Kilimanjaro wrote: Hello Cool Breeze, This sentence is taken from Michael SWAN's Practical English Usage. He says "might" can be used in such contexts Hi Kilimanjaro Yes, I know it's from that book. You mentioned it in a previous post. I

Let's not forget that much formality in English is not based on word meanings. We also create fomality by using the past tense of verbs and what are traditionally called the past tense of modal auxiliaries.

Milky wrote: He has to go and He must go.> Well, I guess that would be part of the mastering part of the language - i.e. the complex part. It's easy for anyone to claim that English is not complex, or is much simpler than many other

Cool Breeze wrote: Grammarian-bot wrote: Congress is debating a bill requiring certain employers to provide workers with unpaid leave so that they can care for sick or newborn children. I have a serious problem with deciding when to use

Grammarian-bot wrote: Congress is debating a bill requiring certain employers to provide workers with unpaid leave so that they can care for sick or newborn children. I have a serious problem with deciding when to use prepositions before verbs

Milky wrote: "I'd like to can swim" is ungrammatical. In English, modal auxiliaries like can and must are disallowed in infinitival clauses." That is a statement that is true of any variety of English with which I am familiar.

Would this be seen as a prescriptivist statement or a descriptivist one? "I'd like to can swim" is ungrammatical. In English, modal auxiliaries like can and must are disallowed in infinitival clauses."

Peaceblinkfriend wrote: Hi, If I hadn't passed my exam, I wouldn't have gone to Cancun. = This is a conditional clause and in this instance, it is being used to talk about something that might have happened in the past, but did not in fact

Matthew Huntbach (Email Removed): I introduced it, and I am from Sussex, not Yorkshire. "By then" indicating a point in time, followed by "would" and the present tense Grammatically, the part following the `would' (a modal

Cool Breeze wrote: 1) Leaving taps on and using too much water is very bad for the environment. (Easy, 2 gerunds right?) Right. 2) Everyone should be recycling rubbish. Should is a modal auxiliary or a defective auxiliary as these verbs are also