Thanks, Philip and CJ, for your excellent and quick reply.

1. We aren't going, for the simple reason ______ we can't afford it. 2. Is there any reason _____ you can't come? Which fits better in the blanks, why or that? Is it possible that both of them do?

Annvan wrote: If you mean that the guest of honor should choose the music, then 1. is correct. Thanks, Annvan, for the feedback, but what's wrong with sentence 2? Thanks.

Anonymous wrote: Great! What is your reasoning? Ditto!

Anonymous wrote: Please tell us which one sounds odd to you;then we can discuss further, Pioussoul. Thanks, Anon, for the feedback. There is a typo on sentence 2, and I have corrected

1. Leave the guest of honor to select the music. 2. Leave the guest of honor selecting the music. Which one sounds odd to you? If both, how would you say the similar idea? Thanks.

CalifJim wrote: using the same exact word 1. dream t - dream 2. trouble trouble s 3. li v e - li f e CJ Thanks, CJ, for your correction. Compared with you, a really keen observer, I'm only a casual amateur. After your comment, my tiny

CalifJim wrote: The students sigh a heavy sigh. A fly cannot fly a plane. A spy lives two lives. The photographer prints the prints every morning. The thief pockets the money in his pockets. The policemen ticket the cars with red tickets. The

CalifJim wrote: Is descendant of an idiom or a verb preposition combination? Neither. There is nothing about it that isn't literal, so it isn't an idiom, and there is no verb in it, so it can't be a verb-preposition combination either. CJ

Grammarian-bot wrote: <!-- -->1. <!-- -->According to his own account, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, modeled the face of the statue like his mother’s and the body like his wife’s. <!--