Teacher Discussion Forums

Look at this complex sentence with an adverb clause of time: I woke up after I heard the noise. Hearing the noise, I woke up . Hearing is a participle qualifying the pronoun ‘I’. It’s a verbal adjective. Here’s an example with a sub-clause of reason: I did it because I thought all was safe. Thinking...

I think your suggestion (1) is closer to what the sentence tries to convey.

“Overlooking the bay” is a participial phrase. According to it use, it qualifies the noun ‘church’, it’s therefore an adjective phrase. You can see this more clearly by rearranging the sentence thus “Overlooking the bay, the new church is in a beautiful setting."

Originally posted by Metal56: I used not to play football. Is there any real grammatical justification for that form? Personally, I think not. Rather formal and old-fashioned. How about ‘I never used to play football?” Originally posted by Lotus: I didn't used to play football. Shouldn't tha...

We pronounce it /eItf/ where /eI/ is the long <a> sound and /tf/ is the <ch> sound. I tried the IPA symbols but it wouldn’t show up clearly in this Forum. Unlike the Protestants we don’t have the /h/ sound in front of /eI/, and unlike the Protestants & Catholics we don’t have the /t/ before ...

There’re many sound pairs that cause problem for the Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Vietnamese, Hindi/Tamil, Arabic and Iranian/Farsi students in our area. For example, consonant pair "b" & "v" seems to cause problem for Spanish & Hindi students & "l" and "r" for Korean students. Chinese students...

&#65279;It could also mean he is determined or resolved to fight again.

&#65279;The minister is noted for his lack of depth in his ability to perceive by the imagination or clear thinking.

Yes, his horizons are narrow.

No, it doesn’t mean "He had no right to oppose social services." ‘Tampering’ means interfering with or changing in a way so as to weaken or to damage; busying oneself with other people’s things or affairs without being asked or needed; meddling in & etc. Therefore "He had no business tamperi...

 You may also form non-defining adjective phrases as follows: An American writer, John wrote the novel Roses. Or, John, an American writer, wrote the novel Roses. Treating location of the store as a parenthetical expression, you may write fo the other expression: My uncle, having (operating)...

&#65279;A ‘bet’ is “an agreement between 2 persons or groups that the one who is proved wrong about the outcome of an event will give a particular thing or sum of money to the one who is proved right.”

I would say if someone is thinking of smoking or trying to smoke you might say to smoke can be dangerous (to your health). If that someone is already smoking and you ask him to quit, you might say smoking can be dangerous (to your health). The rationale for the above is that the infi...

“Both” seems redundant here. I believe it is commonly used for emphasis. What exactly is your objection to having both ‘both’ & ‘same’ in the same sentence? Why replacing the adjective ‘same’ with a definite number like ‘three’ makes so much difference to you? Is it wordiness that bothers you?

Canadian pronunciations of these words are as follows: Wednesday : 2 syllables. The middle ‘e’ is silent. Vegetables : 3 or 4 syllables. The second ‘e’ may be uttered or not. If so, it’s pronounced as a schwa. Languages : 3 syllables Excited : 3 syllables You might therefore say there could ...

&#65279;Half a MILE = 0.5 *MILES? I prefer the singular. 1.5 MILES, yes. Or is 0.5 actually 5.0 in Europe? Then of course 0.5 (= 5.0 NAm) MILES!