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1. Parallelism One reason for saying running instead of ran is to make running parallel with (have the same form as) traveling and lecturing. Here is a simpler example: Maude divides her time be …

What might have you confused is that English verbs sometimes combine with a second verb, where the second verb is an infinitive or a gerund—and the gerund also ends in -ing. … A helpful list of these verbs is in this answer. However, none of that complexity occurs in your sentence. In that sentence, watching is not an object or complement of stood. …

The verbs indicate and show just work differently, even when they mean the same thing. …

These sentences all mean the same thing, and they use different constructions for same act of being told: (1) Being told that you are becoming a mother while you are at your husband's birthday party …

Made is wrong for two reasons, one grammatical and one semantic. (1) The object of "make" takes a bare infinitive, not a to-infinitive, just like "let". We say "Make those kids settle down," not "Make …

Many sentences without an explicit verb still have an implicit verb—a verb that has merely been elided. Answers to questions often work like this. For example: "What's your name?" "Verena." That is, " …

There are multiple terminologies for English grammar. Some count the infinitive as a "mood" alongside indicative, imperative, interrogative, and subjunctive, and some don't. (And some include a "condi …

(Very few English verbs are like that.) In a question, normal word order is reversed: the will or shall goes before the subject: Will she pay you next week? Shall I return? …

Definitely: I would like to play tennis today. Would like indicates that you're talking about a possibility that may or may not happen, and you're expressing your desire. That's appropriate for …

The verb is omitted to avoid repetition. Here's what you'd say if you included it: I'll meet you in the city--that is, I'll meet you in the city if the trains are running. Most people feel that …

Yes, source is a verb in that sentence. This sentence might illustrate what's going on: Data marts source their information from the enterprise's one data warehouse. In this context, source mean …

There's no rule for which verbs you can use this way and which you can't. … It can seem bizarre if you grew up speaking a language where this way of using verbs is not common. Learning this is not a matter of learning the definitions of the verbs. …

The simple present tense in English seldom refers to the present moment (except for a few special verbs such as linking verbs and have). … But for verbs that describe the paper itself, or the results it reports, the present moment is the "eternal now" signified by the simple present tense. …

Both are correct, and the difference in meaning is subtle but important. Each has more than one reasonable grammatical interpretation. I'll illustrate each interpretation with a made-up anecdote along …

The primary idiomatic meaning of meet in the middle is to compromise, especially when negotiating a price. For example, if I am trying to sell a used car and I ask $10,000, and you offer me $5,000, we …