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The abundance of interesting articles on your site amazes me! Good luck to the author and new interesting posts! Thank you David!Read More...

It's still OK to use "lady's man." Opinions will differ as to how old-fashioned it is. Similar terms include "Romeo," "Cassonova," "Don Juan," "Prince Charming."Read More...

It's such a headache to try to navigate when to put "critical race theory" in quotation marks...see the three below instances here in bold: https://join.substack.com/p/ho...ld-history-be-taught Zinnophobia is inherently important, but it’s also extra important right now due to all of the controversy around “critical race theory” —“CRT” is short for “critical race theory” . https://join.substack.com/p/control Detmer comments as follows in the interview and note that “CRT” is short for...Read More...

1. Well, if we were visiting earth from another planet, I suppose "JFK [assassination nonsense]" could be interpreted as being some brand of assassination nonsense. Fortunately, human beings have common sense. We don't need to be so heavy-handed in punctuation that we are writing for those who lack common sense or who wish perversely to misunderstand. 2. If you mean "[hardcore conspiracy] theorists," then you should go right ahead and use a hyphen. What "hardcore conspiracy theorists" means...Read More...

A closer look at the numbers behind summer vacation shows the growing importance of holiday weekends, which helps explain [ how travel has defied predictions of its demise t o emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever ] . I'm inclined to say that the underlined infinitival clause is an adjunct in clause structure. It functions as a modifier in the bracketed clause, where it indicates a resultant or subsequent meaning.Read More...

Hi, Maged Hosny, As a linker of addition, "as well as" is halfway between both parts of speech. Quirk and Greenbaum define it as a quasi-coordinator. On page 275 of their A University Grammar of English , they explain that quasi-coordinators sometimes resemble coordinating conjunctions and give this example: - He publishes as well as prints his own books. But they add that they can also have a prepositional or subordinating role, as in: - As well as printing the books, he publishes them.Read More...

Hi, Andrew—No, "OK" does not apply to the part of the sentence in bold. It applies only to the first clause. That clause spells out the meaning of "OK" in the context; it is the proposition to which "OK" expresses assent. It's like saying: "I recognize that people don't really want to talk about Vietnam." Notice that it would be possible to have: " OK, but I can do a movie about the JFK assassination . That way I can slide Vietnam into the conversation." Even in this case, "OK" would not...Read More...

Hi, Lou, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange, Both are correct, however, 'will' works better here because there is no present reality. It is a kind of exaggeration. 'Are going to' is the logical answer here. It is something that is about to happen, not something in the remote future. Both are correct.Read More...

Hi, Erdal K., In English, we can use V-ing to refer to previous, simultaneous or subsequent actions performed by the subject of the main or a higher-level clause. In the first sentence, there is an adverbial clause starting with "when" whose subject, "the fighter jet," is the subject of "crashed" as well as of "killing," "splintering" and "spewing," all of which are contained within the same "when"-clause, so there's nothing grammatically wrong with that. In the second sentence, "the...Read More...

Thanks so much for this incredible help! I really appreciate it! I'll go with the third option that you mentioned!Read More...

@Ahmed towab @Gustavo, Co-ModeratorRead More...

Hi, Ahmed, Thank you, you helped me a lot!Read More...

Thank you very muchRead More...

Greetings, While I find BillJ's analysis plausible, I think there is something to be said for the analysis toward which you are inclined, Robby. Please note that BillJ is not saying the "when"-clause is a "nominal relative clause"; he is saying the "when"-clause is a subordinate interrogative clause, i.e., an embedded question. I feel that there may have been some miscommunication when you asked whether "know" could alternatively be analyzed as intransitive in "You don't seem to know when...Read More...

Sorry; I overlooked your post. I don't think so. The pro-form "one" is defined by its antecedent, one that is not a full NP, as in the example I gave earlier. Please see my previous answer for the reasons that the pro-form "one" is not a pronoun.Read More...

Hi, Gustavo and David, really thanks for your supports as always.Read More...

But "blow up" does not 'function' as a single word. At word level, it consists of two distinct constituents: "blow" + "up" (verb + prep comp)'. In They blew up the building , "blew up" is not a constituent since the words can be separated: They blew the building up . To say that a combination of words functions as a single word but is not actually a single word is misleading, especially to learners – the people we're trying to help here. In a tree diagram, learners are likely to label "blow...Read More...

Thanks a lot AhmedRead More...

Hi, Annetik, I'd put "perfectly well" in the middle of the verb phrase to avoid cutting off the accusative -ing structure: - I could perfectly well hear them discussing me.Read More...

Excellent point, Gustavo. I suspected that lurking in my grammatical blindspot was some type of acceptable reduced-adverbial-clause -ing construction following "if." You have found it and have described its semantics very well.Read More...

Personally, I don't feel I can help you any more than I already have. David has also given you some good answers. I'm afraid you might be looking for some hard-and-fast rules where there are none. That colleague you once mentioned might be right about your being too demanding when it comes to editing. I hope we can continue to be of help with other topics.Read More...

The adverb-adjective parallelism and the dashes make it clear that "extremely" modifies "efficient" and that "easily" modifies "linkable." Would you say "extremely easily linkable"? I wouldn't. "Extremely" could modify an adjective between dashes like "easy-to-use."Read More...

If it said to be a mass noun, it cannot be "also used in the plural." When used in the plural, it is a count noun.Read More...