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Need a little help on grammar

X

Xeon

New Member
Hi. I have this little sentence which looks kind of confusing to me. I hope someone can provide me with a little grammar correction if need be. :)
Here it is :

What happens when the Norns who govern destiny decide to take a break?

Just for your information, the "Norns" in the sentence above is a collective name for a group of goddesses.
So, is the whole sentence grammatically correct?

Or should it be :

What happens when the Norns who governs destiny decides to take a break?
What happens when the Norns who govern destiny decides to take a break?

Thanks for your help!
Xeon.
 
I think what you need are a couple of commas.

What happens to the Norns, who govern destiny, decide to take a break?

Unless you mean there are some Norns who don't govern destiny and you're only talking about the ones that do. It still sounds awkward. Can you use different wording for "take a break"?
 
What happens to the Norns, who govern destiny, decide to take a break?
Click to expand...

Nah, that's missing the whole meaning. :)
The original sentence was(I added the word "three" this time) :

What happens when the three Norns who govern destiny decide to take a break?

The original sentence means "what will happen to everyone when the Norns, whose job is to control fate and destiny, decide to take a rest".

There is only a total of three Norns and all three govern destiny.
To avoid confusion, you can substitute the word "Norns" with "gods" or "beings" etc.
I'm just curious to know if there's any grammatical mistake in the original sentence, like whether I should add an 's' to the "govern" and "decide" word.

Thanks,
Xeon. ;)
 
Right, you shouldn't add an 's' to either govern or decide - I would agree with Ell that commas are needed - however, as there are only three Norns and all govern destiny, you could just drop the middle part (assuming the reader has prior knowledge to this fact). If there were more than three Norns, commas should be used to describe which particular Norns you are referring to.

If you don't want any commas in it - then you can leave it as it is.

You would only add a 's' to both words if it was a singular person you are talking about, ie she governs, he decides - when you are describing a collective group, then you drop the 's' ie they govern, we decide - Hope this makes it a little clearer :)
 
Norns should be treated as plural, therefore you should not have any "s" on either verb. So the original sentence is correct in that regard.

However, at least in American usage, and as per the Chicago Manual of Style and other US style guides, there should be commas because all of the Norns govern destiny.

No commas are used only when the qualifying phrase applies to only a subset of the noun.

For example:

My wife, Mary, is a good good.
I have three sons. My sons Andrew and Mark ride horses.

This is definitive re American usage.
 
I'm not perfectly comfortable with the grammar myself, because I'm not a native speaker.

Well, I learned at school (which doesn't have to mean much ;) ), that 'when' should be used to indicate a point of time, and 'if' to indicate a condition.

'When' sounds to me as if it were just a question of time, but it isn't very likely to happen, so I would have used a conditional sentence:

What would happen, if the norns, who govern destiny, decided to take a break?

I'm wondering how suitable that would be.. :rolleyes:
 
Ell said:
I think what you need are a couple of commas.

What happens to the Norns, who govern destiny, decide to take a break?
Click to expand...


A couple of commas would definitely help clarify the meaning of the sentence, but in general the sentence is a bit cumbersome. I would take out the "who govern destiny" part and some how incorporate it into the sentence prior to this one.

"What would happen if the Norns decided to take a break?"
Maybe? Changes the meaning slightly, but it's easier to read. :)
 
Gerbil Chan said:
"What would happen if the Norns decided to take a break?"
Maybe? Changes the meaning slightly, but it's easier to read. :)
Click to expand...
It doesn't change the meaning - Xeon has said that there are only three Norns so like I said above, if the reader has prior knowledge to this fact then he could easily drop the who govern destiny part :)
 
Thanks a lot, folks! But I think I will stick to my original sentence. It's quite risky to assume that the reader has prior knowledge, so adding the "who govern destiny" will hopefully help to entice him and hive him some before-hand idea of what's going to happen. :)

Like Rigana, I'm not a native speaker of English. I mean, English is our national language and the official language in my country, but it's not my mother tongue.
Whenever I write English, I use some blind instinct to determine if the words and sentences are correct. That is, if I'm unsure, I will read the sentence to myself and if it sounds weird or unprofessional, then something is wrong. :D

Thanks a lot for your opinion, folks!
Xeon.
 
Xeon, if you want to be grammatically correct, I think you've missed the point about needing the commas.

Here's an example of two sentences with and without commas with entirely different meanings (paraphrased from Eats Shoots and Leaves):

#1. The people in line who have tickets will get into the show.
#2. The people in line, who have tickets, will get into the show.

#1 implies that there are people in line with tickets and people without tickets. Only the people with tickets will get into the show. Those without won't.

#2 tells you that all the people in line have tickets and will, therefore, get into the show.

In your sentence, I think you mean #2, i.e. all the Norns control destiny.
 
Why not change the entire structure of the sentence? I'm not sure of the context, but it sounds like a blurb or introduction and reminds me of Terry Pratchett in a way in it's colloquial nature.

What about:

"What happens when the destiny governing Norns decide to take a break?"

or:

"What happens when the Norn governors of destiny decide to take a break?"
 
Sounds like it would be easier to work some of that into the context then say: What happens when they decide to take a break?

Or: They're going to take a break. What happens then?

If you've been talking about them or those bitches or whatever pronoun you're using the reader will pick up on it.
 
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