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1. It has no special meaning- it was misused. "Though" is usually used to demonstrate to opposite conditions/situations: "Both artist and manager didn't want to sign with Jive Records though they were impressed by its track record." Another way to say it would be: "Although the artist and manager were impressed by Jive's achievements, they still did not want to do business with them." 2. "Impressed" is used with the preposition "by". Hope this helps.Read More...

Two more common words of the similar nature: food and tobacco. Generally known as non-count nouns, they also occur in the plural when it comes to different kinds of foods or tobaccos. Chuncan FengRead More...

It seems to me that "a third" plus a singular noun does suggest "yet another ..." or "one more ...". A non-native speaker of English, I often fail to express myself.Read More...

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company) has this entry for "nother": noth·er (nÅ­TH'É™r) adj. Informal . Other. Usually used in the phrase "a whole nother," as in the sentence That's a whole nother story . [From alteration of ANOTHER (interpreted as "a nother").] RachelRead More...

The question of subject-verb agreement with the names of sports teams has come up before, and was addressed on the old Newsgroup. Here is a passage from the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English * (BrE=British English; AmE=American English): "Another special case is the use of plural concord with singular proper names where they denote sports teams: Reg, see where Tottenham are in the league? (CONV) England have been here almost a week, practicing every day in sauna-bath temperatures...Read More...

Be supposed to expresses both expectation and mild obligation. Quirk et al.* describe it thus: "As [a semi-auxiliary], be meant to and be supposed to have meanings similar to those of ought to ..." (Section 3.47, note (b)) Examples of the expectation meaning, from a Google search, include — Mr Haider said that the equipment, which was supposed to arrive by June 14, would now be here sometime next week. — He was not supposed to die. It was not his destiny. He was supposed to recover from this...Read More...

"May," "might," and "could" are used almost interchangeably to express the possibility that something will happen. Your three sentences above mean the same thing – that maybe you will go to the store. There is a very slight difference among these words. According to Michael Swan* "may" is a little stronger than "might": " Might is mostly used as a less definite or more hesitant form of may , suggesting a smaller chance – it is used when people think something is possible but not very likely.Read More...

It's best to take the questions in reverse order: Do [we] include information from corpus research [in our responses to questions]? Yes. The Grammar Exchange team uses the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Douglas Biber and four other authors,* which is an excellent source of information from corpus research. The corpus used by the team of authors"”known as the Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus (LSWE)"”consists of more than 40 million words, representing four...Read More...

Both sentences are correct, but, because the verbs have different aspects, they have different meanings. The verb saw in 1) indicates "same time," while the verb had seen in 2) indicates "previous time." 1) He looked as if he saw a ghost (at that moment) With past context "as if" sentences, if the verb in the subordinate clause is in the simple past, the time reference of the two verbs is the same: the "looking as if" and the "seeing" are both past; they occur at the same time. (Sentence 1)...Read More...

The word "home" is a common noun, of course. However, "home" also functions as an adverb. "Home" in the sentence "I'm going home" is an adverb. As an adverb it means, according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language*, "At, to, or toward the direction of home: going home for lunch ." There are several adverbs used to express position or direction which are like "home," (and as adverbs, appear without a preposition or an article) including abroad, around, ashore, away,...Read More...

Several, if not all, grammar references and dictionaries* accept only graduate from , and not just "graduate." The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage states this: A person may graduate from a school or be graduated from it. But never They graduated high school For interesting background, see the attachment from Atomica Online (bolding and underlining supplied by Rachel). _______ Rachel * The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style , Oxford University Press, 2000; The American...Read More...

Reposted (and slightly edited) from old Newsgroup on April 5, 2003 The last part of Sentence 1 gives a clue as to which form of the verb to use. There aren't many chocolates left, but there are some, so the entire supply of chocolates has not been consumed. Therefore the speaker would not say "Somebody has eaten my chocolates." That would be said only if there were no chocolates left at all. Because the speaker sees evidence of chocolate-eating activity, but sees that not all the chocolates...Read More...

Gisele's intuitions are sound. There's a lot to say about the "rule" against using will after if and when . As Gisele says, in a true conditional clause, English uses the simple present to refer to the future: ∑ If I have time I will go with you (correct) ∑ ?If I will have time I will go with you tomorrow (not correct) Similarly, we do not use will to indicate future time in a when -clause: ∑ When he arrives tomorrow I'll tell him about it (correct) ∑ ?When he will arrive tomorrow I...Read More...

To clarify one point: Ought to is not used either in British English or American English noun clauses after verbs and adjectives of urgency. The "blue Azar" says "In British English should + simple form is more usual than the subjunctive." (p.263, note) The book does not mention ought to in such clauses. Marilyn MartinRead More...

Gisele asks: Is it right to say that generally speaking, when we have – ing noun phrases, the – ing word is a gerund (and the noun phrase can be replaced by a noun), and in – ing adverbial phrases, the – ing word is a present participle (in which case the – ing phrase cannot be replaced by a noun). Grammar Exchange: Yes, this analysis is correct. Sometimes one finds mixed constructions , such as "He was accused of driving erratically," which are discussed on this board below, under the title...Read More...

Had you seen him? Hadn't you seen him? The first question, affirmative, is open: it assumes a 50-50 chance of the answer being either yes or no. The second, negative, question is different. It carries two possible meanings: Is it the case that you hadn't seen him? Is it not the case that you had seen him? To illustrate the two different meanings, look at these exchanges: 1) A: I was appalled when I saw Mike the other day. He had grown a horrible moustache that makes him look terrible. B: Oh,...Read More...

The sentence you constructed does follow an acceptable grammatical pattern, based on a "rule" or "formula," but it doesn't have logical meaning. Language use is based on communication of ideas. The eminent Danish linguist and grammarian Otto Jespersen wrote in the early twentieth century that one could construct any number of grammatical sentences that would be totally nonsensical, giving the example sentence "Your horse had been old," which is perfectly grammatical but devoid of any real...Read More...

Even though I´m still in the process of getting acquainted with the English language (I wonder if there will ever be a time when I will be able to say that I really "know" English well!), it seems to me there´s nothing inherently wrong about starting a noun clause with "if". Actually, what a coincidence, I have just used one ("if there will ever be ..."). ("Whether" is also possible, but I think it doesn´t necessarily need to be used). I think the following sentences, which contain a noun...Read More...

Yes, abbreviated styles occur not only in headlines, but in informal notes, some advertisements and instructions, and commentaries. These abbreviated styles leave out articles or a form of the verb "be." If your sentence containing "Students need to apply to Office of Student Affairs...." occurs in one of those forms, it is acceptable. If it were to appear in a *letter* of instruction (not the instructions themselves), or a website, or a newspaper *article* (not the headline), it could be...Read More...

You are right that both sentences are correct. Many grammar books prescribe inversion of the grammatical subject and the verb after an initial prepositional phrase. This is often the case, as in Down the street marched the high school band. or On the top of the mountain stood a monument to the first explorer who had climbed it. Such inversion does not always occur, however. In many cases, the natural word order of subject-verb is preserved. Both of the sentences in your query above are...Read More...

Article usage in English, along with prepositional usage, constitutes one of the greatest difficulties for learners. There are many rules, which only very advanced learners manage to absorb, and an infinite number of idioms. Articles are never used with names of people, except in one way: the one exception is a case where there is an ellipsis (an omission of something). We say "I saw Judy the other day," with no article, but we can also say "I knew A Judy in high school who looked like you."...Read More...

Pronunciation varies widely among native speakers of English. There is no single dialect of the language, and even speakers who live in the same geographical area often exhibit differing features in their speech. There are a few common features, however, and the pronunciation of vowels in certain positions in syllables can be described. The pronunciation of some "short" vowels (the [ae] in hat; the [E] in let; and the [I] in bit) varies in length depending on the kind of sound that follows...Read More...

(Reposted from old newsgroup on 3/14/03) This "may you..." is a different kind of "may" than the modal "may" that you refer to. This is an example of may you used for wishes and hopes, the same kind of may that is expressed but ellipted in "God bless you." This kind of may is often used when speaking in a religious or semi-religious way, or when wishing for things for the recently departed. It is also used to wish good things for somebody in a rather formal way. The structure has the...Read More...

(Reposted from old newsgroup on 3/14/03) "Nor" used at the beginning of a clause causes the clause to change to question word order. This inversion happens not only with "nor," but also with other negative and near-negative words and phrases, such as "never," "rarely," "seldom," "scarcely," "not until," "hardly ever," "only if," and "neither." The inversion occurs in the independent clause. In the following examples, the first sentence of each group of two, (a), shows the normal word order;...Read More...

(Reposted from old newsgroup on 3/14/03) I think that a lot of people wonder about this, and the Grammar Exchange does, too. It's not a question readily answered. The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company. 1996) says it's both: "pl. mice or mouses ...Computer Science. A hand-held, button activated input device...." The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style by Bryan A. Garner (Oxford University Press, 2000) has this entry: " mouses - is correct when the reference is...Read More...