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Old Oct 19, 2013, 09:28 PM
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Mortavia Mortavia is offline
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CHz, that's almost exactly like the set of examples I gave. So maybe it's just the difference in what we're interpreting the word all to mean. In the second example you gave, I find it comparable that she could see instead of want and it would still be a single action. Does that make sense? For example, instead of "All she wants is people to be happy" couldn't you say "All she sees is people that are happy?" Both are still referring to people as a collective group, not individually. Now let's pick them apart.

- All she wants is people (singular linking verb, plural in the predicate)
- All she sees is people (singular linking verb, plural in the predicate)

I don't see how the second sentence is any different than the example Garner's Modern American Usage is giving, and the second sentence is exactly what we're dealing with, right? Seeing multiple things, whether it be people or stars, and still using a singular linking verb?

- All she sees is stars
- All she saw was stars (just changed everything to past tense)

And this fits in perfectly with the example you gave, doesn't it? It seems that Garner's Modern American Usage considers people to be the abstract in their example, not want. So, by that reasoning, the stars are the abstract in our sentence, not saw. Maybe we've just been going about explaining it wrong.

Last edited by Mortavia; Oct 19, 2013 at 09:46 PM.
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