Is the sentence "Queueing is so thoughtful of you." grammatically correct?
Solution 1:
Nothing wrong with that sentence, 'Queueing' here is a gerund, essentially a noun.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/gerund
Solution 2:
I would somewhat tentatively say that the sentence on the sign is grammatical. My own intuitions don't seem to give an entirely clear answer, but other people's intuitions and usage seem to support this kind of sentence.
I think the objection to the sentence "Queueing is so thoughtful of you" is based on an objection to the use of the structure "[verb]ing is (so) [adjective] of [someone]" to express the idea "It is (so) [adjective] of [someone] to [verb]". The structure starting with a gerund does seem to be grammatical according to the judgements of at least one linguist, but it sounded a little strange to me when I first thought about the sentence in your question, so it may not feel entirely natural for all English speakers. ("Queueing is so thoughtful" sounds OK to me. So it seems to me that the issue, if there is one, would be with the use of the prepositional phrase "of you" after "thoughtful" in this context.)
I found the following apparently parallel examples marked as grammatical in Adjectives and adjective complement constructions in English, a dissertation by Arlene Berman (1973):
(28) a. Burning the papers was clever of you
b. Bringing wine was thoughtful of Mary
c. Continuing to harp on the subject was wrong of you
(p 230)
"Wise-type adjectives" (like "wise of you")
I was led to Berman's dissertation because it was referenced in a paper specifically about the class of adjectives that behave like this: "Wise-type Adjective Constructions and the Uniformity Condition", by Shin Oshima. I wasn't able to find any examples in Oshima's paper that seemed directly relevant to your question, but it has some useful terminology and examples of other constructions that make use of adjectives like this.
Berman's judgements of related constructions
I think to understand Berman's examples better, it will help to look at some of the other things she says about this type of adjective. Actually, Berman's section on adjectives with of-NP complements starts out with examples of extraposed sentences of the type that I feel entirely comfortable with (and that I assume any English speaker would feel entirely comfortable with):
(24) a. It was clever of you to burn the papers
b. It was thoughtful of Mary to bring wine
c. It was wrong of you to continue harping on the subject
(p. 229)
Berman points out that sentences like "*It was clever of Max for his sister to do that" and "*It was clever of Max for him to do that" are not grammatical (p. 229). (However, note that Oshima says the latter construction may be possible in some dialects.)
Berman also judges the following sentences unacceptable::
(27) a. *To burn the papers was clever of you
b. *To bring wine was thoughtful of Mary
c. *To keep harping on the subject was wrong of you
(28 is the acceptability judgements given above for sentences starting with a gerund)
(29) a. *It was clever of you burning the papers
b. *It was thoughtful of Mary bringing wine
c. *It was wrong of you continuing to harp on the subject
and suggests that "It seems reasonable to assume that sentences like (28) are derived from sentences like (27), when Extraposition fails to apply.5" (p. 230).
Endnote 5 says:
This sort of alternation seems to exist more generally. I find, for example, the following:
(i) It was easy for Joe to do that
(ii) *To do that was easy for Joe
(iii) Doing that was easy for JoeBare infinitives in subject position seem to be quite restricted, although they are not wholly impossible. I have not examined the conditions under which they are and are not acceptable.
(p. 252)
I agree with Berman that bare infinitives are not wholly impossible as subjects. I'm not sure that I agree with her judgement that "To do that was easy for Joe" is unacceptable.
Berman also lists a few restrictions that seem to her to apply to this kind of adjective. The first of the following restrictions seems more obviously correct to me than the second. Berman notes that
While other subject-embedding adjectives allow the noun phrases in their prepositional complement to be questioned and relativized, this is not possible with sentences like (24):
(37) a. To whom is it clear that Max is wrong
b. the man to whom it is clear that Max was wrong
(38) a. For whom is it easy to write a dissertation
b. the man for whom it is easy to write a dissertation
(39) a. *Of whom was it stupid to do that
b. *the man of whom it was stupid to do that
(p 233)
Berman has no explanation for these acceptability judgements, but I fully agree with them.
The next judgement seems more iffy to me: Berman feels that
adjectives with of-NP complements do not allow Tough-movement:
(40) a. *That document was careless of Jeb to burn
b. *That was stupid of you to do
(p 233)
I don't feel certain that these sentences are grammatical for me, but "That was stupid of you to do" doesn't immediately seem unacceptable to me either. I found an example of it on the Internet (I don't know if it was written by a native English speaker):
The pisces men I know/knew (March 13-18th babies) are all fragile ego, sensitive as shit dudes. Don't tell him he's not behaving like a man, his brows look bushy in a picture, that was stupid of you to do because then his whole ego is thrown off; he doesn't wanna play anymore and he's taking his ball home with him.
(comment by Peachyvision, Apr 30, 2015; #18 in the thread "So do pisces men like to get cussed out and called names?", discussion in 'The Lipstick Alley Psychic Hotline' started by StayMadBishes, Apr 30, 2015)
Contexts where it sounds OK to me to use a "wise-type adjective" without a following to-infinitive
For me, "[adjective] of you" definitely works without a following to-infinitive when the subject is one of the following pronouns:
this or that (singular demonstratives)
which (as a singular inanimate relative pronoun)
Examples:
"That wasn't very nice of you."
"This is so thoughtful of you!"
"He helped me with my errands, which was thoughtful of him."
(It also sounds fine to me to use a quantifier before one of these pronouns, as in "All of this is very thoughtful of you.")
And it also sounds fine in exclamatory sentences with "How" at the start (I don't know enough syntax to know how these work):
- "How silly of me."
(In some cases, at least when there is a to-infinitive, the "how" can be left out in similar sentences: "How stupid of them to leave it behind!" "Silly of me to forget about that.")
(Also, I don't know if these could be taken to be short versions of "How silly of me that was" or "How silly (?it was) of me to do that")
Other examples I have found of wise-type adjectives used without a to-infinitive (taken from the Internet)
I was able to find "worrying was silly of me" used in a blog post by someone who appears to be a native English speaker: "Internship Assignment A", Keep Calm and Study Abroad.
"Everything you say about my time with Wade is thoughtful of you" (This was the only example of "is thoughtful of you" that I found on Google Books that didn't have "it", "this" or "that" as the subject)
-
From Google as a whole (not Google Books) there are few more examples with a gerund:
"I understand you desire to try something to save the birds, putting a a bell on her for that reason is thoughtful of you"
"Being vague about a plot thats well know in the novel is thoughtful of you, even though theres no plot beyond what you describe"
"Considering her feelings is thoughtful of you, but if it's truly the latter situation, go stay with your Dad until she realizes she needs to grow up and..."
-
and from Google, a few with other nouns as the subject:
"Very heartfelt, Willis, and the PS is thoughtful of you."
"Editing is amazing and the music selection is thoughtful of you."
With a plural verb:
"The flowers are very thoughtful of you."
"The feelings you described regarding entrapment and suffocation are very perceptive of you." (This one sounds very strange to me; it's from an interview, so it probably was spoken spontaneously)
"I know these things are silly of me to feel." (From some Instagram post; this one also sounds strange to me)
John Lawler's answer to How does the to infinitive work with adjectives like “wrong” and “wise”? provides the example
For me to go home that day was wise (of me).
where the infinitive precedes rather than follows, but I don't know if that is intended to be a grammatical example sentence, or just an ungrammatical illustration of the theorized underlying structure of "It was wise of me to go home that day." (Another example is "It was wise (of me) (for me) to go home that day", which as I mentioned above is ungrammatical for most speakers when both "of me" and "for me" are included.)
Lists of "wise-type" adjectives
Berman gives a short list of adjectives that take of-NP complements: clever, stupid, idiotic, careless, wrong, brilliant, kind, nice, thoughtful (from (23), on p. 229).
Oshima mentions most of these, as well as a few more like foolish, good, wise (from (1), on p. 12).
I found another source that mentions "wise-type" adjectives, the SAL Taxonomy for English Adjectives, but none of the related texts that I found mention the "V-ing is [adjective] of [N]" structure specifically:
SAL Taxonomy for English Adjectives (PDF)
-
SAL Adjective Narratives
This resource lists a number of other adjectives that act like "wise" and "thoughtful": audacious, astute, bestial, bold, brilliant, careless, childish, discriminatory, early, far-sighted, heroic, humane, impudent, intelligent, late, negligent, noble, perceptive, polite, provocative, reckless, rude, shrewd, undiplomatic, unprincipled
Works Cited
Berman, Arlene (1973). "Adjectives and Adjective Complement Con- structions in English.” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard.
Oshima, Shin (1987). Wise-type Adjective Constructions and the Uniformity Condition." Kochi University Academic Research Report 36, Humanities
Solution 3:
You have asked a thought-provoking question that shows your objective consideration of the author's opinions.
Although I am not at all well-versed with the technical terms that infest that author's paragraph, I am willing to interpret it as an objection to the use of a noun-clause "queuing and giving way to alighting passengers" as a subject, which he calls 'unrelated' because nowhere does it refer to the actual subject 'you' -- which is probably an overly pedantic opinion.
A crude and simple breakdown of the quoted sentence in its full form (not extracting the gerund 'queueing' out of its clause) would be [correct me if I am wrong]:
subject = queuing and giving way to alighting passengers (noun clause)
verb = is (linking verb)
object [more accurately, a 'state of being' because of the use of a linking verb] = so thoughtful of you.
What's not to like? It does not seem to be ungrammatical.
I assume that the most technically correct form of the sentence would be
It is so thoughtful of you to be queueing and giving way to alighting passengers.
The sentence in question is is just a simple reversal of this order:
(to be) queueing and giving way to alighting passengers is so thoughtful of you
and that by itself proves it is grammatical, the 'to be' having been dropped because implied and redundant -- but the author possibly thinks it is more correct [grammatical but non-standard, and sometimes an awkward construction] to say something that includes some form of 'you' in the subject clause, as for example:
Your queueing and giving way to alighting passengers is so thoughtful (of you)
which would certainly avoid his pernicious if possibly technically correct accusation of 'unrelated clause': this is the type of sentence construction sometimes chosen by non-native speakers or in dialects like Indian English and Singapore English, and possibly reflects the syntax of regional languages. The author seems determined that some form of or reference to 'you' should appear in the noun clause to avoid any suspicion of illiteracy, but any native speaker of English here at ELU will tell you that the 'your' can be acceptably dropped in common usage to say
Queueing and giving way to alighting passengers is so thoughtful of you.
Calling it illiteracy is a very excessive objection IMHO.
Solution 4:
I might not have the prescriptivist grammarian credentials to best answer this question, but it is interesting, so here are my two cents.
The argument against "queueing is thoughtful of you" seems to rely on the idea that "[gerund] is [adjective] [preposition] you" is inherently wrong because the infinitive form should be used instead of a gerund.
It is thoughtful of you to queue
therefore
To queue is thoughtful of you.
But what about this counterexample:
It is good for you to run.
Running is good for you.
If being "grammatical" is connected at all to being idiomatic and observable in use, then "running is healthy for you" or "running is good for you" appear to be acceptable. The phrases are used with only trivial variations in The Guardian and in The New York Times.
For what it's worth, "running is good for you" also sounds idiomatic to these native ears and probably most others.
So what's the difference between "Running is good for you" and "Queueing is thoughtful of you?"
Syntactically speaking, both follow the "[gerund] is [adjective] [preposition] you" pattern. I can't see a reason why the OP's sentence in context would be particularly incorrect because it uses the word "of" and not "for."
Furthermore, it seems to me that a grammatically "wrong" sentence ought to be "wrong" all the time. Would this pair of sentences be incorrect?
Thank you for queueing. It was thoughtful of you.
If it is incorrect, then would this also be incorrect?
Thank you for hurrying. It was thoughtful of you.
The latter sentence seems to have an implied ellipsis:
Thank you for hurrying. It was thoughtful of you to hurry.
Yet the mere fact that the ellipsed phrase takes the infinitive form doesn't seem to render the sentences ungrammatical or not idiomatic.
Based on this line of reasoning, I see no problem with the sentence "Queueing is so thoughtful of you."