I am an English grammar instructor. Your explanation is excellent as is your reference to the history of the form. However, you have a few errors technically in your examples. Although my Japanese is not strong, I had the pleasure of studying with

Do you also consider this inversion? A tree is there. <--> There is a tree I personally think it is. These 2 websites will clear all all doubts on inversions. http://esl.about.com/od/advancedgrammar/a/inversion.htm

Nouns are "things." (People, places, things you can hold, things you can't hold, like "freedom" or "dreams") A group of words that name a thing is a noun phrase. "That man that I told you about" is a

. Both different from and different than are acceptable. Here's a Canadian perspective (University of Victoria): "Different from" is the more accurate and acceptable form: "Apples are different from oranges," "He was

I think you are right on second thought. However, do you agree that this sentence is incorrect or do you think it is some form of figure of speech? I'm sorry, but I do disagree. It's distinguishing between A and B. A and B should be the

I'm sorry, but I do disagree. It's distinguishing between A and B. A and B should be the same sort of thing for semantic parallelism. A could be countries with condition X while B is countries with condition Y. A could be is

Hello, I am reading "Can We Still Afford to Be a Nation of Immigrants?" by David M. Kennedy. Here is a link for the opening paragraph of the article: http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?p=4082 In the past three decades,

Don't think so. I think we in the UK would usually say "Parliament is...". So, excepting CyberCypher, it seems we we have pretty much decided that "olympics is" is correct especially since NBC ... major part of the problem

Robert Lieblich wrote on 17 Jul 2004: Robert Lieblich wrote on 16 Jul 2004: It's a usage that's been around for hundreds of years and, as such (which does *not* mean "so" or "hence" or "therefore"), My

I look at Inno and then to Palaka, who both remain standing at opposite corners of the room. I pull ... "Then my eyes and Kulaw's lock" part does not make sense to me at all. Please tell me your ideas. Others have answered the