New answers tagged grammar
1
Given the sample context I would say:
Before the exam you have to prepare for it.
During the exam you have to be prepared in order to get a good score.
I have to prepare for the exam because in order to get a good score I have to be prepared.
So, "have to prepare" is an action that happens before the time you need to do a test or an exam. You have ...
0
I don't care about things. I care for things. To me caring about means you pay more attention about what they do, and seeking that "common interest". I don't care about what you like and don't like. I will care FOR you and take care OF you regardless of your life choices even if it brings me or you displeasure or uncomfort. Caring about is nothing ...
1
"I paint" describes an action that has no definite beginning and end.
"For 3 hours," implies that the action has a beginning and an end.
Unless you're describing something that's part of a routine, this doesn't make sense.
"I paint for three hours each day," is an example of how the imperfect tense is used to describe recurring ...
1
For most verbs, the simple past tense doesn't say anything about the present.
For example, consider:
I went skiing last winter.
It doesn't imply anything about whether or not you've given up skiing.
For the verb want, the simple past can sometimes (weakly) imply that the situation is no longer true. For example,
I wanted to be a fireman when I was five,
...
0
Saying that you wanted to be a fireman doe not say anything about your wishes at the time you say that. It's up to you to make precise what your desire is at the time of speaking; you can complete this sentence in either of two ways to the effect of asserting both possibilities.
I wanted to be a fireman, but I don't want to anymore.
I wanted to be a ...
1
Though not a common collocation, to have a bad sleep, (on the calque of “have a good sleep“) appears to show increasing usage instances from the ‘90s, at least according to Google Books.
The more common expression, though, is “to sleep badly”.
See some usage examples here
2
No, the normal way to say this is "He slept badly last night." I have never heard the construction "to have a bad sleep", and I don't think a native speaker would ever use it.
Edited to add: user121863's answer has convinced me that this construction is now being used by (presumably) native speakers. I am surprised, but I must accept the ...
1
The price of the comic was a halfpenny for an uncoloured one, a penny if it was coloured.
A penny plain and twopence coloured was a well-known phrase in the 19th century. I don't know whether Robert Louis Stevenson originated it, but he used it as the title of an essay about the toy theatres (using paper cut-out figures) that he had played with as a boy. The ...
0
In British English we sometimes talk about "having a good catch up" when we talk with someone we haven't seen for a while. This means that we tell them about things that we have done and things that have happened to us and to mutual acquaintances since we last spoke.
We also sometimes refer to this process as "catching up" with the other ...
1
Generally, when #2 is even valid, it refers to a successful pursuit, either literally (eg, a foot race), or in some figurative sense (eg, one sports team belatedly achieving a score equivalent to the opposing team).
On the other hand, #1 generally refers to a discussion where one person finds out what the other has been doing over some past period of time (...
0
"A catching up" is found often enough (ngram), and similarly "a rapid catching up" is not rare (ngram) although more often this noun is found in compounds such as "a catching up effect", acatching up process", "a catching up stage". So there is no problem with "a good catching up".
The first means that ...
-1
If you were the student, then you would be waiting for advice from the former you, the person asking this illogical question.
I think that the best you can do is to offer up to the student how you would have handled the situation, at the time it happened, if it had happened to you, too. And, then, go on to say how you would handle it now.
0
The grammar is indeed wrong. A preposition introduces an indirect object.
I leapt upon the bed.
He hit the ball into the room.
Some verbs change their meaning with a preposition.
He hit me.
He hit on me.
Strike needs a direct object, strike me (or "struck me" ). Strike upon me is at best a pleonasm and at worst ungrammatical. However, it's ...
0
'What is it's significance' = what is the impact/help/furthering
'for the enrichment in your knowledge and skills = how does it add to your abilities
''in your chosen course' = not just general abilities, but those pertaining to your focused aim.
For example you are trying to learn a language...How does a given thing help you specifically with that goal?
...
2
'Good of a or an' is an error, mainly found in US speech and casual writing. Only the middle examples of each three are correct. The first ones are incorrect because the noun after 'that good' requires an indefinite article ('a' or 'an'), and the last examples ('not that good of a / an...') are a mainly US regional error.
1
They are, in general, not equivalent.
1 could occur in a simple story in which the reader is asked to imagine a scene. A cat runs faster than a dog. The dog tires. The cat escapes.
2 refers to a specific cat and a specific dog, both defined or implied by previous context. The statement might refer to particular animals (Mitzi the cat and Fido the dog). It ...
0
I recommend just getting rid of the "of". Then it would make sense.
0
The short answer to your question is never.
Articles are elements of noun phrases, not of verb phrases. Therefore they cannot be used with verbs, only with nouns.
This gizmo is responsible for opening the door.
This gizmo is responsible for the opening of the door.
In sentence (1), you have a verb phrase so you do not use an article. You know it is a verb ...
0
The second part of the first example is ungrammatical. The only way you could make make it work would be to insert 'on' to turn it into "I decided on quitting the job" but this is only approximately the same as "I decided to quit the job." You would use the "decided on" sentence to talk about a choice between two or more options....
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How's this sound? At the time of recruitment, these participants were involved in outpatient treatment for at least nine months.
1
The construction SUBJECT + VERB + BETTER + THAN + NOUN indicates that the subject performs the action described by the verb "better" in some way than the entity defined by the noun performs it. For example "Sparrows fly better than pigs" means that sparrows make a more effective job of flying than pigs do.
This means that "I ...
-1
"tweak" or "recast"
ref for 'tweak' - Cambridge Dictionary
ref for 'recast' - Cambridge Dictionary
3
According to Oxford dictionaries, the derivation of disappoint is -
late Middle English (in the sense ‘deprive of a position’).
So I suppose the meaning of disappointment has extended over the centuries from the feelings of someone who didn't get a job they had wanted, to cover all kinds of disappointment. People sometimes amuse themselves by thinking of ...
0
Because one of the definitions of graze is: put (cattle, sheep, etc.) to feed on land covered by grass. Hence: He is grazing the animals...
2
As a native speaker, I would be happy to help you with this proofreading process.
I agree with your assessment about the removal of the comma after 'those'. Regarding the use of the word 'those' itself, there is no reason to not use it as, in this sense, it kind of means to say 'those people' and the word 'people' is omitted but understood. (Think about the ...
1
This is not a grammatical sentence. It would be better for this sentence to say 'A quiz is a form of game or mind sport in which participants attempt to answer questions correctly'. The two changes I made were (1) removing the comma and (2) adding the bold-text words.
1
To answer your question specifically: Why does the author say "people would immediately have used it" instead of just "people immediately used it"?
My opinion is it's either poor command of English or careless writing.
It is puzzling just what the author of the sentences is actually trying to convey. Let me address the first sentence.
It ...
0
I see this is a controversial discussion so I accept some risk of disapproval by answering. Some account of your research (or at least your personal perception of the issue you are concerned about) would have helped to fit it to the site's purpose.
Nevertheless, I come here to enjoy my language at all levels from the simplest to the highest (where I lose ...
1
Simply, "was" is used for singular objects, and “were” is used for plural objects.
In your sentence fragment 'their' > pronoun; 'relationship' is the object was/were refers to and is singular.
Their relationship after the incident was...
Additionally, 'Was' is used in the first person singular (I) and the third person singular (he, she, it).
'...
3
Here, the phrase "using behavioural science and data" is what strays. The word "using" here is a gerund: a form derived from a verb, but functions as a noun.
0
Broadly speaking, there are three ways to define a sentence: orthographically, notionally and grammatically/formally.
Orthographical: A sentence is a string of words, starting with a capitalised word and ending with a full-stop, question mark or
exclamation mark.
Notional: A sentence is a string of words expressing a complete idea and that can stand alone.
...
-2
We celebrated our anniversary with balloons, cake, and a nice meal with the team.
1
Yes, it does, and you can in an informal context like this.
V. for very is a v. common abbreviation, kn. much less so (but he has written it out in full in the previous clause).
"I have a Dutch dictionary [which is] very much better [than the Swedish dictionary I used]."
This is evidently an informal letter to someone he knows well.
3
"Answer it." or "Answer it!" are both valid sentences on their own in the imperative mood. It is asking for a response to something (e.g. a question, a ringing phone, a doorbell, etc.)
"Answer this" usually appears before a question. That question would be a part of the same sentence after a colon. The question often needs no ...
1
“wh” relative clauses (“The bag which he put there was stolen.”)
“that” relative clauses (“The bag that he put ____ there was
stolen.”)
bare relative clauses (“The bag he put ____ there was stolen.”)
"That" cannot be R because it's a subordinator, not a relative word (it's the same subordinator that introduces declarative content clauses).
As your ...
1
Your example features 'FANBOYS' (or coordinating) conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) and is thus a compound sentence, not a complex one.
Compound sentences join sentences of equal standing.
Complex sentences feature subordinating conjunctions (e.g. although, since, because, etc) and these are the ones that feature a main clause and subordinating ...
-1
All of those are correct, albeit applicable in different contexts. I'll give some examples presently.
$:What would you if asked a question on which quarks are coloured?
#:I would answer it.
Note that the other two possibilities don't fit here.
$:Do you have any tasks for me?
#:Yes, answer this call (hands over a cellphone).
$:(After finishing the call) ...
1
The definition of main clause is simple enough.
"A clause that can form a complete sentence standing alone, having a subject and a predicate." [Oxford languages]
"Main clauses make sense on their own. 'I like bananas. ' is a simple sentence which is made up of a main clause." threschoolrun.com.
There is a distinction between ...
0
"A glittering future" is a standard metaphorical phrase in English (a metaphor is a form of words which compares something to something else by saying that it is the something else). According to The Collins online dictionary
You use glittering to indicate that something is very impressive or successful.
There is a literal meaning of 'glittering' ...
1
This is a restrictive clause and as such does not get commas.
Your case with the if-clause is a different grammatical structure because the clause does not directly modify the subject.
0
You certainly know the mean is calculated in the same way as the average: sum of n terms divided my n. But several variations, described in the source below, are used to prevent numbers, very high or low, from skewing the results. Though the mean is commonly called the average in conversation there are subtle reasons they are not identical. In your ...
2
This depends totally on register. Outside the maths etc domain, 'average' defaults to 'mean' and is the more usual term. But in more precisionist registers, 'mean' is a hyponym of 'average', along with 'median', 'mode', perhaps 'midmark' (and possibly other statistics of central tendency).
(answer by Edwin Ashworth, originally posted as a comment)
0
The answer to the first part of the question would be singular. You've used class which is a singular form of noun. The plural form of the same would be classes. But, interestingly, "Our Math class" can refer to countable or uncountable form as it can refer to several number of classes at the same time when used in the context of periodic classes ...
0
Is “something is passed to someone” correct? Or should it be “something has been passed to someone”?
They are simply different tenses of "to be passed"
The instruction book has been passed to her for her perusal
Someone had the book and they passed it to her. This has happened recently and presumably she still has the book.
The instruction book is passed to her for her perusal
This either acts as a commentary, as for a sporting event, or it ...
0
In my opinion, Both are correct.
"Do you not know...?" Is more formal than another one.
1
A well-written advertisement from Ritten House Inn, Wisconsin contains:
As you plan your trip to northern Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior, keep these top 10 Things to Do in mind.
However, 'things to do' is a fixed phrase punchier and more compact than 'so many things I want to do'.
Always have something fun to do in mind.
Self-visualization helps ...
1
Q 1. Can I use "where" instead of "from which"?
No.
Q 1-1. If it isn't possible, Why?
From is a preposition of motion or change that indicates an origin: "He came from England" "The heat created water from the ice"
Where is an adverb of place. = at, on, or in which place.
You can say:
"... a stalk of spores ...
0
Proper nouns are supposed to denote a specific entity.
This is incorrect as it is too much of a generalisation. Capitalisation does not change a noun into a proper noun. It is the proper noun that enables the use of capitals.
Compare the following:
"There is a Walmart two miles down the road."; (There must be hundreds of Walmarts.)
"How many ...
1
A proper noun has a name, and the name is capitalised when referring to that thing (or person) by its name.
A common noun is not a name, and a capital letter is not used.
Thus "my car" refers to a particular car, yes, but not by its name. You might have a VW Beetle and refer to "my Herbie" because Herbie is the name [proper, capitalised] ...
1
The reason is that the car, the hat and the dinner in your examples are specific only when the person or people referenced by the possessive pronouns are known. Not only that but when the pronouns reference other people the phrases reference other cars, hats and dinners.
For instance if you say "That is my car" then the phrase will refer to the car ...
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