51
She's been vacuumed more times than a hooked rug.
She struggles with her weight and has had liposuction several times.
Mimi wants a street-wise, Harley, bad-to-the-bones type of guy, man.
Mimi wants the type of guy who rides a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
Ain't no girl that fly for me to go through all this trouble for.
Fly is an adjective - "Ain't no ...
35
The default interpretation of consecutive 'eventive' clauses (clauses which express an action or event rather than a state) is that the events occur in the order they are specified. Since had in this use ( = "consumed") is eventive, we assume that you drank your milk first, and then played computer games.
However, it is also possible that the two events are ...
20
So my original answer was incorrect. "Hope this helps!" is a declarative, not an imperative. Instead of deleting my answer, I think it might be helpful to explain why I should have known it wasn't an imperative, and pull out the bits from the original that were correct.
Imperative clauses are usually in the second person, like:
"Hope for the best!" (You ...
15
Let us assume x is real
This sounds about right.
Let us assume x be real
This is grammatically incorrect.
Let us assume x to be real
This is grammatically correct, but sounds awkward, though with more context, it could be more correct than is.
12
1: hope this helps - Informal but commonly used as the subject (I) is implied. Technically, it is not a complete sentence as it does not have a subject.
2: hope this help - Informal and wrong as there is no subject-verb agreement between "this" and "help"
3: I hope this will help. (my suggestion) - This is perfectly acceptable.
12
She's been vacuumed more times than a hooked rug
Just wave a chili-cheese dog in front of her nose n see how much of your arm you come back with
Edit: While my original guess on the meaning of these sentences is below, I agree that Adam's interpretation of vacuuming referring to liposuction is correct.
This quote I find the most difficult of the bunch, ...
11
It's likely that "for example" is the correct phrase in this case, and is a widely used idiom in English, but it depends on what you want to say.
If you want to provide an example right then and there, you need to say "For example" or - if you really want to use the article - you could say "As an example" or "An example ...
9
Both are grammatically correct and could be used, almost interchangeably.
The first option is less specific: the woman could be holding a hat in her hand or otherwise has the hat, but might not be wearing it. The second specifies that she is wearing it (on her head).
(Native speaker)
9
In an "If..., (then)...." the main clause follows the conjuction "then". A shorter example would be:
If he apologises, then she will forgive him.
The main clause is "she will forgive him". So in you longer example, the main clause is
she’s sure [...]
The conditional clause (from if... to ... then) is actually a complex list with lots of parallel ...
8
Memories don't is indeed an independent clause, meaning "memories don't change". The auxiliary verb don't licenses the ellipsis of the following verb phrase. In linguistics, this is often referred to as VP ellipsis or post-auxiliary ellipsis:
1a. Have you seen Titanic? I have seen Titanic.
1b. Have you seen Titanic? I have seen Titanic.
The ...
8
Learners from German or Russian (for example) will tend to place too many commas. When writing in English, try to think of commas as a very "heavy" form of punctuation, i.e. that it signifies a substantial pause – it's not just something you fly over as in German or Russian.
Whether to place a comma or not is sometimes a personal choice. For instance, ...
8
Of the two, the following sentence is better:
Isobel, whose brother he was, had heard the joke before.
However, I wouldn't use this formulation at all, because it's really confusing - note how many people commenting and answering so far have thought that "Isobel" and "brother" refer to the same person in the sentence! To reduce confusion, I would recast ...
7
The phrase would be better structured like this:
The Bilingual Education Act is clearly a work in progress; related issues are likely to be found, in the media and on the ballots, for many years to come.
The usage of "for many years to come" applies to "related issues are likely to be found". You could also say it like this:
Related issues are likely ...
7
Hilary: She's been vacuumed more times than a hooked rug.
Will: She looks good now, right? I don't see your point.
Hilary: Just wave a chili-cheese dog in front of her nose n see how much of your arm you come back with
Hilary is saying that she has had liposuction (fat removal surgery where fat is literally sucked out of your body) several times. ...
7
However is fine if you introduce a statement that is going to contradict something you've said before.
I am worried about your if-clause, though.
However, I would be able to transfer the money if you gave me your bank account number.
6
Identify unnecessary or vague ‘filler’ words.
Are you defining the idea behind the process? —It appears that what you are really doing is describing what the process does.
What does common mean here? Common to what? —it appears to mean that it includes the outer ends of all the lines.
Pin down what's left that needs to be defined in detail.
In ...
6
It's a poorly-written sentence to begin with... let's see what we can pull out:
The currency's down
Yes, this is equivalent to
The currency is down
This is your subject and verb. The rest of the sentence
down 46 percent this year through yesterday, the result of tumbling prices for oil, Russia's top export, and international sanctions tied to the ...
6
I will answer this question from a native speaker's perspective.
3 is very commonly used and is grammatically correct as it has an explicit subject and as Kevin mentions "help" is used as an intransitive verb which does not require a direct object.
1 is also acceptable in common use. However, a pedantic perspective would identify that 1 is not a complete ...
6
When the subject + verb of a subordinate clause like that is replaced with an -ing form, the subject of the subordinate clause is usually the same as a the subject of the main clause. So,
After I studied for one year, I got 6.5 on the IELTS exam.
After studying for one year, I got 6.5 on the IELTS exam.
According to the Grammar Police, it is only possible ...
6
I heard a little boy waving his hands above the water.
This sentence is fine. "A little boy waving" doesn't violate the rule you stated because it's not a finite present tense verb phrase; it's a present participle phrase meaning it describes an action in progress at the time of discourse. Thus, this sentence means the subject ("I") heard the sound of a boy ...
6
There's no way to know which happened first in the sentence you wrote. However, if it was written as "I had milk and THEN played computer games", then that means you had milk first and played video games afterwards.
6
It is a noun phrase, and the subject of the sentence. It is not a clause, but it contains one.
The noun phrase has a noun "the way" and a relative clause; "we are learning English" is the relative clause, it describes the noun "way". You could also write "The way that we are learning English".
The word "is" is the main verb (not an auxiliary) and "not good"...
5
It's not a question at all, in fact.
"How like an apple, to be round and red."
"How like (something)" is used to mean something adheres to what is expected.
I.e. "The apple is red and round, like apples tend to be."
It means the priest's actions were normal and average for his occupation, at least from the speaker's perspective. In this case it is used ...
5
The second version is correct if the most frequent rmse means the same thing as the deviation. However, I would add a comma before which.
5
Your test says it's incorrect, so you'd better say it's incorrect when you're asked.
But I think it's arguably grammatical. We can interpret even though unfit as something called a verbless clause. In this sort of clause, the verb is deleted, and commonly the subject is as well; the verb is generally a form of be, and the subject (when deleted) is ...
5
For example is very widely used in English. For an example may be technically correct, however it is almost never used in conversation or writing. Sometimes something like 'An example of this is:' or 'An example would be:' could be used.
5
Yes, these both essentially mean the same thing & could be used interchangeably.
I suppose there are subtle nuances if you overthink it though, so ... :)
The first sentence sounds a bit more like it refers to the entire act and ceremony of cake cutting: preparing to cut, planning where/how to cut so the pieces are equally sized, and then the actual ...
5
Clauses do not have inherent number, but when a clause is employed under the category of an NP† it must be treated as either singular or plural. A single clause so employed is treated as a singular entity; two or more coordinated clauses so employed are treated as a plural entity.
That John is hungry is an effect of his fast.
That John is hungry, that ...
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