PH, I think that 'had' is possible only if both 'didn't know' and 'had' refer to the same time. In any other case, 'had' would not be possible. But, from the context it clear they don't refer to the same

Hi, I have a question. When I used "I'm anxious for your arrival" to mean "I'm looking forward to your arrival", my teacher(nonnative English speaker) told me that I should avoid using "anxious" in that

Just a few comments and a curious thought... What is "sightings" referred to in your O.P.? Is it in the same context as "The UFO sightings"? Sightings is the shortcut of "sighting report". It is a

Hello! Does "take cycles away from the normal job of a CIO" mean that "it occupies a lot of working time of a CIO" in the following context. I'm not quite sure of the exact meaning of the phrase "take cycles away

Well, it might just be the actor's accent that is confusing then. I seem to hear a bit of an r-sound before the vowel in trumps/charms too, so it would be more like "trom(p)s" (pronounced with the American vowel). But as Amy said, I

I definitely do not hear "trumps" -- I hear "charms". But I still here otherwise ,trumps. To me, the speaker sounds like he might not be a native speaker of English -- which might explain the mispronunciation of

Just a few comments and a curious thought... What is "sightings" referred to in your O.P.? Is it in the same context as "The UFO sightings"? Would anyone object the use of the word " refrain from sending" in

So that Pose could concentrate on her athletic trumps and gold lamé microskirt. This is what I hear: So that pose could concentrate on her athletic charms and gold lamé microskirt. I definitely do not hear "trumps" -- I hear

Hmm, your observation is partially correct. There's no "is" in context such as this in Chinese, contexts that involves attributes, conditions, situations etc. (there may be more, but that's all I can think of now. Maybe other

Now if I look up "are," the dictionary tells me that it is the present plural of "be." But what I would expect is that it would tell me that it is the present plural of "am" or "is" because those are the