Search results for 'tag:Prepositions tag:Plurals' matching tags 'Prepositions' and 'Plurals'

Re: Grammar Suggestion

Mr Wordy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:58:14 GMT

Cute572
Thanks Mr. Wordy!
1. In this version we are using their instead of its. Because rays are plural right ?

2. Ok i noted these points and also the sentence.

And Mr. Wordy i always got confuse between these prepositions : On, Over , At

Could you please give some suggestions so that i could remember its proper usage.

1. Yes.

2. I'm struggling to think of any worthwhile general rules that I can offer regarding the use of these prepositions. Any general statements that I might make are likely to have so many exceptions as to be virtually useless. You can look up the core meanings of the prepositions in a dictionary, and that should give you a rough idea of the range of meanings they can take. But it probably won't help much with the hundreds (or thousands) of special cases and idiomatic uses, many of which have no obvious logic to them. Explaining all of these -- or even just the common ones -- would be a major project and would fill many, many pages.

Re: Grammar Suggestion

Cute572 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:33:31 GMT

Thanks Mr. Wordy!

1. In this version we are using their instead of its. Because rays are plural right ?

2. Ok i noted these points and also the sentence.

And Mr. Wordy i always got confuse between these prepositions : On, Over , At

Could you please give some suggestions so that i could remember its proper usage.

Thanks once again

Re: far

New2grammar — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:06:52 GMT

Thanks. Now that I'm clear with the preposition usage, a new problem arises. Actually, I have been having this problem. How do you count mountain? In other words, when to use the plural or singular? Based on the number of peaks?

Re: Grammatically correct & Subject-Verb agreement.

Cute572 — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:01:47 GMT

Thanks for the help and clearing my mistakes. For the first group.

Want to discuss 2nd groupe though.

1. Neither goes with singular meaning i would place Verb "is" in place of "are" to balance the sentence right !

2. Yes in this sentence i find stuck badly

i have read that if a sentence begin with infinite pronoun (in this case ONE), verb should follow with its object of preposition which is in this case is plural ( Of shoes ) and verb "cost" is plural as well. This makes sentence correct.

I don't know if we take pair as our subject then its wrong sentence as you have pointed out.

Please help me out with this confusing problem.

And also in 3rd sentence Story is the subject as its singular and verb is singular as well.

Mistakes made by Chinese Learners

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:30:26 GMT

Hi everyone

I just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:

Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as rude/inconsiderate, more serious transfer may affect comprehensiveness.
No inflections in L1 - tenses difficult to learn in L2 as L1 has no true tenses and concept of time is expressed by adverbs/implicit or contextual assumptions.
Difficulty distinguishing [r] & - Does anyone know why this is as I can't find a reason?!!
Prepositions such as 'on', 'in' & 'at' have one chinese translation in many contexts, 'zai' - may be confused resulting in phrases such as 'on Taiwan' instead of 'in Taiwan'.
Use of awkward gerunds e.g. 'no noising', excessive use of verbs ending in 'ing' e.g. 'do not climbing', confusion of 'ed' & 'ing' verbs e.g. 'i am bored' vs 'i am boring' --- all of these errors occur because verbs are not conjugated in chinese, for tense or pronoun.
No equivalent word for 'the' so may be used excessively when not needed e.g. 'The China' or missed out when needed. May also be confused with 'a'/'an'.
Confusion over countable and uncountable nouns, use of 'how much?' vs 'how many?' - leads to phrases such as 'I want a soup' & 'a lot of shoe'. This is due to there not being plurals in chinese - no inflections.

Switching between 'he' & 'she' - Does anyone know why this is?

If anyone can think of anymore it would be greatly appreciated or if anyone knows the answers to my questions about gender switching and distinguishing [r] & this would also help a lot!!

Thank you in advance.

Shannon

Please Check

Verymaddhatter — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:40:55 GMT

1. Do not place a phrase or clause:
A. in a sentence. B. at the beginning of a sentence. C. at the end of a sentence. D. too far from the word it is meant to modify.
Answer D.

2. In every sentence, the subject must agree with the:
A. object of the preposition. B. verb. C. intervening expressions. D. none of the above
Answer B.

3. A collective noun, which refers to a group, can be:
A. singular. B. plural. C. a preposition. D. both a & b
Answer A.

4. Indefinite pronouns can be:
A. singular. B. plural. C both a & b D. neither a nor b
Answer C.

5. Titles used before a proper name or in direct address are:
A. sometimes capitalized. B. always capitalized. C. never capitalized. D. none of the above
Answer B.

6. Capitalize the names of:
A. ships. B. trains. C. planes and spacecraft. D. all of the above
Answer D.

7. The titles of books, magazines, songs, and stories are:
A. always capitalized. B. sometimes capitalized.C. never capitalized. D. none of the above
Answer A.

Re: see him beaten

New2grammar — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:43:53 GMT

Is that why the preferred/correct preposition is 'on' for "He's living on the streets". Or else, he would be run over in no time. :)

By the way, should I use the plural streets or the singular?

Thanks

Please Check My Answers

Blondie024 — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:08:36 GMT

1. The possessive of a plural noun ending in s is formed by adding:

A. another s and an apostrophe. B. another s only. C. an apostrophe only. D. none of the above

I think the answer is C.

2. Which of the following shows the correct possessive form of a plural noun?

A. three dogs bowls B. three dog's bowls C. three dogs' bowls D. none of the above

I think the answer is C.

3. In a contraction, the apostrophe replaces:

A. missing letters. B. using an s. C. a unit of measurement. D. none of the above.

I think the answer is A.

4. Which of the following is a correct contraction of "they would"?

A. they'ld B. they'd C. they'wld D. none of the above

I think the answer is D.

5. Which of the following shows the correct possessive form of "children"?

A. childrens B. childrens' C. childrens's D. children's

I think the answer is A.

6. A preposition connects a (n):

A. subject and verb. B. object and modifiers. C. subject and predicate. D. adjective and adverb.

Re: sell out vs sell out of

Yankee — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:49:43 GMT

Hi Hoa Thai

There were a number of details that I considered in my last post. These included the following:

- Sold out used strictly as a verb vs sold out used like an adjective
- Verb tense
- Using sold vs sold out (particularly in combination with the word 'all')
- Word order (i.e. Does the sentence begin with that which was sold, or does it begin with the person who did the selling?)
- If the word 'all' was used, how exactly? (i.e. as a noun? pronoun? adjective? adverb?)

To me, there is more that needs to be considered than just the question of whether 'all' or 'all of' is better or more typical.

She then commented that 'sell out all our stocks of T-shirts' wasevent more awkward. But for this example, she made a slightchange in the sentence by adding 'of' - 'sell out all ofour stocks of T-shirts', then said that one should not to use both 'out'and 'all of' together because of redundancy. (NOTE: Right there, I completelymissed the connection. Why did she add the preposition âofâ then went on aboutredundancy?)

There are a couple of problems in that quote:

- Neither you nor I used the word 'stocks' (i.e. plural)
- You have ignored the beginning of the sentence, but I didn't.
Though I did indeed prefer 'all of' in the phrase "all of our stock of T-shirts", the focus of my comment about the sentence as a whole. I was not focused on whether 'all' or 'all of' was better. My comment focused on whether 'all' (or 'all of') should be used at all in combination with the way 'sold out' was used.

Re: The acoustic/acoustics in the opera house

Hoa Thai — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:54:13 GMT

Hi Peaceblinkfriend,

I can see your interpretation that the 'sound architecture / construction' of the opera house is excellent.

However, I beg to differ. The reason is simple to me.; here are the three clues:

1. the use of the preposition 'in'.

2. the plural verb 'are'.

3. the phrase 'can even hear a drop of a pin' tells me an experience to sound not the design of the opera house.

Here is a more detailed extract from the previously mentioned dictionary:

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(Click to enlarge)

acoustics

Sound waves are deflected off sound panels and distributed throughout a concert hall.
(Precision Graphics)

aÂ·cousÂ·tics
n.

(used with a sing. verb) The scientific study of sound, especially of its generation, transmission, and reception.
(used with a pl. verb) The total effect of sound, especially as produced in an enclosed space: âSuch annoyances are frequently caused by flaws in the acoustics rather than the performersâ (Mel Gussow).