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Anonymous Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

Is This Sentence Grammatical?

He'd kill anyone who interferes without bias, whether they be elementary student or yakuza.


Would you tell me if this sentence is grammatical or not? It seems to be ungrammatical. I think 'they be' should be 'they are' and 'elementary student or yakuza' should be 'an elementary student or yakuza'.

  

Top answer

"Whether they be ... " is subjunctive in a conditional adjunct, and is okay. "They are" is also possible.

  • "Whether they be ...
  • " is subjunctive in a conditional adjunct, and is okay.
  • "They are" is also possible.
  • The sentence as a whole doesn't make much sense to me, though, and "student" should be either plural "students" or singular " an elementary student".
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1 Answers
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"Whether they be ... " is subjunctive in a conditional adjunct, and is okay. "They are" is also possible.

The sentence as a whole doesn't make much sense to me, though, and "student" should be either plural "students" or singular "an elementary student".

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