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New2grammar Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

muslim

No matter how many times Obama dismisses the rumors that he's a muslim, the suspicion won't go away. A survey done by CNN interviewed twenty random pedestrians. Among them, only one believed he is not muslim. The rest either suspect or believe he's a muslim. When asked why, they cited Internet sources but had no proof whatsoever.

Are there any mistakes?
Thansk.
  

Top answer

New2grammar No matter how many times Obama dismisses the rumors that he's a muslim, the suspicion won't go away. A survey done by CNN interviewed twenty random pedestrians. Among them, only one believed he is was not a muslim.

— Huevos

  • New2grammar No matter how many times Obama dismisses the rumors that he's a muslim, the suspicion won't go away.
  • A survey done by CNN interviewed twenty random pedestrians.
  • Among them, only one believed he is was not a muslim.
  • The rest either suspect ed or belie ved he 's was a muslim.
  • When asked why, they cited Internet sources but had no proof whatsoever.
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10 Answers
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New2grammarNo matter how many times Obama dismisses the rumors that he's a muslim, the suspicion won't go away. A survey done by CNN interviewed twenty random pedestrians. Among them, only one believed he is was not a muslim. The rest either suspe
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Huevoswhenever we are describing a hidden attribute we always use it
Thank you, Huevos! Could you explain the above a bit more? I still don't see when to use and when not.
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Only 'Thansk.' ;-)

Note that in the UK, we'd spell 'rumors' as 'rumours' , but your version is correct if you're using American English.
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Hi yizhivika. ThanKS Emotion: smile

I'm aware of the different spellings. Thanks again. But I wonder why you didn't pick up the tense mis
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Muslim should have a capital M.

(Was this an actual story, or are you just practicing? I find it appalling that words like "suspect him of being" are used, as though practioners of Islam are somehow something to be suspicious of. Suspect of being a drug user, or an adulterer, but ... for a religion? Sad.)

I think you can use the present tense (is a Muslim) in this case because it
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New2grammarCould you explain the above a bit more?
Well even for a native it is not so clear. In the case of "muslim" you can say "muslim" or "a muslim". The former is adjective and the latter a noun. Both are grammatical but in such a case (non-physical attribute) it is more usual to go for the noun. The opposite is true for a physical attribute, i.e. it is
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Yes, perhaps I was being a bit too lenient in my response! The kind of switching of tenses that you demonstrated would be fairly common in colloquial English, but you should pay heed to what Huevos has written, as strictly speaking it's correct.

That said, your English is pretty good....:-)
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Grammar Geek(Was this an actual story, or are you just practicing?
I'm practising with true facts. Perhaps, my poor English may have distorted the facts.

I wanted to say some people strongly believe he's a muslim while some others think it's possible (I chose the word suspect to describe this and believe to describe the former) Any good suggestions to
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Thanks Yizhivika for the kind comments.
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HuevosThe former is adjective and the latter a noun. Both are grammatical but in such a case (non-physical attribute) it is more usual to go for the noun. The opposite is true for a physical attribute, i.e. it is more usual to say "she is blonde with blue eyes" than "she is a blonde with blue eyes".

When we use the noun we are looking at the person
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