December 2021

Thanks DavidRead More...

Hi, Adel—Unlike prepositions, adverbial particles can be placed after or before the direct object of the phrasal verb. Because both "He put off his trip" and "He put his trip off " are perfectly fine, we know that "off" is a particle here.Read More...

Hi, DT—Yes, both of those readings are possible. However, please note that your example is not a sentence; it's just a noun phrase.Read More...

Hi, Treasure—Only (B) is correct, actually. You can plot against something, and you can plot to do something, but you can't plot against doing something.Read More...

Thank you for your replies.Read More...

Thank you very much. Here are two more examples. If you knock on a door and ask, "Is any one in there?," you simply do not know. If you knock on a door and ask, "Is some one in there?," you suspect that someone is. (Maybe you heard a noise inside the room.)Read More...

Thanks a lot. So it is still used as an indirect insult. Right?Read More...

Thank you I really appreciate your replyRead More...

That's interesting, Mac Cranberries. It is a possible interpretation of the sentence with "as good as." Normally, however, we would not place "as good as" at the end of the sentence in such a case: No one (who was) as good as her/she has ever painted. That sentence is not talking about how good a painter she is. It is saying simply that she painted and is commenting that no person throughout history who ever painted was as good a person as she. In your sentence, that is a highly unlikely...Read More...

But there are abstract nouns denoting feelings and emotions modified by adjectives and they are preceded by a or an like: He has a deep hatred of the police. ( Oxford dictionary)Read More...

Thanks a lot AhmedRead More...

Thank you, Gustavo.Read More...

Oh ok, I got it now. sorry, I hadn’t noticed that “Simpsons” is already in the plural form. Thank you so much for your help. ps.: I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!Read More...

Hi, GBLSU, Yes, those verbs are used intransitively there. Mainly in the case of confuse, impress, clarify, they can be said to have an implicit, generic object people .Read More...

Thank you for the amazing explanation.Read More...

Thank you. Sorry for the typo.Read More...

Thank you, but it's difficult for me to fully understand.Read More...

Hi, Emad Ragheb, "Need" means "require" there, so it is followed by a gerund, which is equivalent to a noun: - Jobs that need using interpersonal skills are a lot safer. - Jobs that require using interpersonal skills are a lot safer. - Jobs that need/require the use of interpersonal skills are a lot safer. But: - You need to use interpersonal skills to do that job.Read More...

Hi, clueless—The most natural parsing of (A) is with the prepositional phrase "among the children at the party" as an adverbial modifier of "divided": It was among the children at the party that we divided the candy. However, it is possible to parse it as an adjectival modifier of "candy." That would require a strange context, perhaps one in which the speaker(s) divided each child's piece(s) of candy into two or more pieces. It was the candy among the children at the party that we divided.Read More...

Hello, Mamakin, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. Both of your sentences are ungrammatical. Are you trying to say this? We walked the dog together just about every day. We did Christmas at their house just about every year.Read More...

What native speakers would say is this: She has cooked enough lunch for ten people.Read More...

Hi, Ken—You are right that "belong" can be used only as an intransitive verb. While "belong" is commonly followed by a prepositional phrase beginning with "to," "with," or "in," it is occasionally used without a complement (for example, "He just wants to know that he belongs") or with a locative adverb like "here" or "there": "You belong here"; "They belong there."Read More...

Thanks, Gustavo!!Read More...