By Analogies, Prepositions

Schetin, I am still trying to dial to the right frequency so that we can communicate. I am afraid I have failed because I realize we are not talking in the same wave length. I find your pattern of thought difficult to understand. I once heard this analogy "there is only a thin line between a...

Thank you all for your opinions. Having read your posts, can I say that 1. present participle used in the way as it is in "He is the student taking notes" exclusively refers to the action that is going on at the moment of speaking. If a sentence can be used to describe the action, it should...

I'd disagree with all of them. 1) There's nothing wrong with "I like to run and play." It's perfectly comprehensible. 2) Splitting the infinitive can change the meaning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive "to go boldly where no man has gone before" or "boldly to go where no man has...

In terms of grammatical correctness, it is essential to keep in mind whether the pronoun in question should be subjective or objective. One says "My wife and I own this tree" because in this case one ("I") is the subject of the verb. One uses "me" when he or she is the object: "My wife owns...

I have the same reaction as you do, Taka. "earlier" has the implicit comparison "earlier than you actually did"; "before" does not. "before" leaves me asking "before what?" Changing to "later /"after": I have no time to do it now; I'll do it later. (later than now) I have no time to do it...

This book looked promising – it was subtitled A How-Not-To Guide to the 47 Most Common Mistakes in English Made by Journalists, Broadcasters, and Others Who Should Know Better – and in the first few pages I came across a passage referring to that group: What did these people study in high school...