February 2021

Hello, David--you have really been enlightening me on the sea of English like a huge lighthouse. Thank you million times.Read More...

Hi, Tony—With "rhetorical usage," I am referring to the phrase's customary use in discourse, to indicate that one thing naturally follows another. As the OED puts it, the phrase is "used rhetorically to indicate an act duly or naturally following a similar act on the part of another, but without the notion of a pre-arranged series."Read More...

Thanks a lotRead More...

Hi, Tony—That type of conditional doesn't fit in with the three celebrated ESL types. It doesn't involve a prediction about the future (tentative or confident), nor is it a counterfactual conditional. It is simply asserting that if one thing (the underlying asset) possesses (right now) two properties (the properties of having been acquired by the vendor and of not being subject to "main residence exemption"), there are "no CGT consequences."Read More...

Hello, Saifuddin. Well, I'd say no. All the activities modified from verbs + ing ( swim + ing , dance + ing , smoke + ing , etc.) are uncountable. That's why they don't actually mean " a set of movements ," they are more about the process as a whole .Read More...

Hi Jack......... thanks for the confirmation . This argument will definitely work in favour of the applicant Cheers!Read More...

Thanks a lot, David! I haven't thought about excluding " her ," my bad.Read More...

Thank you.Read More...

Hi, Whisperdrone, Yes, the word father should be capitalized as father is the person addressed here and is used as a proper noun. No, the word father is lowercase when it is a generic noun. Yes, it should be capitalized as it is used as a proper noun.Read More...

Hi, Ahmed Towab, The preposition "until" is used to refer to an action that continues up to a certain moment, for example: - You are allowed to drink it until December 20 (the permission or authorization to drink it extends up to December 20). Instead, the action of drinking should take place at any time before December 20, that is, by December 20.Read More...

I insist — with the noun "meal," we use "make," not "do."Read More...

Hi, ashik, If you know that it is an airport lounge, you can use '(a)'. If you aren't sure, you can use 'b'. You can use 'c' if you want to say 'I guess it would be an airport lounge if those people were passengers waiting for their planes.'Read More...

Thanks. Type 3 phrasal verb is the terminology my grammar book uses for object (transitive) separable phrasal verbs. Thanks for your help. I couldn't find any text that showed the object can come before the verb.Read More...

Thank you, David! I appreciate your feedback.Read More...

Hi, Tony, If you say "for," it means that the document corresponds to the 2020 income year. If you say "in," it means that the document was prepared in the 2020 income year. It is clear that you mean to say the former. My interpretation is that the tax return was completed on the premise (= assuming) that no expenditure had been incurred by the taxpayer. This is in clear contradiction with the fact that the taxpayer did report a expense. My feeling is that there is a problem with the commas...Read More...

Thank you very much for sharing that material. Your gesture is highly appreciated.Read More...

Hello, Robby zhu—Yes, avoid using "if if," which would be stylistically horrid. But don't use "when"; that presupposes he'll make that much. You can say: (1) I'm not sure whether, if he earns ten thousand dollars a month, he will give fifty percent of it to his parents. (2) I'm not sure if he will give fifty percent of his monthly earnings to his parents if he earns ten thousand dollars a month.Read More...

Thanks a lot David. You definitely helped me (and anybody else who needs it) understand the use of abbreviated sentence.Read More...

Hi, Ashraful, The stem of both words is the verb 'intrude'. 'Intruder' is a noun referring to a person and 'intrusive' is an adjective. Interestingly, 'intrusive' has another meaning related to phonetics and can be used as a noun related to geology. See here: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/intrusiveRead More...

Both are correct, Ahmed. We'd use "a" in a case where the specific uniform that she has to were is not being discussed, only the fact that she has to wear a uniform. We'd use "the" in a case where we are talking about a specific uniform.Read More...

Hello, 2Kay, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. The subject of "is going to happen" is "what." The free relative clause "what we know is going to happen" functions as the object of the preposition "of." That free relative clause contains another clause, complementing "know." "What" is the subject of that clause: "We know [what] is going to happen." P.S. Please read the Guidelines page to learn how to write a good title.Read More...

Hello, Cindy, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. To add a couple of further remarks to what Gustavo has already explained, I wanted to assure you that "having gone through ups and downs" does indeed have a verb. It has two verbs, actually: "having" and "gone." "Gone" forms part of the phrasal verb "go through," which is in its past-participial form. "Having" is the present-participial form of the auxiliary "have" that we have in "John and Tom have gone through ups and downs." It's true...Read More...