Usage and Grammar

Q. CMOS rules (at 8.22) point to “secretary of state” but “Secretary of State Kerry” or “Secretary Kerry,” so I am using “president” but “President Kirchner.” But shouldn’t I capitalize “the Pinochet Dictatorship”? and what about “the Kirchner Administration” and “the Kirchner Government”? Rather than “generic terms associated with governmental bodies” (8.65), they all form an important part of recent Latin American history, like the Mexican Revolution. In addition, they “follow a name and are used as an accepted part of the name” (8.51).

Q. I teach an English-writing class, where I tell my Japanese students never to mix singular and plural pronouns and verbs (“the government has released its”; “the couple have had their”). I am also a Japanese-to-English translator and have turned in quite a few passages like this, albeit with a sense of guilt: “Company A offers our heartfelt sympathy to the tsunami victims.” What do you suggest in situations where “the company offer” and “its heartfelt sympathy” both sound odd?

Q. I have a photograph that I want to describe. It is a picture of two couples who are business friends. Would I write, “This is a photograph of the Gould’s and the Johnson’s” or “This is a photograph of the Goulds and the Johnsons”?

Q. Chicago recommends using the present tense when discussing the actions of characters in literature. But I often face questions about verb tense when discussing the actions of authors themselves, particularly in academic writing. Is it correct to say, “Blomley (2004) argues that property claims can be used toward ends that are both oppressive and emancipatory,” or should I instead render the verb in the past tense? Would the answer change if Blomley had written his book in, say, 1867?

Q. If a sentence contains a compound subject in which one of the subjects is dead while the other is alive, is the verb written in the present or past tense?

Q. I was told this was passive voice and therefore “avoidant”: “If your suspension from this section was not lifted on time, then that was a mistake and I’m sorry that happened.” Is this so?

Q. I’m a grammar teacher currently teaching paired/correlative conjunctions. According to AzarGrammar, with “neither . . . nor,” “either . . . or,” and “not only . . . but also,” the subject closest to the verb decides the singularity or plurality of the verb. So, following that rule, it would be “neither my brother nor my sister is happy.” However, with “I” being the first person singular, I’m confused. Is it, “neither my brother nor I am happy” or “neither my brother nor I is happy”?

Q. Convoluted structure aside, is there anything grammatically wrong with the following sentence from a state unemployment application? My boss thinks “which” is incorrect and should be replaced with “that”; I think both are incorrect. Please help! “Did you work full-time or part-time for an employer or in self-employment or return to full-time work during the week ending last Saturday, which you have not already reported?”

Q. An article I wrote recently was copyedited, and wherever I had begun a sentence with “Due to” the editor changed it to “Owing to” or “Because of.” What’s the difference?

Q. Dear CMOS, What is your opinion of the contraction “there’s” for “there has”? A sample sentence is “There’s been an explosion of scientific knowledge.” One on-line source says “there’s” has two meanings, “there is” and “there has.” If contractions were appropriate in a document, would you use “there’s” in both ways in the same document? Same paragraph? And by the way, when did the second usage creep in? Thanks.