English presents a number of issues to non-native (and sometimes native) speakers. It is grammatically unlike other languages, even those from which it has borrowed large vocabulary groups, and possesses a number of irregularities. Understanding

hi , the following contents are copied from another forum (very interesting) they suggest that vacancy should be treated as a collective noun the logic for sentence 1 and 2 is correct the logic for sentence 3 is wrong part1 Vacancy should be

Prescriptively speaking, "is" would be safer to use for formal English. However, when "neither" is followed by "of + plural noun", using a plural verb is extremely common -- particularly in everyday informal English.

They went back to the store again looking for another cart but there were/was none. Shouldn't it be was since cart is singular? I think I failed miserably to make my point. Yes, the verb agrees with "none," but if I'm not

The 2009 entry vacancy we currently have is for a position in our investment team. Our 2010 entry holds both investment and accounting vacancies. You say "clearly there must be more than one vacancy." Why "clearly"? It's

The second is correct, since the sentence is speaking of the single quantity of years as being / not being one era. If you use the plural, then we might think someone was considering each year as a separate era!

"Games" and "tricks" are sometimes used to describe serious endeavors. In my opinion, "jest" is always used to describe something which is intended as a joke - although the court jester usually spoke the truth more

Could someone help me with this? 1 I restored factory setting so the computer is the same as when it came out of the store. This is okay, but "settings" is more common. 2 Every woman has occasion when she wants to look her best. Use

It would be singular if you where talking about only the new train you are going to, or the old one you are leaving, which would be fairly common in these sorts of announcements. By saying "change" they are talking about both trains at

Many years ago in English class, I learned that if a person were talking about a dream or if the person used the word "if", than the verb would be plural and not singular, i.e. I wish I were a dancer. I dreamed I were a