51
votes
Slang from Fresh Prince from Bel-Air S01E03: Vacuumed, Cheese Dog, Harley, Fly for Me
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 ...
- 8,200
47
votes
Why are there two “is”’s in: Why is yawning is contagious?
There is no "explanation". These are simply errors. You should not see these in any edited text, but this kind of stumbling over words is not uncommon in unrehearsed speech. The example in ...
- 202k
35
votes
Accepted
What is the order of events? "I had milk and played computer games."
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 ...
- 175k
19
votes
Why are there two “is”’s in: Why is yawning is contagious?
The sentence with is repeated appears to be an error. The sentence with was twice is perfectly good, though a little confusing. It reads
What was saleable as far as the freak was concerned was, of ...
- 73.7k
17
votes
Accepted
Sentence started with Verb+ing, but it's a really different structure
Facing the square is the Palazzo Marchesale
This is equivalent to:
The Palazzo Marchesale is facing the square
The reason the author inverted it is so they could more easily attach the relative ...
- 8,091
17
votes
It seems the main clause is absent in this complex sentence. Why is it correct?
The main clause is the one headed by the verb "is", so the bracketing is:
(What surprises me) is (that they are fond of snakes and lizards).
Both the subject and its complement are content ...
- 202k
15
votes
"Assume something be" or "Assume something is"?
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 ...
- 1,485
12
votes
Accepted
Slang from Fresh Prince from Bel-Air S01E03: Vacuumed, Cheese Dog, Harley, Fly for Me
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 ...
- 2,983
9
votes
The woman "with" a hat or the woman "wearing" a hat?
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 ...
- 1,749
8
votes
Accepted
Which sentence is the "main clause"?
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 ...
- 202k
8
votes
Sentence started with Verb+ing, but it's a really different structure
The Palazzo faces the square (its front forms all or part of one of the four sides). The second phrase explains what the palace is, the third explains who the family are.
- 49.4k
8
votes
Accepted
It seems the main clause is absent in this complex sentence. Why is it correct?
[What surprises me] is that they are fond of snakes and lizards.
The main clause is the whole sentence in a 'fused' relative construction.
The subject "what surprises me", is not a clause ...
- 15.8k
7
votes
Slang from Fresh Prince from Bel-Air S01E03: Vacuumed, Cheese Dog, Harley, Fly for Me
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 ...
- 1,059
7
votes
"However" used in a conditional clause?
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 ...
- 12.1k
7
votes
Accepted
When should I make a pause: before or after "that"?
In normal rapid speech, there's no noticeable pause at all around "that", but if you do take a pause, it's much more natural before "that".
The word "that" is the head of ...
- 48.8k
6
votes
exception in the past tense clauses sequence rule?
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 ...
- 4,485
6
votes
Is "The way we are learning English is not good" a clause?
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 ...
- 202k
6
votes
Accepted
What is "more carefully than I do" in "My wife drives more carefully than I do", grammatically?
Welcome to English Language Learners.
In this sentence, the phrase, 'more carefully than I do', is an adverbial phrase. It can't be considered an adverbial clause because it doesn't have its own ...
- 4,787
6
votes
Why are there two “is”’s in: Why is yawning is contagious?
Some of these sentences are simply errors, such as “*Why is yawning is contagious?” If I had to guess, perhaps the writer meant to type, “Why is yawning so contagious,” but accidentally typed si for ...
- 8,393
6
votes
"played the violin as/like my brother did"
We usually surround nonrestrictive / parenthetical phrases with paired commas. However, whether a phrase meets that condition is often quite debatable. When a phrase follows a verb that it modifies, ...
- 15.3k
6
votes
What does "as you told me to" in negative sentence mean?
There are indeed two syntactic readings of this structure, which can be distinguished by phraseology (and helped by punctuation).
In the first, "as" means "like" or more ...
- 12.7k
5
votes
with "s" or without "s"
Here are two grammatically correct ways to write it:
There is a sharp boundary differentiating the occupied and unoccupied states.
A sharp boundary differentiates the occupied and unoccupied states.
...
- 27.5k
5
votes
Accepted
Would the phrase, "in my area," be a non-restrictive clause?
Edited and corrected, thanks to @AlanCarmack:
"In my area" is not a clause, it's a prepositional phrase. "In my area" doesn't have a subject-verb combination and does not form a predicate. Instead, ...
- 610
5
votes
What is the order of events? "I had milk and played computer games."
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 ...
- 456
5
votes
Accepted
"Whether he met them (it) is not clear." Do I have to insert an ''it''?
We can use clauses as Subjects in English:
[That she refused your offer] is not surprising.
[Whether you like it] is not important.
In the sentences above we see a declarative clause and an ...
5
votes
"Assume something be" or "Assume something is"?
Your question has made me think about this for the first time: there seems to be a distinction between verbs that merely process information about a fixed situation, and verbs that declare a position ...
- 279
5
votes
Accepted
Weird that-clause from GRE
I had to parse that monster of a sentence a few times before I understood it.
Presumably there should have been a comma after “notice”. The results of Nylenna’s study were not anomalous because they ...
- 1,846
5
votes
prepositions at the end of What and Which/that clauses
A simple sentence might be
He likes dogs. (SVO)
When made into a what question, the order changes:
What does he like? (OSV)
Now look at sentences that end in prepositional phrases:
He ...
- 202k
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