New answers tagged word-order
1
vote
"A man is standing outside/on the outside of my house"
Question: "A man is standing outside of my house" or "A man is standing on the outside of my house"? [buzzer]
The first is OK, but we would shorten it:
A man is standing outside my ...
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1
vote
"A man is standing outside/on the outside of my house"
A man is standing outside of my house
A man is standing on the outside of my house.
I will paint outside of my house
I will paint on the outside of my house
Eliminate ‘on’, ‘on the’, for sentences 1 ...
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3
votes
"A man is standing outside/on the outside of my house"
In neither case should you use "on", though it would be grammatically correct.
If the man is standing "on" the outside of the house that would suggest to me that he is standing on ...
- 177k
0
votes
Using correct word order
Both are correct. They're generally used in different situations, though.
You're looking at a group photo of a friend's class from back in the day. You can't find your friend. You ask, "Which one ...
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0
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Which one is correct: “if you so wish” or “if you wish so”?
The correct option is "If you so wish", which can be interpreted as "If you wish it to be so".
"If you wish it so" is another possibility; or even "If you wish",...
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0
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Ways to ask what a word means
#1 and #3 are fine. #2 as @FumbleFingers has pointed out is incorrect.
@FumbleFingers's example in comment:
What does it mean to be fungible?
, where fungible is the adjective. And no it is not a ...
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1
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Which one is correct: “if you so wish” or “if you wish so”?
The normal phrase is If you so wish, but you should regard this as an idiom, because it has an archaic structure.
The only other phrase I can think of that uses so before the verb with that meaning is ...
- 71.1k
1
vote
"NP is there to-infinitive" vs "there is NP to-infinitive"
"NP is there" is always locative.
Sentence (1a) means that your advisor's experience is (metaphorically) close to you and readily available, allowing you to access it.
Sentence (1b) just ...
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0
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is "there is no can doubt" grammatically correct?
This is incorrect. The correct version would be:
There can be no doubt that climate change has a...
(Your teachers may have been confused by the idiom "no can do," which is a humorous ...
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1
vote
"sentence pattern with preceding adjective"
What is the grammar behind this to omit the participle being?
The participle is not required; many adjectival phrases could work in the first position. John Lawler gave some examples in a comment:
...
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0
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"For no money would she leave" vs "For no money she would leave"
This is really fascinating. I haven't read the paper, so you just get some nasty "native speaker intuition", but it's true. The default understanding would be (as they say) #1 you can't pay ...
- 610
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Changing the order of verb and subject in declarative sentences
(I assume your "naturally sited" is an error for "naturally suited".)
You are asking about the statement "With these, however, arose the question of when to begin counting.&...
- 610
0
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Changing the order of verb and subject in declarative sentences
It is grammatical, but there is a combination of two different processes going on here, both rather literary.
The first is topicalization, by which a phrase is brought to the front of the sentence to ...
- 71.1k
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adverbs × 88
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