I have a few questions regarding this sentence. Does this sentence imply that both Mark and Zoran are part of Lingq’s staff?
“Does this sentence imply that both Mark and Zoran are part of Lingq’s staff?”
Yes. If you want to imply otherwise, you need to add an Oxford comma: “Should we fire LingQ’s staff, Mark, and Zoran?”
I thought this was going to be a completely different thread 
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If you want to make it clear that you’re directing this question AT Mark and Zoran, I would put their names first i.e. “Mark and Zoran, should we fire LingQ’s staff?”
If you put “Mark and Zoran” at the end (either with or without an extra comma) it does rather strongly imply, in my opinion, that the question is being floated for discussion, and that Mark and Zoran are the unfortunates who stand to be sent sloping off to collect their social security cheques…
(Saying that, though, I think it is technically ambiguous what is meant if you have their names at the end.)
(It’s at times such as these, that one wishes that English still used a vocative case. Then you could very happily say: “Should we fire LingQ’s staff, oh Mark and Zoran?” :-D)
That’s the only reason I clicked on it.
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I’m going to take it as a positive that nobody has jumped in here in the affirmative…!
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Mark owns the company so can’t be fired.
The programming staff should be sent the appropriate ‘For Dummies’ book and be forced to study it until they can actually run a website that works properly.
Or just fire them.
“…Mark owns the company so can’t be fired…”
Or maybe Steve owns a majority share?? In that case, I guess Mark could - theoretically speaking - be fired…?
(I suppose there would be a decidedly frosty atmosphere around the Christmas luncheon table at Kaufmann Towers if that happened, however…)
Mark, Zoran and “Fire” in te same sentence, That’s a good way to have your questions answered very fast LOL
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The Kaufman towers!! Love it!
No, it does not IMPLY that Mark and Zoran are part of Linq’s staff.
If you are addressing Mark and Zoran:
Mark and Zoran, should we fire Linq’s staff? = Should we fire Linq’s staff, Mark and Zoran?
If you are addressing someone other than Mark and Zoran and you want to know if “we” should fire those two:
Should we fire Mark and Zoran, two staff members at LingQ? =
Should we fire Mark and Zoran, two LingQ staff members? =
Should we fire Lingq staff member Mark and Lingq staff member Zoran?
“…No, it does not IMPLY that Mark and Zoran are part of Linq’s staff…”
Hmm…
Technically speaking, I think the meaning is (as I mentioned in an earlier post) ambiguous - i.e. it could be read either way. However I would say this sentence does, in effect, strongly tend to imply that Mark and Zoran are part of the staff - at least insofar that 99.9% of people clicking on the thread for the first time would surely understand it as a question about whether they should be fired?
I think this slightly amusing situation really only arises because we are dealing with a sentence in isolation. Intended meaning will be generally be clarified by the wider context in these kinds of situation. In the case of spoken language, things like tone of voice and eye contact could also make a great difference, perhaps?
As I already said in an earlier post, I agree that putting “Mark and Zoran” first would clarify that the sentence is a question directed to these two gentlemen rather than a question about them.
(I still think we should bring back the vocative case though…:-D)
How did you feel when you first saw the title of the post? >;-)
“Does this sentence imply that both Mark and Zoran are part of Lingq’s staff?”
Yes, MooncarDogpaste.
Wrong, again. Nobody would ask a question directly to two people and end it with saying both their names.
Imagine Kate and Bob. Mum comes in. “Do you want some ice cream, Kate and Bob ?”
Doesn’t happen.
Their names coming at the end implies they are the aforementioned staff members.
Please stop teaching.
“…Nobody would ask a question directly to two people and end it with saying both their names (…) Doesn’t happen…”
Yes it does. “Do you want some ice cream, Kate and Bob ?" works just fine as a question.
“…Please stop teaching…”
I’m not a teacher.
lol wut? rofl
Now I’m going to read the answers.
Total disappointment.
- No, it really doesn’t.
- I was referring to USE not whether it can technically work.
- Nobody would ever talk directly to two people and use both their names at the end like that.
- I wasn’t talking to you.