Questions tagged [sentence-patterns]
Questions relating to the pattern of words in a sentence.
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1answer
20 views
Usage of second sentence posed as a question [on hold]
"He might wait till Christmas to gorge on rum cake.
Why should you?"
This is an ad copy for an online food delivery site.
I want to know if the second line - Why should you?, is grammatically ...
1
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1answer
37 views
Is “you have so many double standards” idiomatic and if not, why and what would be?
The noun double standard is countable. Looking at some ngram you can see the plural form used for titles (to mean something like the topic of...) or when there's a number preceding it (i.e. referring ...
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1answer
12 views
“contains possible faulty output” or “contains potential faulty output”?
Is there any difference between saying this? I'm using this to report system output that might contain output that is worth investigating for the maintainers.
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1answer
50 views
“I am not starving yet” is that correct English?
I am trying to say "I am not feeling hunger at the moment, but I probably will in the nearest future." "I am not starving yet" - is that a proper English in general and particularly in that case of ...
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0answers
23 views
To + [verb] is to + [verb] - what does it mean?
The sentence goes: "To see the damage is to understand the deliberateness of the attack."
Does it mean the damage is such that the attack must be deliberate?
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0answers
25 views
The Structure of “They'll both be dead come winter.” [duplicate]
While I was watching Game of Thrones, I encountered with the sentence below:
They'll both be dead come winter.
I am a little bit confused with the the usage of "come winter". Is this structure has ...
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1answer
14 views
Usage of for versus by
Which of the following sentences is correct grammatically ?
Can I know the procedure for booking rooms in the department, for Teaching Assistant(TA) to hold office hours.
Can I know the procedure for ...
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1answer
21 views
Alternative in parenthesis before or after?
When a sentence describes there are multiple alternatives, but one specific is the common one, it can specify the common in parenthesis. But there are multiple ways to do it.
For example, should it ...
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0answers
63 views
Sentence with two 'than's in a row
I'm looking for a sentence with two 'than's in a row. I'm sure they exist but I just can't think of one!
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1answer
89 views
“Get involve” or “get involved”? [closed]
I'm little confused.
Which one's grammatically correct?/sound correct?
"I've no obligation to get involve in the situation"
or
"I've no obligation to get involved in the situation"
PS. I think that ...
2
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0answers
24 views
What's the rule for bare infinitive in a dependent clause? [duplicate]
I've been reading a chapter in a certain (programming) book and stumbled upon the following sentences (and I'm sure I've seen more examples like this in the book):
Since randomized tests are ...
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0answers
68 views
Imperative sentence patterns …
Please let me ask you native or very well-trained Eglish speakers if there’s some patterns, rules, or formulas in regards of an imperative sentence’s structure.
For example, I was reading this ...
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2answers
79 views
will soon receive or will receive soon
I was wondering if there is a specific preference for the soon position in the following line:
You will receive a message with the activation link soon.
Or if it is better/more common to use:
...
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2answers
58 views
How do you casually describe in English a possession of thing(s) belonging to/shared by two people? [duplicate]
Neither of the following sounds quite "right" to me:
This is the book of Kelly and I. (Maybe valid but still sounds too rigid)
This book is of Kelly and mine's. (I know, sounds the weirdest)
This is ...
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0answers
15 views
Where or where from? [duplicate]
I was wondering where you bought that book (from)? Is 'from' necessary in this sentence ?
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1answer
41 views
How do we use two 'as..as' pattern together?
What is difference between as big and as noisy as their car and as big and noisy as their car. Which is more accepted usage among English speakers? How do we use two 'as..as' pattern together.(as big ...
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0answers
20 views
Is it correct to simplify common verbs in an ordered sentence?
Today, I came across a sentence pattern in a well-accepted technical document, as follows:
Their X1 are too A1, their X2 too A2, and their X3 too A3.
Is it correct to use only one are in this ...
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1answer
39 views
what is wrong with my sentence structure?
'With my brother standing by my side, I reached for the pot handle, tilting the pot way too much caused the boiling water to spill.’ My gut feeling tells me that there is something wrong with this ...
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1answer
75 views
Trivia quesiton logic [closed]
I am debating with a friend about how to interpret this trivia sentence.
When asked how old she is, Jane says:
"In two years, I will be twice as old as I was five years ago..."
Would the answer ...
2
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1answer
88 views
“Never on par” in a sentence
Just wondering if the following sentence is correct:
"A and B are never on par."
Is it equivalent to saying that A and B are not equal?
Must the phrase "on par" always be followed by "with"?
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2answers
32 views
Does this need to be in plural?
Recently, I had to use the following sentence:
"The paths of the php and html files are as follows..."
It's about one html file and one php file. Both have one path and they are separate files.
...
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1answer
52 views
placement of 'per year' in a sentence
In the first sentence, the term ‘per year’ is placed within the sentence and in the second sentence, at the end.
Which pattern is correct and which one is wrong?
The business purchases about ...
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1answer
290 views
Use of preposition with 'adopted' in a sentence
Can this machine be adopted______farm work?
Options were:
a)in
b)into
c)for
d)by
Please provide the correct answer with proper explanation.
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2answers
61 views
Which is better? “Ans to the q-1” or “The ans to q-1” [closed]
Upto high school, before answering any question in the exam we used to write "Ans to the q-no:1" (Answer to the question number 1). But then our English teacher told us to write "The ans to q-no:1" (...
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2answers
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What is the term for a sentence which reads same forwards and backwards?
Please note, I'm not asking for a palindrome. I mean to say that only the word order is rearranged, not the actual spelling of the word. An example might be as follows:
First ladies rule the ...
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2answers
98 views
What does this mean? “He started evening classes.” [closed]
"Andrew has just started evening classes. He's studying German."
I just came across this sentence in Grammar in Use. This was a example sentence, there's no more context.
From the latter part of ...
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2answers
204 views
How to remove ambiguity within a sentence
Consider the following sentence:
Over 90 percent of applicants secure the credit they need in around 10 minutes
As is, the sentence is ambiguous. A possible interpretation could be:
90 percent ...
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0answers
31 views
confusion with – all but [duplicate]
Ex. ‘It is all but evident that kids get more and more home-bound these days.’
As I know, the phrase – ‘all but’ means ‘all except…’
If it is so, the sentence does not hold a meaningful sense.
if ...
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0answers
64 views
Sentence structure and type of clauses
the renowned sprinter and track-and-field personality Carl Lewis, who had known pressure from fans and media before but never, even as a professional runner, this kind of pressure, made only a few ...
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2answers
35 views
Can I transform this sentence like this? [closed]
This is the original sentence:
"The guests reached the wedding party last night though it rained heavily."
I transformed it to:
"It rained heavily last night;however, the guests reached the wedding ...
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0answers
87 views
syntactic analysis of a phrase with FROM…TO
In the sentence
Everything we do, from eating and ice cream to crossing the Atlantic and from baking a loaf to writing a novel, involves the use of coal, directly or indirectly.
I can't come ...
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1answer
93 views
Fronting of helping verbs for impossible probabilities
This is from 'Landour Days' by Ruskin Bond where he dwells at length on writings by hand.
" A few years earlier, when Dickens and Balzac had submitted their hefty manuscripts in longhand, no one had ...
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1answer
263 views
usage of “X serves to Y”
I just saw a paragraph that started with this sentence:
"This article serves to discuss native advertising with software engineers."
What is the justification for using "serves to" instead of just ...
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0answers
27 views
What is the origin of this statement pattern: noun + “,” + verb + “since YYYY”?
Example:
"'Shadowhunters : Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234'"
Where can I find the earliest such example?
(Please help me tag/frame this question right!)
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0answers
40 views
What is the sentence pattern of “I think that she is intelligent” [duplicate]
I understand that the sentence "She is Intelligent" would be pattern SVC, but what is the pattern when the sentence is "I think that she is intelligent". Because both "think" and "is" are verbs, I am ...
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2answers
297 views
How can I rephrase these two sentences for a more natural flow? [closed]
How can I rephrase the two sentences in italics, so that it sounds and flows more naturally and doesn't sound awkward. The sentence before it are given for some context.
But neither systems perform ...
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2answers
649 views
Why is it that people have started to use an interrogative sentence form when not asking a question in American English?
I'm not sure if this is something recent, although I've been noticing it much more frequently now than say a couple of years ago. Many times people will make a statement, but will have it in an ...
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1answer
510 views
“He made me down” sounds ok to say “He made me sad”? If not, why so?
I'm a newbie to this forum and I've been wondering if the sentence below is gramatically correct, and if not, pls explain the reason linguistically.
(I'm not a native English speaker.)
He made me ...
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0answers
250 views
What is the sentence pattern for this clause [closed]
To get to New Zealand the fastest way, you will have to fly from Copenhagen.
For example,
Subject – be verb – adverb of time or place,
Subject – be verb – predicate adjective,
Subject – be verb – ...
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2answers
364 views
Which punctuation should be used before extra information at the end of a sentence?
I have a question regarding punctuation. Please consider the following sentence:
In 2010, he became CEO of the company [punctuation?] a position he
still holds today.
I'm wondering which ...
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2answers
204 views
What does this phrase (“..for who knows which ideas now considered …might one day upset the prevailing paradigm”) mean?
The following sentence is a GRE style text-completion sentence, where you must fill in each blank from only one of three enlisted options.
It is telling that some scientific ideas that were once (i)...
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1answer
266 views
What is wrong with this sentence that start with a gerund?
In my last writing exam I wrote:
... when I decided to address the matter to the headwaiter, he rudely recommended delivering any sort of complaint by writing. Offering no prompt solution to the ...
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0answers
29 views
What part of a sentence is that word in these kind of sentences [duplicate]
hi and thanks for reading.
I can find many sentences which are very simple but i can't assign all of the words with the correct part of a sentence.
What i mean is, in sentences such as:
She washed it ...
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1answer
66 views
What is the meaning of this sentence [closed]
There are few bigger wastes than the loss to idleness of hours, days and years by people who would rather be working
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1answer
217 views
Mixing countability; how to correctly say “there is plenty of rice, earthquakes and typhoons”?
In this question I wrote the following sentence, knowing full well that it has problems.
Where I live right now there is plenty of rice, earthquakes and typhoons.
Both earthquake and typhoon are ...
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0answers
189 views
What does “For all the ~, S + V” mean?
Here are a few sentences with the structure, “For all the ~, S + V”.
For all the controversies surrounding the so-called marketing stages or periods, Keith and others appear to have contributed a ...
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0answers
351 views
“We next consider” vs “We consider next”
In a technical scientific paper, should I write
"We next consider an example of ..."
or
"We consider next an example of ..."
or
"Next we consider an example of ..."
1
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1answer
394 views
Adjectives After an Object That Comes After Transitive Verb [duplicate]
I'm very aware of how verbs, indirect objects, and direct objects relate.
I gave Sam a ball.
Sam - indirect object and ball - direct object. Very simple! But what about when an adjective comes ...
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2answers
465 views
Implications: neutral / negative
I'd like to ask about the following report's title:
"Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs"
The report is mentioned in "The Mars Mystery" by Graham ...
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1answer
207 views
Sentence structure and too many nouns? [closed]
I'm facing a great challenge in writing a sentence, and am also having trouble breaking the sentence down on a technical level to make it relevant to a Stack Exchange post.
The sentence version I've ...
