Eddie88  +  721988 Sat, 09 May 09 03:32 AM The dummy it: 1)I thought that it (is) best we do this tomorrow. Correct me if I am wrong, but ‘is’ is unnecessary in the above sentence. Is it unnecessary to include ‘is’ when ‘it’ is a dummy it which doesn’t refer back to something or the subject?   Appositive: 2)I am hungry, so hungry that I ate my friends’ lunches. Is this appositive (more specifically a resumptive modifier) grammatically acceptable here since the noun has ‘so’ infront of it? I thought it may not be o.k. because a resumptive modifier needs to begin with a noun, but it now begins with an adverb…     Thanks. Eddie88 Joined on Mon, Nov 10 2008 New Zealand Full Member 466 Nouns, Adverbs, Relationships, Sentences, Friendships, Friends

	Mr Wordy  +  722471 Sat, 09 May 09 03:22 PM 1) In your sentence, "is" is necessary. The combinations of tenses in sentences like this are somewhat fluid, but I think I would usually say:   "I think (that) it is best (that) we do this tomorrow." "I thought (that) it was best (that) we did this tomorrow."   The construction without "is" that you may be thinking of is:   "I think it best (that) we do this tomorrow."   (Note: no "that" after "think".) This is a special type of construction, whose grammatical name I'm afraid I don't know, that you can use with verbs such as "think", "consider" and "deem".   2) "I am hungry, so hungry that I ate my friends’ lunches."   This is OK, but I think I would personally use a dash rather than a comma.   Mr Wordy Joined on Tue, May 27 2008 Senior Member 2,359 Native British English speaker Constructions, Tenses, Commas, Punctuation, Relationships, Sentences, Friendships, Friends