2

Is this sentence grammatically correct?

You are so offended.

(Since offended is adjective in past tense)

Jasper
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Boris
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  • @snailboat I don't think it is an issue of whether offended is an adjective or not. I don't understand what you try to mean by adjectives don't have tense. –  Nov 27 '15 at 05:23
  • @snailboat An adjective is not the only part of speech which can be modified by an intensifier. "So" has no bearing on whether offended is an adjective or not. "It's an adjective derived from a verb in past tense form" confused me. I would say "It's an adjective... in past participle form. I don't think offended is an adjective though. –  Nov 27 '15 at 06:02
  • @Rathony A famous example: The window is broken. It's a broken window. -- Perhaps it could be clearer why offended can be thought of as an adjective (and I think it is in the example) with a different verb: We feel so offended and very sad. – Damkerng T. Nov 27 '15 at 11:27
  • @DamkerngT. I know what you mean by the example. However, broken is not a good example as it describes the state of the window (*attribute) which doesn't show its original form after being hit by something. That is perfectly adjective usage like sad, beautiful, pretty, etc. However, offended is different. It is closer to a (past) participle as it doesn't describe an attribute* of a noun, rather it describes a state of a noun after a certain action is done. For example, a broken window can last for months, even years, if it is not fixed. But being offended is *temporary*. –  Nov 27 '15 at 11:54
  • @DamkerngT. Broken in "The window was broken by him" is not an adjective. It is a past participle. "Offended" should be called a "(past) participle" or at least "participial adjective" to differentiate it from other adjectives. –  Nov 27 '15 at 11:56
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    Let's see if we can't sort out the confusion in these comments. There's some good discussion of this in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (p.79). Here are three examples: ① It was broken* deliberately, out of spite.* [past participle form of verb] ② It didn't look broken* to me.* [past-participial adjective] ③ It was broken*. [ambiguous] They write: "The verb broken* in ① denotes an event, while the adjective broken in ② denotes a state – and the ambiguity of ③ lies precisely in the fact that it can be interpreted in either of these ways. –  Nov 28 '15 at 21:01
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    How does this apply to the question? Well, let me try to rewrite my first comment (now deleted) a bit more accurately. Offended is not an adjective in past tense form. Adjectives don't inflect for tense in English like they do in some other languages. Instead, it's an adjective derived from a verb form, specifically the past participial form of offend (which happens to look the same as the past tense form because offend is a regular verb). –  Nov 28 '15 at 21:04
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    And the most robust of CGEL's tests for distinginuishing participles from participial adjectives: "the possibility of replacing be by other complex-intransitive verbs such as seem and become. Thus we have This seemed disturbing, He became very distressed, He appeared drunk, but not **She seemed sleeping, *He became killed, *They appeared seen." You seem offended* works just dandy. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 28 '15 at 21:18

4 Answers4

3

The sentence is clunky, but not actually wrong.

Offended is an adjective in the sentence - it describes the state of a thing, specifically "you".

so is being used to mean "to such an extent".

Another example would be

You are so offended that you are speechless.

It would be more usual to encounter this in a past tense:

You were so offended that you became speechless.

Euan M
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  • +1) for suggesting better sentences. You need to capitalize so in the third line and put a colon after be. –  Nov 27 '15 at 07:18
  • @Rathony Balderdash! One place that a colon is not generally used is after the verb to be. This is because colons are generally used only to connect an introductory clause that could stand as one sentence to a phrase or sentence that adds more information. –  Nov 27 '15 at 08:26
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    @NES - I understand Ranthoy's comment. For one, I'd include a colon here, simply because I employ the convention of putting colons before quote boxes on the Stack Exchange (this has nothing to do with the word be, except that be happens to be the last word on the line before the quote box). I also understand why he thinks so should be capitalized – but I also understand that Euan wanted to it to match the case of the original. In any event, there is little to be gained by arguing about what are essentially formatting choices in this answer. – J.R. Nov 28 '15 at 20:14
2

You are so offended.

The sentence is OK. The adverb "so" in the sense of "to such a great extent/very" is modifying the adjective "offended".

Khan
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0

To my (American) ear, this sentence sounds both natural and grammatically incorrect.

Many Americans have adopted some so-called "Valley-girl" expressions. These expressions were a fad in the early 1980s. They were popularized by American movies and television shows that featured teenage girls from the San Fernando Valley. One feature of this slang was the use of "so" as an intensifier. This feature continues to be promoted in popular culture by The Simpsons. A typical half-hour episode of The Simpsons may use "so" as an intensifier 30 times.

Here is a typical use of "so" as an intensifier:

That is so tall!

In my opinion, when "so" is used as an intensifying adverb, it should be part of a sentence that describes a consequence of something having "so" much of an attribute. For example:

That is so tall that I can't see over it.

In the original poster's example:

You are so offended.

it is hard to just describe a consequence:

You are so offended that you don't get to talk to her.

Are you "so offended" because "you don't get to talk to her"? Or do you "not get to talk to her" because you are "so offended"? This can be clarified by explicitly saying what you were offended by:

You are so offended by sassy girls, that you don't get to talk to her.

Community
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Jasper
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    So has actually been used as an intensifier for a thousand years, but it's probably useful for learners to know about the prescriptive rule against it, even if in practice people don't follow the rule (it isn't actually ungrammatical). –  Nov 29 '15 at 23:54
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The sentence is grammatically incorrect. Offended is not an adjective in this sentence; hence, it would not be correct to use so right before offended. You can say you are so offensive if you were to describe someone.

Clayton_305
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    I am not the downvoter, but your answer seems to be flawed as you suggested changing *offended* to *offensive* which will change the meaning completely. –  Nov 27 '15 at 05:26
  • The sentence is clunky, but not actually wrong. Offended is an adjective in the sentence - it describes the state of a thing. In this case, "you". – Euan M Nov 27 '15 at 05:48