July 2020

Toaha, "mask" is singular, so you cannot use "were" but "was" there. If you want to transform these sentences: - With his mask outlined with multicoloured LEDs / Wearing a mask outlined with multicoloured LEDs , Gaur Nath wants to draw attention to the importance of wearing facial protection amid the COVID-19 pandemic. into two independent sentences, you can say: Gaur Nath's mask is outlined with multicolored LEDs. That way, he wants to draw attention to the importance of wearing facial...Read More...

Crystal clear! Thank you very much.Read More...

Hello, U., and welcome to G.E. That sentence is almost correct. Perhaps you are having trouble with the subject–auxiliary inversion triggered by the fronted negative adverbial ("Nowhere in the entire webpage"). It is the fronting of that phrase that causes the auxiliary verb ("can") to need to appear before the subject ("I"). There are three problems with the sentence, however. First, there should not be a comma between "webpage" and "can." Second, it would be good for "the" to precede...Read More...

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Patiently, you have answered all my questions. I am really grateful to you.Read More...

I do indeed.Read More...

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Hi, Kis, According to the Cambridge Dictionary , the "rat race" is a way of life in modern society , in which people compete with each other for power and money . And, in keeping with that, "positional goods" are defined on Wikipedia as "goods valued only by how they are distributed among the population, not by how many of them there are available in total as would be the case with other consumer goods . The source of greater worth of positional goods is their desirability as a status symbol...Read More...

Hello, Navi—Interesting question. I find (1) correct and (2) incorrect, though I would prefer (1) if there were an additional comma, after "And": 1a) He had to take his books and his computer. And, impossible to leave behind, there was his mother's diary. "Impossible to leave behind" is a parenthetical insertion, not some fronted adjective phrase. If "tall, strong and young" is understood as a parenthetical insertion in (2), rather than what it appears to be (a fronted adjective phrase),...Read More...

Thank you so much, you have been extremely helpful. In a nutshell: Longman says present perfect (she has played) while merriam webster goes for past simple. This seems to be a tie-break.Read More...

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Yes, use of original word again helps best to avoid ambiguity. But I was not sure about it. Thanks for your clarification.Read More...

Sir, your explanation was really helpful. You have explained the whole matter.Read More...

Hi, Azz—No, "last night" can only modify "had written," wedged, as it is, between two coordinate relative clauses. Syntactically, there is no way for a matrix-clause modifier to insert itself between two coordinated clauses lower down. "Last night" can modify "showed" instead of "had written" if there is no coordinate clause: " He showed me an article about whales which he had written last night ." But it would be better placed elsewhere for that meaning.Read More...

Hello, Natalya, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange. In real language, conditional sentences are not restricted to the three or four types that are usually taught. The sentence above is close to the so-called type zero conditionals, where we find present both in the condition and in the result. Compare with: If you are willing to do something different for your next holiday, then you are at the right place. (If A is true, B is true.)Read More...

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Thanks a lot for making this topic clear.Read More...

Hi, Subhajit, Each of those sentences has a different purpose. While the first one is a polite request, the second one is a rhetorical question that expresses surprise. With polite requests, "some" is used instead of "any" when you expect an affirmative answer. "any" is more neutral. In the second question, which contains a typo ( How can anyone/someone who has everything can commit suicide? ), "anyone" means "any person," while "someone" specifically refers to the king who committed suicide.Read More...

Hi, ilko, Yes, it is grammatically correct. You can also use the present perfect 'have worked'. If you use the past simple, the sentence will have a different meaning.Read More...

Thanks a lot.Read More...