June 2022

Hi, Perriced—In the adjective phrase (not a sentence) "Happy to hear that from you," "that" functions as the direct object of "hear." "From you" is an (optional) prepositional-phrase adjunct/modifier. The complement of the verb (the direct object) needs to come before the adjunct modifying that entire verb phrase, except in special cases where the direct object is "heavy" enough to be post-posed: We are happy to hear from you the exciting news about your daughter's being admitted to such a...Read More...

Hello, Nagy—If, as I suspect, you want to bake bread in the pan, you can use "I'd like to use the pan to bake bread." If you want to do two separate things, to use the pan (perhaps for pancakes) and to bake bread (perhaps in something other than the pan), you can use "I'd like to use the pan and bake bread."Read More...

Hi, David. Thank you for your prompt response and the links that confirm the pronunciation. It's a relief to know that I wasn't pronouncing it wrongly Thanks so very much for your help.Read More...

Thanks so much! It's not quite Alito saying it, though, is it? I'm not sure the phrase's exact origin or how to attribute it, though certainly Alito's leaked draft mentions it...what do you think?Read More...

Thank you so much! I think that you totally nailed it!Read More...

1 uses the unreal past and expresses a strong wish. It means that the other person is not in the habit of doing something and I would rather he did it this evening. It is much more common than 2. I think 2 has more than one interpretation. This is could be the future subjunctive, in which we use 'would' instead of 'will' and here the time is not so general as 1. Also, there might be an implied conditional: "I would rather he would do it this evening (if everything went fine)''. A third...Read More...

Thank you!Read More...

Thanks David! 1) Just confirming so in the below sentence, I should use on, instead of at? Mr Axelson is currently on the top of the ranking for the BWF. 2) Just to be safe, as on can be used as a substitute for on. Just use "on" for all sentences. What's your thoughts on this?Read More...

Hi, Erdal, First of all, please note that the participle of "come" is "come," not "came": - I have come across this sentence. In reply to your question, "constantly worrying" refers to the subject "a creative leader" but is governed by "not." The subject complement is formed by two main components: - A creative leader is self-aware and (is) not [ weighed down with insecurities, constantly worrying about how they are perceived by their employees and peers ].Read More...

Hi, David, really appreciate your clear explanation.Read More...

Just dealing with this issue now! Here's the source: The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders, several with ties to the oil and coal industries, to use the judicial system to rewrite environmental law, weakening the executive branch’s ability to tackle global warming. And here's my paraphrase: https://join.substack.com/p/endgame this strategy...Read More...

Thanks! I'll do that!Read More...

this is how I described it: there’s a resident of Chennai —Lakshmanan—whose “job involves standing for long hours outdoors at construction sites, pounding screws with careful precision onto steel rods”Read More...

I'm not sure if my "Bob example" here is as complicated as what I posted about at the top of this thread, though!Read More...

Tony, it is unclear to me what the second "today" refers to. Does it refer to the completion of the tasks? What is clearly wrong is that what comes after "and" seems to lack a verb phrase, or part of a verb phrase, to make full sense: - (It was) Great to speak with you today and ((it was) nice to see?) the great efforts ...Read More...

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help!Read More...

Thank goodness! I really prefer "much of the problem" so I really wanted to be able to do that paraphrase! Thank you so much for your incredible help!Read More...

Hi, dukulrahman12345—The sentence may be paraphrased like this: There was nowhere that a rock of that size could have come from. If you changed "to have come" to "to come," the related paraphrase would be: There was nowhere that a rock of that size could come from.Read More...

I can not give you the answer, but I can tell you I went to the "Books" section of Google (where thousands of books have been digitalized). I found only a few examples of "Let me go to find them," but many examples of "Let me go and find them." When you get time, go to the "Books" section and type in the words "Let me go and find them." Use the quotation marks. You will see how dozens of writers have used "go and find." Best wishes!Read More...

You are right about the meaning and wrong about its being wrong in theory; there is nothing wrong with it at all. Since the only possible interpretation of (2) is that the time of starting the business was before the time of hearing (the two times could not have coincided), backshifting "started" to "had started" is unnecessary. From (2), we cannot tell how recently the business was started or whether it is still going. The difference between (3) and (1) is that, in (3), the speaker's...Read More...

Hello, dukulrahman12345, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. Both sentences are correct (assuming "would have been dead" is used in (2)), but they have different meanings. In (1), it is implied that the speaker has the pen knife now . A counterfactual inference about the present is drawn. In (2), it is implied that the speaker had the pen knife in the past . A counterfactual inference about the past and/or the present is drawn.Read More...