Sorry, I did not see that you were focusing on the "way of thinking" part of the sentence. But is it your personal preference that causes you to change that part to something else? (Can I rephrase this question as "But is it out of your personal preference that you change that part to something else?") I get the following from http://rawstory.com/2009/10/moore-withdraw-from-afghanistan/: I love how some of the posters here are making Michael Moore the topic. The TOPIC that CNN asked him to come on air and speak about is what to do next in Afghanistan. This is becoming the typical American way of thinking. Bring it off topic, make Michael Moore the discussion while young men and women are still dying in Afghanistan...for WHAT?!? Please notice the underlined part of the above quoted paragraph.
'typical American' begins on the same footing as 'typical English' and refers first and foremost to language; however, since American in this sense is or was rightly considered a sub-section of English - so people were using a shorthand way of saying American-English, and.. because it is clear to one and all that American [in the language sense] is now hugely bigger than English in the language sense, so the shift in meaning must be acknowledged in ordinary language as an expansion in the concept of American from merely a language to a way of life. Then you are home dry. God bless America.
You are tracing back to the roots of "typical America", but I hope you will directly address these two questions: Which one(s) do you, a native speakers of English, use in your conversations or writing, "a typical American way of thinking", "a typically American way of thinking", "a typical, American way of thinking" or "a typical-American way of thinking"? Is "a typical American way of thinking" really different in meaning from "a typically American way of thinking" or is it that natives tend to use "a typical American way of thinking" instead of "a typically American way of thinking" for the sake of convenience? Do me a favour and then I will join you in praying to God for His blessings to the human race, Americans and Chinese included.
No. It's grammatically awkward according to the rules that govern the use of English. I am an aspiring writer. If I wrote very many ugly/incorrect sentences like that, I would never be published. My writing has to be perfect for me to have even a small chance at publication. It's not a matter of choice. If I want to be published, I have to write things a certain way--the right way. Yes. Both questions are grammatically correct and mean exactly the same thing. In this case, since both are correct, it's a matter of personal preference which one you choose to go with. Although, you could delete the "your" in that last sentence, since it is implied. . . It's fine either way. Another matter of personal preference. English is often flexible, but sometimes it is rigid. Sometimes you have many choices, all perfectly valid; other times, there's only one right way. That kind of post is 100% useless for learning real English. The average native speaker should never be held up as a standard to aspire to. The average native speaker has terrible communication skills. It's like saying you want to imitate a failure. It's fine for him, whoever wrote that post, to be a failure, because he didn't have anything important to do with his English when he wrote it. You, however, hold a very important job. You're a teacher. You should have excellent English. And I think you do have a fairly solid understanding of the language. I have the utmost respect for you for taking so much time to learn and putting in the effort that you have. You just need to understand that the English you teach or use in a professional environment should not be the poor English that people use on the street or in casual posts. You say you live in China. Isn't there a marked difference in your country between those who are well educated and those who aren't? How does a doctor talk? How do political figures talk? How does a floor-sweeper talk? Does the Emperor generally have better communication skills than a guy who sweeps floors for a living? You should aspire to the higher standard, not the lower.
I understand what you and many others tried to explain. However, to be frank, I'm afraid the pair of "typically American+ noun"/ "typical American+ noun" is not a good example, which easily makes those who are already confused more confused.
Not really. . . Isn't a noun one word? So the noun there would be "thinking", I guess, which is some distance from the modifying, would-be-non-coordinate adjective, and screws up the sentence. . . "Way-of-thinking" would be a proper noun. . . technically. . .I think. . . and that would fix the sentence. But it looks stupid.
"a typical American way of thinking", "a typically American way of thinking", "a typical, American way of thinking" or "a typical-American way of thinking"? these four options are semantically different, which is to say they each have a shade or nuance which differentiates each from the others..but i concur that the first and the fourth are doing very much the same job..except that typical-American is neither good English nor good American and should be dropped.
No, a noun is not necessarily one word. This is a compound noun (see here for other, simpler, examples: http://ow.ly/zMlw). edit: it is not a compound noun, see below, the point of my post is unaffected by whether this is a compound noun or noun. Kas, a "proper noun" is the name of something. For example: "Kas", "The White House", "The United States of America", or "Johnathan" are all proper nouns. Yes, but it is only distant because of the other adjective, so it's no different than using a simple noun such as "house". Would you have a problem with the phrase "a typical american house"?
Update, you were right, it's not a noun phrase. It's a noun "way" with the aprepositional phrase "of thinking" acting as an adjective phrase modifying "way". So it is still close to the modified noun... See here: http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/phrfunc.html
Many problems arise for nonnative learners of English just because English is too flexible. It makes me think of figure skating. You walk, you circle around, you jump, you dance, you "do ballet" on the ice and you easily fall to the ground and get hurt. As for English learning, we learners may be ignorant of other alternatives when there are and we may assume that some structure or expression or word is right for a certain idea but when we look it up in the dictionary, we find that it is not. Many Chinese learners of English learn English carelessly and they will never learn real English. I know all this clearly, but still English gives me a big headache. What a mess! Chinese is quite different from English in every sense. I will not say that it is easier to learn Chinese than English, but the vocabulary that the average Chinese has is much less than that of the average person in any of the English-speaking countries. We do not need to learn so many words, as Chinese characters can be grouped different ways to name different things, and generally these basic construction blocks will give hints about the possible meaning of the combination. For example, the Chinese word for melamine is composed of four Chinese letters, which are perceived differently than we do melamine. The word "melamine" is a totally new word for English learners and many Chinese learner of English fail to pronounce it correctly and associate it with anything they are already familiar with. Besides, in English,it is common to have more than one expression for one idea and it tests your language proficiency. For example, in English we bask/bathe in the sun; we can also sun ourselves; we take the sun; we sunbathe with a sundae in hand. You native speakers can give more for this same idea, but in Chinese we have only one. I read in a book on contrastive rhetorics that an American freshman usually has a vocabulary of about 17,000 English words. In contrast, the average Chinese has a vocabulary of no more than 5,000 Chinese words. And I hear that IELTS is all about paraphrasing. Interestingly, in Chinese history, we never had a middle class and by now still we cannot say that this layer of society is formed. Of course, in China, a professor and a cleaner also talk differently but when the two meet, they will have no difficulty communicating with each other. A retired professor and a retired cleaner may play Chinese chess with each other in a park and by and by become buddies. Finally, I would like you to give me some advice on something very important to my further language development. I learned the expression "a typical American + noun" from Typical American by an American novelist and now you seem to ask me to unlearn it. Please tell me how to discriminate good English from bad English. Right now I am incapable of doing it but I hope I will acquire this skill with your help. Thanks.
Dgraham, when I said "proper noun", I meant traditional/correct/natural, etc. . .Fah! I dropped out of school in grade nine and promptly forgot everything. All this technical crap just bogs me down. . . Everything I know about writing comes from a lot of reading. And that's why I participate in these threads. . . I usually know what a good sentence looks like, but half the time, I have no idea why. Explaining helps me figure it out. And no, I wouldn't have a problem with the sample sentence you provided. . . house as a noun makes perfect sense. I've never heard of a "noun way". I'll have to check that out. I followed the link you provided (thanks for that), but I didn't see mention of a "noun way" there. Where is it? And can you clarify your point after all those edits? lol. . . Do you still think the original sentence is okay? I think it requires a plain old noun or compound noun, which, as you said, the phrase in question is not. Compound nouns are usually still one word, such as toothpaste--sometimes two words, as in full moon. But full moon is a common phrase that feels/sounds like one word, so it can fill that role. . . "Way of thinking" just doesn't sound like one word, so it looks and sounds awkward and wrong to use it as such. . . and I'm pretty sure it's technically wrong, to boot.
Yes! Exactly! That's a wonderful way of putting it. Good English is difficult to learn, but it can also be beautiful. It is the very complexity of English that makes it so. I just might have to steal your analogy and use it myself It still gives me a headache. In fact, I literally have a headache right now. Of course. It's the same here. But there is a difference between merely being "understood" and communicating well. I used to work with a Spanish guy who knew less than a hundred words of English. I understood him well enough and we became friends, but his communication was still terrible. In North American culture one should aspire not only to be understood, but to be eloquent as well, if one seeks to progress far in terms of employment and social status, etc. What you read is correct. Typical + adjective (American, in this case) + noun is right. The problem with the "way of thinking" structure is that "way of thinking" isn't a noun, to the best of my knowledge. I'm not sure what it is exactly, to be honest (I'm still learning, too), but it's not a noun. Therefore, the sentence is: A typical American way of thinking = typical + adjective + ????? Look at it as a math problem. The formula for the equasion is typical + adjective + noun. If you don't have a real noun at the end, the formula is off. Understand now? I really wish I could tell you how. . . But I learned to discriminate over the course of sixteen years, through reading over a thousand, maybe two thousand books. I'm afraid it just takes time. I must say you do have excellent English skills already. Your English is far superior to that of most natives. Most people I know can't type a post half so well as you just did. The best thing you can do for yourself at this point is to keep reading quality material from renowned English-speaking literary writers. I make the distinction of "literary" because that's where you'll find the best quality of writing and the best possible examples to emulate and learn from. I hope I've managed to help you somehow. . . And by the way. . . what you wrote about your culture and language was very interesting. That was a great post.
To ohmyrichard: I would suggest that you ignore Kas' suggestion that "way of thinking" "isn't a real noun". I don't see anything wrong with his advice in terms of it being a matter of personal preference, but the phrase is grammatically correct and I don't want you to think that you're making a mistake when you aren't. I agree with Kas about reading lots, and you're a very good 2nd language speaker of English. He is also right about the difference between grammaticality and eloquence. As far as I can tell, he finds the sentence ineloquent and therefore believes it ungrammatical, although it is in fact perfectly grammatical. How would you like your burger? I'll have it my way. or... That's the way! It is indeed a noun, notice the use of the determiners the and my. (http://www.answers.com/way) The link was for the information on using a prep phrase as an adjective phrase. Yes! I'm not saying it's the ideal sentence nor am I saying it is a bad sentence, but it is perfectly grammatical. Can you say "that's a typical way of thinking"? Or, "that's an American way of thinking"? If you can, then you can also say "that's a typical, American way of thinking". The "of thinking" part just acts as an adjective modifying the noun "way" (see earlier link). It's perfectly fine to add in new ones on top in front of the clause.
Dude, you're circling. I already said it's correct with a comma. It just doesn't quite say what he meant to say, because the comma changes things. And since it is wrong without the comma, that just makes the whole thing crap. Get it now? I don't want to get into a cycle here. You basically just repeated some stuff I already said from earlier. . . Although the burger example is an entirely different structure and therefore has nothing to do with this discussion. The word "way" can be used as a noun. Unfortunately, the sentence we've been discussing forces three words to function as a noun, not just the word "way". . . If way is the noun, then the commaless, non-coordinate-adjective-version would be something like, "It's the typical american way."--which is perfectly fine. . . And again, the meaning has changed entirely.
Dude, you were niggling on a COMMA? Man, the comma is style not grammar. I somehow didn't realise that that was your issue. The burger thing was just an example that "way" is a noun since you said you didn't think it was... The sentence isn't forcing 3 words to act as a noun. It is like a sentence with 3 adjectives. The phrase "of thinking" is just another adjective that modifies the noun... I'm not sure what you have a problem with? You said it was just a comma, but then you mention the 3-word-noun thing... why?
I think this discussion is hopeless at this point. No hard feelings, Dgraham. I'm out. I think we've taken the "who's on first" routine as far as it can go before things get unpleasant. See, Cog? I'm learning. And I just had a kind of epiphany, which has inspired me to write. These forums are good for something!
One of the problems, Richard, is that grammar in writing is not the same as grammar in speech. Sometimes you combine your questions as if to address both matters of grammar in the same breath. "A typical American way of thinking" is the grammatically correct way of saying (i.e. speaking ) that the way of thinking is both "typical" and "American." "A typically American way of thinking" is the grammatically correct way of saying (i.e. speaking) that the thinking is more typical of American thinking than of thinking in some other culture--e.g., it is "typically American," but not "typically Chinese." When we address comma and hyphen placement and misplacement (and other punctuation, as well), we're talking about written language, where punctuation is introduced for the sole purpose of clarifying meaning (which virtually always is related to context). So ... "A typical, American way of thinking" or even "A typical-American way of thinking" are incorrect ways of writing a perfectly grammatical, spoken sentence. It is incorrect, because "typical" and "American" are not related in sense and should not have a comma separating them, and there's simply no reason to hyphenate them, beause their function in the sentence is already clear, the hyphen is not just unnecessary but confuses things. Sometimes we hyphenate two or more words that are not grammatical modifiers themselves (but ONLY in writing) in order to indicate that we're creating a single descriptive adjective. Like "Remember the grammar-disagreement thread?" where neither grammar, nor disagreement are adjectives, but are being used together to identify which thread we mean. You really have to sort our your grammatical questions between those that impact language speaking and those that are related to writing. As to relying upon linguistic intuition, that may (or may not) serve you well in speaking the language, but it'll put you on shaky ground if you want to be a writer, because there are bona fide style preferences and legitimate debate over written language grammar all the way down to sheer ignorance that will color the well-meaning advice that you get (and, yes, there is a grammatical reason why I hyphenated "well-meaning"). That's why it's important to have good resources you can refer to in order to justify the choices you make. It's an ever-unfolding learning process, but your first task is to understand that grammatical writing and grammatical speaking are not at all the same thing and a discussion that blends the two will always be fraught with confusion.
All this discussion is so fatiguing! I never expected it would go this way. You seem to have complicated things unnecessarily. In everything I read, be it a blog, or a diary, or a transcription of a dialogue, or a book published by a publishing house, I read only "a typical American family" and things alike. I have never come across "a typical-American+noun" or "a typical, American +noun" or whatever in any transcription of any conversation and in any formal writing. If you've got any evidence of the existence of these expressions in the written forms you insist on, please show it to me to convince me. As "a typical American+ noun" is not a slang expression, nor a jargon expression, nor formal, nor written, nor literary, it is something commonly used in both speech and writing. I reckon that the difference between "a typical American+noun" and "a typically American+noun" is that the former is colloquial and the latter is relatively formal. But my observation is that nowadays people tend to say and write "a typical American + noun", which flows more smoothly than its binary opposite in the pair, instead of "a typically American+ noun", which is comparatively formal. And this is why in my first post I inferred that "a typical American+ noun" is derived from "a typically American +noun". I had never read "a typically American+noun" anywhere before I tried to search for it online via google. And I have to make it clear that I never said "typical" was derived from "typically". Besides, in my opinion, any entry in the dictionary which is not marked with jargon, slang, informal, formal, written, or literary, can be used in both speech and writing. And I think this applies to "a typical American+ noun". If you claim that "A typical, American way of thinking" or even "A typical-American way of thinking" are incorrect ways of writing a perfectly grammatical, spoken sentence, please tell me what the correct way of putting this idea in writing is. Kas mentioned "typical American logic" and other possibilities in one of his latest replies, but it seems to me that you have never talked about it earlier in the thread. You could have included a correct way of putting "a typical American way of thinking" in writing to be thorough about this aspect of the issue. Please don't tell me that the only correct choice in writing is simply "a typical American way of thinking" or "typical American logic"; otherwise, you are really circling or your explanation turns full circle. Please remember, I am here seeking help from you, native speakers of English and I am not in a position to answer questions, which are thrown at me without stopping. I hope any respondent to my help request will be thorough about what s/he is explaining. Please do not feel offended. You know, I come here with a clear purpose-- that is, I come here to seek help with my language problems and then I will gain a better understanding of certain expressions or structures and then I will be able to assess them globally, simultaneously taking into consideration the possible difficulty my students may have, and explain those issues in a way which really helps to make things easier for my students. Before I am able to do it, I have to be a judge of the two opposing sides and do a lot of further research to make sure. This final step in the whole help-seeking process is no less challenging than any previous step. I beg every one of you to be clear and thorough in illustrating your points. Thanks. Richard
I'm not at all offended. I simply have misunderstood your question (and I'm sure I still do). I apologize, as well, for not showing exactly what I was responding to, which was this: "You are tracing back to the roots of 'typical America', but I hope you will directly address these two questions: Which one(s) do you, a native speakers of English, use in your conversations or writing, 'a typical American way of thinking', 'a typically American way of thinking', 'a typical, American way of thinking' or 'a typical-American way of thinking'?" [the last two are NOT examples of "conversations" at all, but are examples of incorrect punctuation, which is exclusive to writing and is irrelevant to verbal conversation.] "Is 'a typical American way of thinking' really different in meaning from 'a typically American way of thinking' [Yes] or is it that natives tend to use 'a typical American way of thinking' instead of 'a typically American way of thinking' for the sake of convenience? [No]" ... That, plus, the confusion that's surrounded the responses led me to believe that you will either need to clarify your thoughts and questions (in order to get clear answers) or you will need to clarify your writing (of those thoughts and questions that may, in fact, be clear in your mind) in order to get the answers you seek. In the interest of "illustrating" the point here (as you request): --As "a typical American+ noun" is not a slang expression, nor a jargon expression, nor formal, nor written, nor literary, it is something commonly used in both speech and writing. I reckon that the difference between "a typical American+noun" and "a typically American+noun" is that the former is colloquial and the latter is relatively formal-- [I do not know what you mean by any of this, where you still seem to me to be confusing speech and writing in terms of asking a question you want to have answered. It seems to me to illustrate the confusion I was trying (and failing) to clarify.]." As to this--"I have never come across "a typical-American+noun" or "a typical, American +noun" or whatever in any transcription of any conversation and in any formal writing.--That's because the hyphenated version as well as the comma example are both incorrectly punctuated. They are correctly punctuated in the two written examples of the spoken thought, but each of which means something quite different. My point was that there is no meaningful question about punctuation in the spoken version and complicating the two kinds of questions about written and (or versus) spoken language makes it hard to discuss, let alone learn anything meaningful, because you're asking a question about meaning, and yet another about punctuation, as if some single answer would address both issues. It won't. As to this--"I have to be a judge of the two opposing sides and do a lot of further research to make sure."--"two opposing sides" does not fully illustrate the problem with language and grammar. There are endless ways of speaking to one another, and variations in punctuation in writing it, most, if not all of which depend upon understanding the context in order to clarify meaning (which is the function of punctuation). If you surround yourself with good resource material, most questions will take a few minutes to look up. Then, if the explanation is unclear, that's something you might get good examples to illustrate, if they're not provided in the resource book. I don't know a way to be an effective language instructor without understanding the importance of context and purpose in any discussion about grammar and especially so in one that's communicated in a written (often ungrammatical, poorly or carelessly punctuated) format, like in an on-line discussion forum.
I am so sorry to point out that you neglected what followed your quote in the same paragraph of my post: Besides, in my opinion, any entry in the dictionary which is not marked with jargon, slang, informal, formal, written, or literary, can be used in both speech and writing. And I think this applies to "a typical American+ noun".
Personally, I wouldn't say any of them. If I were talking to someone, I would say, "You think like an American," Or "That is an American way of thinking."
