In Expressions^x, Past tenses^x

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I know "have" can mean "eat", and "I had lunch" is quite natural to me. But if we take "had" in "I had a lot to eat" in that way, the sentence would be rephrased as "I ate a lot to eat". The expression seems to me to be somehow redundant, though I know I...

It's hard to say without having seen the scene in the movie, but it could also mean "You are forgetting the seat" - related to the expression "Aren't you forgetting something?", used as a reminder. This substitution usually lends an air of pompousness or superiority to the statement, but...

You're welcome, Jake! I've been thinking about this lately, and in American English, the use of "wish" is possible with the past tense, and I notice that you have been trying to construct sentences with this pattern. The problem you are running into is that you are putting a punctual...

It is only a matter of time before (something happens) means We are not going to need to wait very long before (something happen). In short, this part of the sentence is written from the past point of view. The writer knows what happened, that is, he knows what was going to happen,...

1- When / By the time he arrives, we begin the meeting. In Turkish, it is possible. But in Turkish "we begin the meeting" that is, the simple present has somewhat a future meaning. But in English the use of simple present for future is limited to certain events, such as time-tables, schedules...

Mary Ansell has a chapter on the subjunctive mood at http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/durrus/153/gramch09.html. One of the complications in using the subjunctive is the fact that, besides hypothetical condition clauses, which require the subjunctive, there are factual condition clauses that do...

Hi everyone!! I've got a problem. My grammar book would say "They are looking at me as if I were mad". I know I could use like instead of as if in informal situations, and I could also use was instead of were (informal again), but I'm confused about present tense usage where you should use the...

Hi, which tenses can be used with this time phrase? My first reaction is to say all the past tenses, although you might have to find special contexts for some of them. Why don't you try to make sentences with each tense, and if you find some that you're not sure of, post them here for us to...

Congratualtions for your explanations. There are clear and the best i've found. Vos explicatons sont les plus pédagogiques que j'ai pu trouver à ce jour et je tiens tout particulièrement à vous en rendre hommage. Gérard.Forum: New: Common English Questions and Answers - Archived PostsPosted:...

Thanks for your reply, MrP. 1. I would call it an exclamatory conditional. The main clause is left unspoken, but we can usually infer it, e.g. "if only she would contact me, I would be very happy". Ok, it’s a conditional with an unexpressed result but still a ‘conditional’ right? In this case,...