December 2020

No, "that was" is not necessary before "signed," though it is perfectly fine to use it. "Concerning the child" and "signed on 3/24/21" can modify "agreement" in sequence. The reader will know that you do not mean for "signed" or "that was signed" to modify "child," even though that reading is possible.Read More...

Hi Gustavo, Can I please ask for some additional grammar help. I currently say " I have never wished that anyone especially any and all of my family...." should I instead say "I have never wished that anyone especially anyone and everyone in my family....."? Many thanks.Read More...

Hi, Cristi—What part of the world are these people writing to you from? Do you or your e-mail correspondents live in India, by any chance? No one with whom I have ever corresponded uses "revert" to mean "reply." That said, the twelfth and final definition of "revert" in the Oxford English Dictionary is this:Read More...

This is the part that I didn't know. I always considered the fact that the time expression is not obligatory in that construction as indicating that "which time" refers to something else, something that could be found in any cases, which, unfortunately, turned out to be untrue.Read More...

Yes, the question does not imply an assertion, so (dis)agreement is senseless.Read More...

Thanks Gustavo. It’s an eye-opening reserve.Read More...

Thanks a lotRead More...

>For stocks, one point equals one dollar. Thank very much for the information.Read More...

Hi, Subhajit—In that context, the present perfect progressive is the most natural choice: "I am tired because I have been repairing my motorbike all day." You can also say: "I am tired because I spent all day repairing my motorbike."Read More...

Hello, Laverinio, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. Where have you taken this sentence from? Please refer to Guidelines (4) and (5), to which there is a link in the toolbar at the top of the page. Thank you. "Please" is an interjection, so my first guess is that it should be between quotes to indicate what the dog's master actually said.Read More...

Hello, Englishnerd and Ahmed—I agree with you, Ahmed, that "falls" is the best choice of the four. ("Fills" doesn't work at all; "pours" and "drops" are rather silly.) Most English speakers would phrase the sentence differently, so that "rain" is a verb, not a noun, and weather "it" is subject. Another option is to use "rain" as a noun but have expletive "there" as the grammatical subject. In Egypt, it rains mostly near the northern coast. In Egypt, there is rain mostly near the northern coast.Read More...

Hi, Cristi, Not only the subject pronouns, but the object, possessive and reflexive pronouns as well. No, 'that' is not a relative clause here. Yes, you are right. No, isn't. It is simply a simple sentence containing one subject and one verb. There are no relative pronouns here. If you use the search button above, you can find a lot of information about relative pronouns and how they are used.Read More...

Hello, Foteini—"All the Christmas movies you want to see" is not a sentence. It's a noun phrase in which "(that) you want to see" is a relative clause. An example of a sentence containing your noun phrase is this: " You can see all the movies you want to see ." It is perfectly fine to speak of seeing movies, as well as of watching them. Have you seen Star Wars ?Read More...

Thank you very much, David, I get it, but if one uses 'the angels' instead of 'angels', that would would mean all of them, unless a specific set of angels has been defined, in which case 'the angels' would refer to that set. Is that correct? For example, if we have: Well, you see. There are angels in this room and he is talking to the angels. then 'the angels' would refer to all the angels in the room. But if we only have 'He's talking to angels.' then the meaning would be he is talking to...Read More...

I agree that the relative clause modifies "merger," but it may also be said to modify the noun phrase "merger with French luxury giant LVMH" as a whole. The noun phrase headed by "merger" has a prepositional phrase adjunct/modifier ("with French luxury giant LVMH") and a relative clause adjunct/modifier ("that would close months of drama that nearly killed the $15.8 billion agreement"). The second adjunct overlaps the first rather than operating wholly independently of it. BTW, Jason, please...Read More...

Thanks, David! The sentence is from a WSJ article on Dec 28 by Juliet Chung and Melissa Korn.Read More...

Thank you. Actually, I think type of a woman is possible. I heard that it can be used for a sarcastic remark. What kind of a woman is she? (Is she even a woman, agh?)Read More...

Hi, Jason, Actually, it is a sentence modifier. Under item 8.126 on page 618 of A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language , Quirk et al refer to this kind of modifiers as "metalinguistic comments," that is, expressions that refer to the way how things are said rather than to the actual message that is being conveyed. Other metalinguistic comments are strictly/broadly speaking, so to say, literally.Read More...

Hi, Ilko, Though grammatically correct, I think the use of the cleft sentence would only be justified if some emphasis were required. Also, I think "this month" would sound more natural at the end: A: You've only seen me once this month. B: It's not just once but twice that I've you seen you this month.Read More...

Hi, Ahmed—You need "to." Infinitival "to" licenses ellipsis. "Want" does not.Read More...

Thanks a lot Mr.DavidRead More...

Thanks a lot, Gustavo, for taking so much trouble to drive home the point. I am sincerely thankful to you, and, to David, of course.Read More...

Hi, Ilko, Yes, the sentence: is correct as a polite request provided you close it with a question mark. The verb help , just like other verbs like walk and drive , can take the pattern: Verb + DO + adverbial particle/prepositional phrase to indicate that somebody helps/walks/drives somebody else to get or go somewhere. This is, in my opinion, a remarkable example of the economy that characterizes the English language.Read More...

Hi, Ahmed, 5) Changing 'now' to 'then' leads to 'had to'. 6) Changing 'tomorrow' to 'the following day' leads to 'would have to'. 7) Not changing 'now' means there is no need to use time backshift, so "must" is the best choice. 8) It is similar to 7, but there are two possible answers: 'must' and 'wil have to'. Mostly, the model answer will be 'will have to' because it is preferred, especially when talking about obligations at a particular point in the futureRead More...

Hello, Gary, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. It sounds more natural to you because, as you indicated in your post, the singular noun "number" is missing.Read More...