LOL! Hey Mike, I didn't know you were such a hardcore prescriptivist. If you have ever read my posts, you should have noticed I'm the opposite, a hardcore descriptivist. But really, really hardcore... so... I'm afraid I don't agree with you at

Hi, I didn't quite catch what you said. The quite means completely here, doesn't it? You could look at it that way. However, 'quite' also means 'to some extent', 'somewhat' , eg It's quite cold today. That's the meaning I see here. "I

Thanks Clive I know in some countries you will find a head of state and head of a government. The UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, etc have two heads and one of them is a figurehead. I can't fathom out the hypothetical meaning in the sentence

Hi Ricky No, it's not true. The participle following acts as a plural noun in your sentence because of the the and since there are three examples, the plural verb is right. Adjectives become nouns if the is placed before them. Following can act as

AD_ANGEL wrote: Who has the Greatest freedom. Orwell or the Burmese? George Orwell is a police officer and this may give you the idea that he has freedom more than the Burmese people that he lived with, but obviously he doesn’t. He wasn’t

Anonymous wrote: They may not be but to me, British people sound sophisticated. Sounding and being are two different things. Actually, middle- and upper-class people in Britain probably are more sophisticated than their American counterparts on

american is new,british is old

Lil Ruby Rose wrote: I am somewhat offended by your suggestion My comments are merely a completely unbiased observation and not directed at any individual. How is it that such comments, made by a complete stranger on a web forum, could be

Nona The Brit wrote: I think it is a common structure among all types of British people. Confirmed by the BBC grammar advice (see the last section): http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv112.shtml

I think it is a common structure among all types of British people.