New answers tagged sentence-construction
3
votes
a priest and a historian
They both need clarification.
a) would be fine if it went on "...a priest and a historian who met...." or "...a priest and a historian. They met..." As long as it's made clear they ...
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a priest and a historian
This NGRAM graph shows that, when talking about a single person, both forms are common, though the form in sentence b is currently somewhat more common. Here are two actual examples:
Alec Finlay is ...
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1
vote
a priest and a historian
I fully agree with the points you have given and yes, (a) can be used to say one of his parents was both a priest and historian, but it also might be interpreted as the mother being a historian and ...
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0
votes
Accepted
How to describe this navigation clearly in this software GUI?
Double click "login.feature" in "Package Explorer" panel to open the login.feature tab. Right click anywhere in the tab's script area. In the context menu that appears, go to "...
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votes
How to describe this navigation clearly in this software GUI?
You can simply say:
right click in the text area
This to reduce confusion, as "text area" obviously points to the area with the text, which is the green area. Simpler version:
After ...
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1
vote
Accepted
The last time we [have seen] [saw] [had seen] it, it was a gate
Ok, so the sentence is: "The last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate".
As a native Australian English speaker, it sounds basically fine, though when written down it looks ...
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0
votes
It is vital for schools to respect the wishes of parents
Yes you can! This seems like a passive-active sentence construction to me.
In a sentence written in the active voice, the subject of sentence performs the action. In a sentence written in the passive ...
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2
votes
Accepted
What is a formal word for 'coming weeks'?
"Coming weeks" is already formal, but if you really want an alternative:
I will follow up with you to discuss my research work in the next few weeks.
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"A is faster than B by 40%"
You asked about (17-12)/12 versus (17-12)/12.The convention is that the denominator is the value of the item being compared to, which in your examples is the one mentioned after the word "than&...
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"A is faster than B by 40%"
17 / 12 = 1.42 = "This device is 42% faster than that device."
12 / 17 = 0.71 = (1 - 0.29) = "This device is 29% slower than that device."
17 - 12 = 5 = "This device performs ...
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I don't get the structure and also the meaning of this sentence
I think it means two things that you conflate
To produce beef or broccoli for human consumption requires different land requirements. Brocolli is grown and then humans consume it but think of cattle ...
2
votes
Accepted
Subordinate clause inversion. Is it correct in English?
A phrase such as "in that case" (which would usually be considered a prepositional phrase, not a clause) may come at the beginning of a clause, so your original sentence is fine. (The comma ...
- 5,609
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"would have thought" and "would think"
I would have thought is just a slightly more "hedged, hesitant" alternative to I would think.
Both of which are ways for a speaker to "distance" himself from what he's saying (...
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3
votes
The last time we [have seen] [saw] [had seen] it, it was a gate
(1) doesn't make sense. (2) would be the normal way to say it (assuming that, in a place where you remember there being a gate, there is now a fence or something else).
(3) would only be used in a ...
- 30.8k
0
votes
Are sentences like, "He is a too-good person," correct?
Reluctantly, I am going to answer even though there are several decent answers already.
First, the more typical construction with “too” modifying an adjective does not immediately precede the noun ...
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0
votes
The meaning of baggage vs luggage
Luggage tends to be used literally, referring to personal objects for carrying objects while travelling. It can be used metaphorically to refer to anything or, particularly, everything that someone ...
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Is “the artist rented where he could work" grammatical?
Use of where is confusing here.
The artist rented where he could work.
On other hand, a slightly different sentence with the use of "what" appears perfect.
The artist rented what he found ...
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3
votes
Accepted
Is "The hotel which I stayed" grammatical wrong?
The word stay has a transitive sense, but the use here is intransitive. That means you can't stay a hotel, with hotel as direct object.
There are two options for the sense you want:
the hotel where I ...
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0
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Is “the artist rented where he could work" grammatical?
I don’t think I’d call “The artist rented where he could work,” an ungrammatical sentence. I can think of parallel sentences that sound fine to me. For example, “The artist remembered where he came ...
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2
votes
Accepted
Whether to use a preposition in this sentence construction
You should keep "with".
Here is what the phrasal verb cover over means:
Put something on top of something else so that it is completely hidden. (Longman)
The female lays a single egg and ...
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3
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Is “the artist rented where he could work" grammatical?
Strictly speaking, there is nothing grammatically wrong with:
The artist rented where he could work.
But it is a little ambiguous in that it could mean that the artist sub-leased a part of his ...
- 6,502
6
votes
Accepted
Is “the artist rented where he could work" grammatical?
The form without "an apartment" is probably grammatical, but it would be very poorly phrased.
The clause "where he could work" could be a content clause (ie a noun clause) and ...
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0
votes
using it as a second subject
The original sentence is correct and natural as it stands.
I agree with gotube that in the sentence:
He was in a quandary about which selection from his extensive repertoire it would be feasible to ...
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0
votes
Which verbs are used with the conjuction "and" in my example sentence?
My English teacher from high school taught us the rules for this sort of sentence, and more to the point, told us why.
I can no longer remember the precise "why", but the rule we learned was ...
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4
votes
Accepted
Let’s get a taxi home after the concert
Let’s get a taxi home after the concert.
A number of words like "home" can suggest a spatial complement, directional or locative, in which case they are best classified as prepositions.
In ...
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3
votes
Let’s get a taxi home after the concert
Purely idiomatic.
We just don't say "to home".
In the morning:
"I'm going to work".
In the evening:
"I'm going home."
Next morning:
"I'm going back to work.&...
- 4,860
0
votes
why use " as this " in the sentence?
It is a generalizing construction. The meaning is
It is this sight, and others quite similar to this one, that …
Obviously, it is far more concise to say
It is such sights as this that …
My ...
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1
vote
How to ask "India is the seven biggest country in the world" in the form a question?
What's India's global ranking in terms of
population size
surface area
number of climate zones spanned
?
Variations: How does India rank in terms of X? How high on the list is India in terms of X? ...
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2
votes
Accepted
If clause classification confusion
I think the confusion here is probably coming more from one is to look than from the if-clause. "be to do" or "is to do" phrases are a formal way of talking about the future or ...
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votes
What is indirect form of: he said, "If I were you, I would protest."
Most native English speakers will naturally use "me" instead of "I" unless it is the first noun in the phrase. So we would say "If he had been me, he would have protested.&...
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In how many percents does the yield increase if I water the trees every day?
There's no such thing as 'a percent' - the word means 'in every hundred'.
You used the word percentage in your first paragraph. You can say By what percentage does the yield increase?
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3
votes
I didn't played for a long time or I haven't play for a long time
We don't speak of playing archery, but doing or taking part in it. You play sports that take the form of games, like tennis, football or cricket.
You could answer your friend
I haven't done archery ...
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-1
votes
"How few friends he has!"
Cambridge Dictionary explains the structures of exclamatives.
We can use what + noun phrase ((+ verb) (+ tag)).
What a beautiful day it is!
We can use How + adjective/adverb + subject + verb: How ...
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Double "in", is it natural?
It is not really a problem, the two "in"s are different in function. The first is part of the phrasal verb "live in", and the second is a prepostion.
However, as there are very ...
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vote
Sentence Construction in English
“Native” is primarily an adjective meaning “pertaining to the place of birth.” It is derived from the Latin word “natus,” which is a passive participle of the Latin verb meaning “be born.”
“Native” is ...
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Does English have a fairly fixed word order?
I upvoted tkp’s excellent answer, but your comment to that answer indicates to me that your question is based on a misconception.
Few things in language are absolute.
The importance of word order ...
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3
votes
Does English have a fairly fixed word order?
Well the word "fairly" isn't really sufficiently well-defined to answer that. That said, I think it's safe to say that word order does have importance in English. In particular, in ...
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2
votes
Sentence Construction in English
For one thing, you don't use "native" as a noun like that. If you mean that your friend was going to where he was born, you could say something like "He said he was going to the country/...
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vote
Accepted
Could we stop by next week? vs. Could we stop by next week?
Without additional context this is likely to be understood as "could we visit next week?" However, consider:
I Think we have spent almost as much time on this project as it deserves. Could ...
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vote
i have a problem with using relative clause " of which " in my sentence
I'm afraid that the phrase
the key of which is to improve the livelihood standard of farmers
formally refers to the noun "community", because, if we strip the sentence to its bare minimum, ...
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1
vote
percentage of probability
The best way to represent this is "percent probability", not "percentage of the probability" or "percentage probability", so I would say the first question is the best. ...
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2
votes
"See that" vs "See something V-ed"
Your sentence 2 is ambiguous. It could be that he was killed last night, and she saw that. Or it could be that he had been killed earlier, and it was last night that she saw that (e.g. she saw his ...
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0
votes
Accepted
"See that" vs "See something V-ed"
No both sentences have the same meaning, although the first sentences places a very slight more emphasis on him being killed, and the second sentences places a slight emphasis on the sighting of him ...
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2
votes
A question about sentence order
Yes, both are correct (if you change the "believes" to "believe" and "seems" to "seem" in the second sentence). They focus on different things though: the ...
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By road or on road
Prepositions can be very ... flexible. You can say "travel by X" where X is a kind of vehicle, like "travel by bus", "travel by plane", etc. You can also say "travel ...
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4
votes
By road or on road
When discussing modes of transport - road, rail, air, land, sea, river, canal, etc, we use 'by'.
In the UK, it is cheaper to travel by bus than by train. Travelling by
air is usually more expensive, ...
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2
votes
What does the following highlighted sentence mean?
It's an informal way of saying "Now we have sorted out the repository for our Create method".
Other similar expressions are "That's you done" (I have finished what I needed to do ...
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0
votes
What does the following highlighted sentence mean?
In the body of the question you ask about the grammar. This is an informal comment in a tutorial. In a lecture it would be a transitional remark. I don't think it's worth trying to decide what ...
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A question about a sentence using a past tense
The given sentence
(A) I have thought that I were similar to the older man after seeing him.
is not grammatically correct, and is not in the subjunctive mood.
First of all it does not agree in ...
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0
votes
A question about a sentence using a past tense
The sentence is not grammatically correct. "that I were" does not make sense here; you would only use "I were" in a subjunctive context like "If I were", but I don't see ...
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