March 2020

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

Very astute observation, Gustavo. I completely agree. Prepositional phrases can sometimes seem like a Twilight Zone, grammatically, for reflexive-pronoun usage. But when a prepositional phrase is part of a phrasal/prepositional verb, as "take a picture of" is when it means "photograph," then the normal rule holds, that we use a reflexive pronoun when the object is co-referent with the subject of the clause. "She took a picture of her" would naturally be understood as meaning that she took a...Read More...

Thank you, Abdul. Just be careful when you feel tempted to think of all nonnative speakers of English as "learners." You may not realize this, but some of the greatest users of the English language have been nonnative speakers. I think in particular of novelists like Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov, writers from whom most native speakers could have taken lessons.Read More...

Oh, it doesn't. Thank you.Read More...

Hello, akcpenguin, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. To add a little to Gustavo's response, with which I completely agree, I think it is worth noting that an "of"-phrase after "player," at least where musical instruments are concerned, tends to indicate what it is that the player plays. Indeed, a viola player is a player of the viola. Here are a couple of other natural ways to express the idea: My mother was a violist in an orchestra. My mother played the viola in an orchestra.Read More...

Thank you, David. Much appreciated!Read More...

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it.Read More...

Apart from the quantifiers David proposed, here are the adjectives suggested by the Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English, 2nd edition. Considering that "experience" is used as a non-count noun, I'd go for any of the adjectives on the first line: considerable , extensive , great , long , vast , wide experience noun 1 knowledge/skill obtained by seeing / doing sth adjective considerable , extensive , great , long , vast , wide limited , little companies with limited ~ in the...Read More...

This is my own phrase for a letterRead More...

In a dictionary of course It was not marked as archaic there. What well-known analog would you recommend? Is it just "nothing wrong" or "the only right"? E.g. the last sentence of the same paragraph: " The suicide attempt hadn’t worked out for her either — she had gotten off with a broken leg, and only then the whole bad story [had become, became, or both possible?] known to the adults." "Read More...

Hi, Windward—Would it be possible to speak instead of moaning drafts ?Read More...

Thank you. It was very helpful.Read More...

Hi, Kimconu—You should use the address-writing customs in your area.Read More...

I like Gustavo's recommendations above. It seems that the book is aiming to give learners practice in using "that" as a pronoun. For what it's worth, I'd naturally express the idea like this: There are more people at the meeting than there were last week.Read More...

Thanks to all who answered That's a bit clearer now.Read More...

Hi, Wael, The expected model answer is 'will buy' to express a quick decision after winning the million pounds. However, in real life, if that was my intention before winning the million pounds, then 'am going to' is also correct. There is more than one correct choice here and they are all possible. 'Don't visit' expresses a present reality. 'Will not visit' expresses a perdition and a future reality. 'Aren't going to' expresses a prediction based on evidence.Read More...

Yes, my mother's cousin's son works well, as does a son of my mother's cousin . You can also use one of my mother's cousin's sons and one of the sons of my mother's cousin . All four options work much better than a son of my mother's cousin's , which is grotesquely unnatural from a native standpoint. That said, I see no justification for deeming it ungrammatical.Read More...

I know. I'm asking if this is the necessary and sufficient condition.Read More...

Hi, Wael, The logical answer here is 'forget' . I didn't forget to bring...= I remembered to bring... BTW, 'remember' could work here in a certain situation. That's if I am sitting beside you and holding your book. Then, I would explain that ''I didn't remember to bring my.... '' I also see that using the present perfect and 'shall we' is more natural than the past simple and 'do we' in your sentence above.Read More...

Hi! I would go with “The place for this casserole to cook is on the stove,” which is slightly rearranged. As the reader, I can assume the place you’re telling me to put the casserole is right. Hope this helped!Read More...

Both are fine. Macmillan Dictionary Online in definition nunmber (5) says: Get back to/into means to start doing something again after not doing it for a period of time. https://www.macmillandictionar...ary/british/get-backRead More...

Thank you, all for your comments. I also would like to welcome you, @Kinto as this is the first time I have had a discussion with you here.Read More...

Hi, Gustavo, Yes, you are right that 'had cleaned' is a third possible answer here. In fact, I normally don't backshift in time clauses because this sometimes causes confusion. Above all, we don't backshift in time clauses in our exams. This is part of "A Practical English Grammar" Fourth Edition page 271:Read More...

Hi, Muh1994, You are right that "might live" is the only correct answer, as it expresses probability about an action expected to take place at a future time.Read More...

Hi, Kinto, I agree that the simple infinitive is the correct form. This is only to clarify that we use the term "bare infinitive" to refer to the infinitive without "to," as in: - He made me be quiet. "that I was" would also be a possible answer in a special context. Suppose a child asks his/her mom: - Why am I quiet? and the answer is: - You are quiet because the baby is sleeping. The child may then report the answer as follows: - She told me that I was quiet because the baby was sleeping.Read More...