Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
the correct position of the verb in a specific indirect question
English answer:
Rewrite
- The asker opted for community grading. The question was closed on 2023-05-09 07:54:16 based on peer agreement (or, if there were too few peer comments, asker preference.)
May 5, 2023 08:19
1 yr ago
47 viewers *
English term
Italy
the correct position of the verb in a specific indirect question
English
Other
Linguistics
Has ' is ' been put in the right place in the following sentence or not?
When you want to go on holiday and eat well, don't forget to surf the web to find out what the best food in the place you're going to visit is.
When you want to go on holiday and eat well, don't forget to surf the web to find out what the best food in the place you're going to visit is.
Responses
| 4 +4 | Rewrite |
Yvonne Gallagher
|
Responses
+4
18 mins
Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Ireland
Native in English
&
English
Ireland
right word, right place. everytime
Native in: English (Variants: US, Canadian, Irish, UK) 
Works in: French to English, Spanish to English, English, and 1 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
55
Selected
Rewrite
It's OK but the entire sentence is very clunky and overlong
When you want to eat well on holiday, you can websurf/ Google to find out/discover what is the best food in the place/area you"re visiting
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Note added at 24 mins (2023-05-05 08:43:58 GMT)
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Or
what the best food is
But I'd rewrite that too and just say
and find/discover the best food of...
No real need for "-is" at all
.
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Note added at 4 hrs (2023-05-05 12:49:27 GMT)
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both "in" and "of" are OK here
"When you want to eat well on holiday, you can websurf/Google to find/discover the best food in/of the place/area you're visiting.
I've given you several alternative words to use
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Note added at 14 hrs (2023-05-05 23:17:47 GMT)
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Syntax in English is often more abiut flow than rules, hence best to remove the "is" .
Too many verbs in the original sentence anyway
.
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Note added at 4 days (2023-05-10 06:51:11 GMT) Post-grading
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Glad to have helped. Agree with Tony
When you want to eat well on holiday, you can websurf/ Google to find out/discover what is the best food in the place/area you"re visiting
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 24 mins (2023-05-05 08:43:58 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Or
what the best food is
But I'd rewrite that too and just say
and find/discover the best food of...
No real need for "-is" at all
.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 hrs (2023-05-05 12:49:27 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
both "in" and "of" are OK here
"When you want to eat well on holiday, you can websurf/Google to find/discover the best food in/of the place/area you're visiting.
I've given you several alternative words to use
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 14 hrs (2023-05-05 23:17:47 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Syntax in English is often more abiut flow than rules, hence best to remove the "is" .
Too many verbs in the original sentence anyway
.
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Note added at 4 days (2023-05-10 06:51:11 GMT) Post-grading
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Glad to have helped. Agree with Tony
Note from asker:
| Thanks a lot. So, is it ' of the place etc.' and not ' in the place etc. ' , right? |
| Thanks a lot again! |
| It's very interesting that you can use both ' what is the best food ' and ' what the best food is ', because I know that there are very strict grammar rules to follow with sentence structure. |
| Thanks again! |
| Thanks again. |
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
liz askew
1 hr
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Many thanks:-)
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| agree |
Christine Andersen
2 hrs
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Thanks:-)
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| agree |
Tony M
: Gramar rules in EN are not always that srtict, but bending them can sometimes introduce a nuance of meaning — as in Yvonne's second proposed word order.
4 days
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| agree |
Anastasia Kalantzi
5 days
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Thanks:-)
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
Discussion
There is no grammar rule that says the verb should be at the end because it is an 'indirect question': "What was he doing?" >> Fred asked him what he was doing? The 'grammar rule' here would be inversion of the subject/verb word order. Note one might equally well write "Fred asked him what was he doing?", which places the emphasis more on the way Fred asked him. This is like Yvonne's 2 alternative proposals.