In Articles^x, Clauses^x

Hello JTT Yes I agree to the opinion there might be some word play (exaggeration) in the Japanese expression man ga ichi ni(= at (in?) a likelihood of 1/10,000). I think this phrase would actually mean "at a likelihood up to 1/10". However, I believe it shoud be true that almost all the English...

Hello Mr M I found an article as below given in the BBC English site. It says "If S should V" is a very unlikely conditional but The Heritage Grammar site suggests "If S should V" and "If S Vs" are not so different. The Heritage Grammar site suggests "If S should V" and "If S Vs" are not so...

"any"??? JTT: Precisely, Jim, any. Let's not get all philosophical here. Go to those grammar books where this 'rule' is espoused and seek out the proof therein. I think you probably already have and its sparsity has led you on this tack. CJ: But what would any proof be like? Quotations from...

"any"??? But what would any proof be like? Quotations from grammar books, from journal articles, from forums like this one? Statistical studies of some corpus of works? And then there is always the question: proof of what? Proof that, for example, "purists prefer 'that' to introduce...

Hello MrM How do I disprove it? No I can't do it. It has been a few decades since I learned such a thing like statistical significance, and to my regret I forget almost all about it. Anyway what I noticed in the results of the Google survey was the fact that a 'significant' portion of native...

(1) great moment = great importance, significance (2) Using 'that' would merely change the confusion for the reader into a confusion between 'that' and 'this' in the next clause. The sentence, employing both an existential 'there' and a preparatory 'it', is indeed more awkward than it need...

I have a few questions about an article I read: 1. Custom has not been commonly regarded as a subject of any great moment. What is "great moment"? 2. There is no social problem it is more incumbent upon us to understand than this of the role of custom. "it is"? or "it " should be replaced by...

Dear paco, The indefinite article is optional in your example. Usually it is required as in He is a loser. - Er ist ein Versager. I would have to think it over more thoroughly, but for now I would say it is only optional for occupations, professions, cronic medical illnesses and to indicate...

Hello MrP So I can only assume that either Dickens got his idiom slightly wrong, or ‘Child as he was’ had a simple complementary sense in his day. I feel your sense that children are not immune to hunger and misery is very modern one. Children of poor social classes in Dickens' times would be...

Thanks, Eagle, Paco, and MisterM for all your painstaking posts! Much to chew on. 1. It's odd that both your and K's dictionaries give this structure, which I seldom if ever hear. Maybe it's more common elsewhere. Sorry, all: I should have been clearer. I meant the ‘Child as he was…’...