Anyway, my take away from reading about verb tense in novels and from talking with Seth Harwood is that some people think writing in the present tense is modern and other people think it is trendy and annoying. Is take away an idiom? I

What do you mean by 'idiomatic'? Are you saying that "Wow! She's too beautiful!" means 'not really beautiful'? I know for a fact that too means also 'very' in a formal register, for example: "Thank you,

I think I might use this expression to mean that somebody doesn't focus on details. Whether that would be a compliment or not depends on the issue at hand. You know how Michael is. He likes to do everything in broad strokes. It's up to

Please give me your suggestion on how to master the usage of prepositions? Is there any book (US english) that would help me? I don't know of a specific book, but the problem may be more related to idioms than to prepositions. Even if you know

Hi, could anyone please give a list of most commonly used phrases and idioms and their usage with an example. Many thanks - Raj

Hello, the passage in bold feels a bit weird to me. Shouldn't there be an article 'a' before the 'spilling-over'? thanks Lenny Translation, when practiced by relatively bilingual individuals but especially

I would avoid the forms of "make out", since the common idiom means "to kiss". "Do well" is easily substituted.

Why does "Here goes nothing" have almost the same meaning as "Here we go"? I mean, it's "nothing"...you know... To me, "here goes nothing", means we have nothing to loose by trying. So yes, while

Thank you for your comments! It seems to me that even native speakers do not always agree on the usage of English. For example the first question was a modified version from an exercise book: During winter the shelters are full of people

Adrenochrome, but what about the fact that tastes differs? You might like something that another person would hate, and vice versa… For instance, I like reading Steinbeck’s novels and I enjoy reading ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ or ‘The Winter of our