot. It should be grassroots.



Hence, he has the support of the grassroots; or if you want to use the term without the letter s, then it must be grassroot leaders or grassroot members. Hence, he has the support of grassroot members.

I think he is both right and wrong. He is wrong about the grassroot being the reference for the root of the grass. I think if I was indeed referring to the root, shouldn't I be writing it as grass root or grass roots, with the spacing in between instead?

The fact that the term is spelled as one word itself is already an evidence that I was not referring to the actual root. No?

Note to self: must research some answer on this. Until and unless I get the definite answer, it would be best that I heed the advice of my senior.

When Do Rain And Flood Become Plural?

I've been questioning myself this question for sometime now. I know rain is rain and flood is flood.

I just that I have no bloody idea when should I use the singular or plural form? Of course I should use the plural form if I'm referring of the rain occurred many times in a day; or flood in plural if I'm referring to several flooding that happened in the past.

But I've seen the plural form of the same rain and the same flood being used in some newsreports.

I guess, it's time to do some research.

Splitting Hairs Over Will And Would

Okay, would is the past tense of will and I don't have any problem using both as long as the tense is clear. Problem arises when using would in the present tense.

According to what I can gather from various online sources:

Will is used when the degree of certainty is higher;
Would is used to indicate a theoretical or tentative situation.

BBC has a brief but extensive explanation over the semantic difference between will, would as well as shall. It says:

3. Would (or the contracted form 'd) is sometimes used as an alternative to 'used to' when discussing past habits:

• 'When we were young, we would spend (we'd spend) every summer holiday at the sea-side.'
• 'You would find him (you'd find him) sitting at the bar every lunchtime, drinking that strong black beer and chatting to the bartender until one day he was there no longer.'

Would is also used to make polite requests:

• 'Would you be prepared to do all this work by yourself without any assistance?'
• 'Would you (be so kind as to) pick Jennifer up from school on Monday?'

Would (or its contracted form 'd in conversational English) is also associated with the conditional in its simple, progressive, perfect and passive aspects:

• 'There's no doubt about it. I would definitely (I'd definitely) travel to Mexico with you, if I could afford it.'
• 'You would still be (you'd still be) working for the World Bank, if you hadn't kicked up such a fuss.'
• 'I would have told you (I'd have told you) all about it, if you had phoned me.'
• 'If you wore smarter clothes, you would be invited (you'd be invited) to all the press conferences.' [BBC Learning English]
  

Thank God for BBC!

Here's another great resource for will/would usage in first, second and third conditional situation.

More Reading...

Here's a list of English grammar resources which I plan to read over the weekend:

1. 100 worst grammar mistakes

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a definite answer on how to safely shift between tenses in a sentence and in an essay/article. I understand that the tense must be consistent in a sentence, e.g. "I knew I'm wrong" is wrong while "I knew I was wrong" is right.

But what about this phrase, "He said the museum will be completed in two years"? Shouldn't it be written, "He said the museum would be completed in two years?" Tell me, tell me, because I don't know.

I've asked a friend, whose command of English is better than mine, and all he could tell me was "both sentences can also".