In Numbers^x, Modals^x, Grammar^x

Ellisa: This is a very long passage, and your other post seems to be even longer. The editor at this web site makes it difficult to make corrections to long passages. Also, many teachers do not want to devote a long time working on a single post. If you post only one paragraph at a time, then...

Hello, this is my first post here, I like to know these words kilometer centimeter Are those words noun if they are standing alone ? if it's, what kind of noun it's, proper noun or abstract noun or etc ? After that, I want to indentify the part of speech of the following sentence by using the...

Hello, this is my first post here, I like to know these words kilometer centimeter Are those words noun if they are standing alone ? if it's, what kind of noun it's, proper noun or abstract noun or etc ? After that, I want to indentify the part of speech of the following setence by using the...

Basically, the reactor Now, don't tear your hair out and start screaming, but the second of the two series above is sometimes taken to mean the same as the first series! -- that is, taken to refer to what was then the future instead of what was then the past. My recommendation, if...

Kilimanjaro wrote: Hello Cool Breeze, This sentence is taken from Michael SWAN's Practical English Usage. He says "might" can be used in such contexts Hi Kilimanjaro Yes, I know it's from that book. You mentioned it in a previous post. I didn't say it was right or wrong in my opinion. I...

Milky wrote: <To my mind, the articles are the trickiest part of English grammar> And modals? They are similar to other Germanic languages in structure and as there are only two infinitives in English (and in Swedish, for that matter), the modals or defective auxiliaries are...

Hello chaps, My head is spinning on this one. Gerunds should of course be easy but I think I'm having a spazzy block on this one. Please check out the following examples: 1) Leaving taps on and using too much water is very bad for the environment. (Easy, 2 gerunds right?) 2) Everyone should be...

Alienvoord, I appreciate you're constructive criticism. Allow me to rebute: 1) Comprehensible, yes. But many expressions are comprehensible even without being gramatically sound. The nuances I try to reveal in this post are to help you write better gramatically, not to sound or to write...

CalifJim wrote: If a student points to some construction and asks me if it's the subjunctive or not, I can't reply, 'No, it's a monkey!' Now there you are wrong! You are the teacher and can say any dang thing you want! In fact a smart retort like that might go a long way toward making your...

One reference -- Paul Roberts' Understanding Grammar -- says need has become a sometimes modal auxiliary, while have to, be able to, and be used to are "equivalents of modal auxiliaries." Need was not originally a modal auxiliary, but it has been drawn into the group because of its meaning,...