the reason why....flusturated

[ademoglu]

Hi,

I have a book written by a non-native speaker of English and it says that it is wrong to use 'why' in the sentence:

''The reason why he gave us for the delay frustrated us all.''

The source: ENGLISH GRAMMAR INSIDE AND OUT by Nesibe Sevgi Öndeş (p. 432)

Is it wrong to you?

Thanks.

 

[GoesStation]

The book is correct. Simplify the sentence to understand it: The reason he gave frustrated us. There's no room for why.

 

[Tarheel]

Some would put "that" there instead of "why" but you don't need either one. Simply delete "why".

 

[Rover_KE]

I love the word 'flusturated', as in your title.

Whether you meant it or not, it's a great combination of flustered and frustrated.

 

[tzfujimino]

If you wish to use a relative there, it should be (either) "that" (or "which"). You need a relative pronoun.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I think the relative adverb 'why' can be used in 'The reason why there was a delay frustrated us all'.

 

[Barb_D]

I think the relative adverb 'why' can be used in 'The reason why there was a delay frustrated us all'.

No.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I think it is common to say 'the reason for the delay', but is 'the reason why there was a delay' grammatical?

 

[man of manners]

Not a teacher

We don't need a relative adverb. After simplifying this sentence, we will get these two simple sentences and I think it is obvious that we need a relative pronoun to combine the two simple sentences to get one complex sentence:
"He gave a reason for the delay. It frustrated us all." ...after paraphrasing...> "The reason [which/that] he gave us frustrated us all."

 

[man of manners]

I think it is common to say 'the reason for the delay', but is 'the reason why there was a delay' grammatical?

Not a teacher

Yes, It's grammatical but in the post #7 it is not natural because "frustrated" should be "astonished/surprised".
That is a mere opinion but a logical one.

 

[GoesStation]

Yes, It's grammatical but in the post #7 it is not natural because "frustrated" should be "astonished/surprised".
That is a mere opinion but a logical one.

Frustrated is fine. Why is not.

You've forgotten to state that you're not a teacher.

 

[tzfujimino]

My guess is that "the reason why..." sounds as wrong as "the way how..." to native speakers.

 

[Matthew Wai]

My guess is that 'why' is optional instead of being wrong.

 

[tedmc]

My guess is that "the reason why..." sounds as wrong as "the way how..." to native speakers.

I have not heard of "the way how..." but "the reason why" is very commonly used. We know "why" used that way is redundant but I don't think it is wrong.

http://fraze.it/n_search.jsp?q=the+reason+why&l=0

 

[Matthew Wai]

I have not heard of "the way how..."

I think it should be 'the way in which', in which 'in which' can be omitted, as 'why' can be omitted from 'the reason why'.

 

[man of manners]

Frustrated is fine. Why is not.
You've forgotten to state that you're not a teacher.

I have written it in my signature because I am really fed up with telling me this over and over.
I am not a teacher, but I have a very rich grammatical background and always search for explanation, even if weird to me, for things that confuse me as a non-native learner.

 

[GoesStation]

I have written it in my signature because I am really fed up with telling me this over and over.

I put the statement in my signature as soon as I could because I couldn't remember to write it every time. Being corrected after forgetting the forum's rule embarrassed me.

You might want to review your signature line. It contains an error.

 

[man of manners]

You might want to review your signature line. It contains an error.

There are no errors, dear.

 

[emsr2d2]

Please don't refer to other users as "dear". It is completely inappropriate. There is at least one error in your signature line.

 

[man of manners]

Please don't refer to other users as "dear". It is completely inappropriate.

Why? I merely wanted to seem friendly. I am not using shameful or taboo words or expressions.

There is at least one error in your signature line.

I later spotted it and immediately corrected it.