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I am in favour of compromises and I am glad that Gabriel also is.

Is it okay here to end the sentence with "also is"? Is there a better/more proper way to express this?

JSBձոգչ
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    Your sentence is perfectly fine. What makes you think that it's wrong? It would be good if you could explain your reasoning, or this might get closed. – JSBձոգչ Nov 01 '12 at 18:42
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    Personally, I would say is also. (or better is, as well.); but that'a a matter of style. – Tim Lymington Nov 01 '12 at 18:50
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    I don't think I heard this construction before, and googling didn't reveal any examples either. But I'm not a native speaker, that's why I decided to ask here. In any case the answer "Yes" from someone who knows English better than me would answer my question. I don't see any reason to close it. –  Nov 01 '12 at 18:52
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    It depends what you mean by OK. – Barrie England Nov 01 '12 at 19:02
  • @TimLymington: I think you're in good company there! I just checked Google Books for "also is but" (10K hits) and "is also but" (266K hits). I figure appending "but" means that a large proportion of the hits will be starting a new sentence (or at least, new clause) at that word. In short, OP's sequence "also is" looks decidedly "non-standard", regardless of any grammatical considerations that might affect things. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '12 at 19:50
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    @JSBձոգչ: There are already several upvotes for Tim's comment saying is also is "better". Even if no-one can justify thinking that, the fact that there seems to be a marked preference seems like a perfectly good reason for asking "why is that"? – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '12 at 23:03
  • @FumbleFingers 'Cause that's how we say it. Sometimes we write it different, but that's how we say it. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 01:02
  • @StoneyB: Even if it were true that there's no meaningful reason (or more accurately, "no currently-identifiable reason"), that wouldn't make it a bad question. Personally, I believe that very little about language usage is truly "happenstance". It's like the weather - we just don't know enough about the details to explain much of what happens. If we knew more about what's going on, we'd perceive far less "randomness" in the process. – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '12 at 01:21
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    @FumbleFingers Fersher. My stab in the dark is that it's metric: the postposited long monosyllable is better for ending phrases/clauses, while the preposited trochee gives a stronger pick-up for a following stress. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 01:26
  • @StoneyB: I often think you overplay prosody at the expense of semantics, and the tendency of speakers to "unify/regularise" structures. I could go with the idea that is too gets a boost from the fact that it presents the ideal vowel to emphasise at the end of a statement, but I can't see "spoken metre" being significant in the preference between is also and also is. – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '12 at 01:46
  • @FumbleFingers Well, I was an actor for 30 years. But no, it's not operative in OP's example, which is pretty clunky either way. I'm thinking more of ordinary use: John's driving too, but John's also driving. I'm not saying it's determinative, just a push in that direction. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 01:58
  • @StoneyB: I think the prosody "push" in this case would be negligible in comparison to the natural tendency to put the more significant word ("also", or "too") at the end - where it stands out more automatically, and is easier to give additional emphasis if you want. Ending with a piffling verb form like "is" has little going for it. – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '12 at 02:42

3 Answers3

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Per my comment to the question, Google Books, and mine and TimLymington's "inner grammarians", all seem to agree that it's better to end the sentence with is also, rather than also is.

Personally, I think "I am glad that Gabriel is too." is much better, but I can't really explain why.

FumbleFingers
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  • Shouldn't that be my and Tim's? Not snarky, I'm genuinely unsure. – Tim Lymington Nov 01 '12 at 21:16
  • @TimLymington: I'm pretty sure that strictly/grammatically speaking it should be "my", but have a play with "mine and john's" on Google Books (toggle between my and mine, try other common names, add things like families on the end, etc.). I think you'll find that in practice people actually use "mine" more often. And bear in mind that's the written form where people tend to ignore strict grammar. They probably do this even more in speech. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '12 at 22:00
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    would either of the two downvoters care to give a reason here? – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '12 at 22:00
  • Drive-by shooting. –  Nov 01 '12 at 22:42
  • @Bill Franke: I guess maybe I just got hit by a stray bullet because I was the only "innocent bystander" around to take a pop at. I know my answer is a bit sparse in the "justification" department - but unless I'm much mistaken, the preference for is too (or at least, is also) is quite strong. I was expecting to have to dig a bit deeper if anyone questioned my position, but I can't feel motivated to do that simply because of anonymous downvotes. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '12 at 23:00
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    +1 for is too and suggesting to switch to is also. I was going to suggest that (for the not-so-easily-explained reason for those two sounding better). (Also, upvoted because I don't see anywhere a *valid reason* for a downvote.) – Souta Nov 01 '12 at 23:26
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    It seems to me that all of us tacitly justify our answers based on our native-English-speakerhood & explicitly justify them by going to appropriate authorities for the context in which the Q arosen. Using language is an art as much as it is an inherently (but maybe not exclusively) human trait. Much of how we say what we say is based on aesthetic judgments: there are no rules for that, only reasons that all boil down to "because I like it like that". Your feeling about "also is" vs. "is also" is the same as mine: "is {also/too}" sounds better & more natural to me too. –  Nov 01 '12 at 23:40
  • @Bill Franke: I agree all of that except the "justify them by going to appropriate authorities" bit (unless you count Google Books as an "appropriate authority"). In this specific case, I've given next to no thought to the matter of why one word order is preferred over the other - I know what *I* prefer, and for now I'm content to back that up with usage figures showing I'm with the majority. To me, it's axiomatic that I'll tend to prefer what the majority do, because I acquire my "preferences" in the first place by reading and listening to what others write and say, not by "grammar". – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '12 at 01:09
  • @FumbleFingers: Sometimes it's necessary to cite a grammar book; sometimes to cite a famous author; sometimes to refer to Ngrams, etc. Some of, tchrist for example, consistently cites the OED; I consistently cite M-W; and so on. We all sometimes need support, but I agree that preferences and feelings about what sounds and looks and feels good and right and normal come from reading and listening and practicing our own language skills, not from rulebooks: That's what my first sentence means. –  Nov 02 '12 at 01:19
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    @FumbleFingers What is attractive about this place is that almost everybody feels that way; you go NGrams, I go to OED and GB and UD not for 'authority' but for evidence. What divides us is that we all have read and practised different things; what unites us is that we embrace variety and difference rather than exclude it. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 01:54
  • @StoneyB: There will always be cases where, as individual speakers, we don't share the same idiomatic preferences. But What I find most fascinating about ELU is the extent to which competent speakers do share preferences/prejudices. I don't see anyone here yet saying they prefer (or even, would ever use) "also is" at the end of a sentence. – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '12 at 02:36
  • @FumbleFingers: see the first comment (by JSBձոգչ) to the question. He said it's perfectly fine. –  Nov 02 '12 at 10:12
  • @FumbleFingers I'll put Too at the front or also. at the back, but not also is. at the back. Random quirk. But I won't say also is. is ungrammatical. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 11:29
  • @Roman Cheplyaka: True, but I read that as simply meaning he doesn't think "also is" is ungrammatical (I don't think anyone is suggesting it's not). My point here is that sticking just to the also is/is also issue, we all seem to prefer the latter - for whatever reason. – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '12 at 13:56
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Your sentence is grammatical, but not very idiomatic, at least in US English. My impression is that in ordinary speech:

  • too is used most frequently, almost always at the end of the clause:

Bob's driving, and John's driving too. or Bob's driving. John too.
Bob's driving, and he's buying the food, too.

  • also is used less often and is usually put before the added element:

Bob's driving, and also John. or Bob's driving. Also John.
Bob's driving, and he's also buying the food.

In formal writing, you may put also just about anywhere, and you may put too immediately after the added element. You may put either at the head of the clause:

Bob's driving. John, too, is driving. or John is driving also. or John, also, is driving.
Bob's driving. Too, he's buying the food. or Also, he's buying the food.

All of these displacements are very formal, however, and should be used sparingly: perhaps only when needed to point the structure of long propositions.

StoneyB on hiatus
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    Placing too at the beginning looks very odd to my humble sextet of eyes. Also at the beginning is common, but frownded upon by certain style guides. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Nov 02 '12 at 00:12
  • You can’t use that sense of too at the start of a sentence; it’s postpositive. – tchrist Nov 02 '12 at 00:19
  • @tchrist True, OED 1 (fasc.Sep.1913) says, “Rarely, now never, used at the beginning of a clause”. But the 1987 Supplement reports “The use at the beginning of a clause has been revived, at first in the U.S” and provides citations from a trade publication, an academic reference work, UK and US newspapers, and popular fiction (Ludlum, The Holcroft Covenant). – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 00:47
  • @StoneyB Still sounds ungrammatical to me. – tchrist Nov 02 '12 at 00:51
  • Too to me. I'm afraid I would correct my students. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Nov 02 '12 at 00:54
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    @tchrist Ungrammatical? Uncommon I'll grant you, but why not too alongside also, in addition, what's more, moreover, and other such adverbials? I don't much like it, except as a strong pivot; but it's an accepted formal use. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 00:55
  • I stand by my words: it is ungrammatical / foreign / ungeneratable / alien to my ears, to the point of extreme bizarreness. – tchrist Nov 02 '12 at 01:24
  • @tchrist I'm glad somebody besides me reads with his ears. On the very rare occasions I use the construction I write it thus - Too: – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 02 '12 at 01:29
  • It sounds more Victorian (Elizabethan, even!) to me, but here's "Too, they demanded the right to vote...". I think it's a clunky attempt to sound "formal/authoritative", but StoneyB's quite right that it does occur. I can't see why it should be ungrammatical, but it's probably "discriminated against" at the start of a sentence for the same reason as Also (per Cerberus above). – FumbleFingers Nov 02 '12 at 01:36
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While my immediate reaction was to reverse your usage (to "is also"), the strength of the sentence does seem to trail away.

You may prefer

I am in favour of compromises and I am glad that Gabriel concurs.

Fortiter
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  • I'd be much more likely to use agrees than concurs, which to me feels like a word that is becoming obsolete. But maybe that's because I'm American. – Peter Shor Nov 02 '12 at 11:27