Best Of

North Magnetic Pole is what the pole is called. Keep in mind that the word 'North' can be used as a noun ("My parents have moved to the north"); an adverb ("The birds fly north every year"); or as an adjective ("The north side of town is better"). Usually, the adjectives northern, southern etc refer to a bigger area (e.g. the Northern Hemisphere; Eastern Europe). In the case of the magnetic pole, it is a point on Earth, therefore small in comparison.
You're right to consider "northern" a modifier. It is an adjective.

Hope this helps.

No, @Ahmed_Ashraf, eating can only be used in an ACTIVE sense here.

The construction is a shortened version of

...the special foods that are eaten

So you can say

Who are the special people eating at the festival?

because it's a shorten version of

...the people who are eating

SORRY!

It's a tricky argument, and I got it wrong in my last posting.

I think the discussion still stands for DIFFERENT SUBJECTS in the two clauses.
But I need to rewrite the discussion of DIFFERENT VERBS. The first part is OK, I think.

B.
If the second clause differs only in the VERB, then the scope of too is the rest of the PREDICATE after the VERB.
A technical term for this is COMPLEMENTATION.

If the SCOPE of too is the COMPLEMENTATION, not the SUBJECT, then it doesn't matter whether the SUBJECTS in the two clauses are the same or different.

• Peter (or John) gave Jo an apple willingly on Thursday. Peter (or John) sold Jo an apple willingly on Thursday.
  Because the COMPLEMENTATIONS are the same,
  — We can add too
  — We can link them with and, not but

• Peter (or John) gave Jo an apple willingly on Thursday, and he sold Jo an apple willingly on Thursday too.

But the rest of the argument is wrong. My mistake was

Add NEGATION to the PREDICATES in both clauses. The SCOPE of NEGATION is the COMPLEMENTATION in each clause.

But this isn't so. The VERB is NEGATIVE but the COMPLEMENTATION is the same in both clauses:
Jo an apple willingly on Thursday

So the next part of the argument is OK, I think

• Peter (or John) didn't give Jo an apple willingly on Thursday. Peter (or John) didn't sell Jo an apple willingly on Thursday.
  Because the COMPLEMENTATIONS are the same,
  — We can add too (although either sounds better)
  — We can link them with and, not but
  Peter didn't give Jo an apple willingly on Thursday, and he didn't sell him one willingly on Thursday too (or either).

But the next part of my argument was wrong:

But if only one of the PREDICATES is negative, then the COMPLEMENTATIONS are different

In fact the COMPLEMENTATION is

Jo an apple willingly on Thursday

This is the same even when only one of the PREDICATES is negative

However, it makes a difference which of the two clauses is negative

• Peter (or John) gave Jo an apple willingly on Thursday. Peter (or John) didn't sell Jo an apple willingly on Thursday.

  Because the COMPLEMENTATIONS are the same and the first clause is positive
  — We can add too
  Because the PREDICATES are different,
  — We can link them with but, not and
  Peter (or John) gave Jo an apple willingly on Thursday, but he didn't sell Jo an apple willingly on Thursday too.

• Peter (or John) didn't give Jo an apple willingly on Thursday. Peter (or John) sold Jo an apple willingly on Thursday.
  Because the COMPLEMENTATIONS are the same but the first clause is negative
  — We can't add too
  Because the PREDICATES are different,
  — We can link them with but, not and
  Peter (or John) didn't give Jo an apple willingly on Thursday, but he sold Jo an apple willingly on Thursday.

@Prudence, the vocabulary of the senses can be tricky.

Let's start with sound and sight. English has verbs for

1. a person making an effort
2. a person having an experience, without making an effort
3. a thing affecting a person

So for sound

1. I listened.
2. I heard a dog.
3. The dog sounded angry.

For sight

1. I looked.
2. I saw the flower.
3. The flower looked pretty

For sight the verb look is used for [1] and [3]. For taste there is even less variety.

1. I tasted.
2. I tasted the soup.
3. The soup tasted salty.

Now there is another verb. It's a two-word verb taste of. We use it

• only for [3]
• referring not to the object tasted but to the strongest ingredient

So we can say

1. I tasted.
2. I tasted the soup.
   3a. The soup tasted good.
   3b. It tasted of asparagus.

Now your question only makes sense with meaning [2]. If you say

May I taste of it?

It means

'Please cover me with it, so that when somebody eats me they will taste it — more strongly than they'll taste my flesh.'

which is not what you mean.

There is a four-word verb you could use: have a taste of. So you could say

May I have a taste of it?

But the subject should agree with the verb right?

As a general rule, yes. But the rule has exceptions.

Two principles may work against the rule:

1. NOTIONAL — The subject phrase may contain the idea of several things
2. PROXIMITY — A plural noun may be nearer to the verb and the singular subject further away.

Notional agreement is quite common with COLLECTIVE NOUNS such as team, government, staff etc. This is more common among British speakers than American speakers, but it does happen in both dialects.

The second set of rules are grammar rules is subject to both principles

1. NOTIONAL —The idea is plural.
2. PROXIMITY — The noun form rules is closer to the verb than the noun form set.

This doesn't mean that the verb must be plural. But it does explain why I find it acceptable.

Your new example

Part of the walls are to be cleaned.

is not acceptable in British English either.

Yes, there is PROXIMITY. But the NOTION of the subject is singular.

When I say that it's unacceptable, I don't mean that nobody ever says it. But it's the sort of careless mistake that English speakers recognise as wrong. If they notice that they've made the mistake, then they correct themselves.

Returning to the original question from @cbalatel257 , I really don't believe that

The second set of rules is grammar rules.

is acceptable in writing or in careful speech.

There's an agreed term for the part before the verb be (the second set of rules).
It's the SUBJECT.

The part after be (grammar rules) is sometimes identifies by a traditional term.
It's the COMPLEMENT.

Now, be is sentences like this means that the SUBJECT is identical to the COMPLEMENT.
So either both are singular or both are plural. It's just not grammatical to say

is grammar rules

I suspect that some speakers won't like

The second set of rules are grammar rules

But I believe all speakers will dislike

The second set of rules is grammar rules

The writer is concentrating on the period when the experiments didn't change. This is because he or she wants to make a contrast. By using the words 'it wasn't until' he or she is implying that the right time to change the experiments was in that period. But the experiments weren't changed.

Yes, they were finally changed, but not at the time the writer expected. No, the experimenters kept them up until some time around Christmas. Then, and only then, they changed. But, in the writer's opinion, they should have changed earlier.

I disagree @sullah_ranjha114.

• Flu is not often used as a COUNTABLE NOUN.
• When COUNTABLE it usually means 'strain of flu'.
• Unusually, it can mean 'epidemic of flu'.

Only in the sense of 'epidemic' is it possible to write something like The Flu that Killed Millions or the terrible flu of 1918.

In the UNCOUNTABLE sense of flu we can choose whether to include the:

I had flu
or
I had the flu

But if we add terrible, then only one construction is possible:

I had terrible flu
but not
I had the terrible flu