Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[gsjackie]

Dear teacher,

Please help me with the following questions. Thank you so much.

1. We use "here" to be an adverb to indicate the location. As I know
from many references, there should be no preposition in front of it.
However, I heard lots of spoken English "in here." Why? I assume we
cannot use "in" in formal grammar, but in spoken language it's ok. Am
I right about that? Or that's kind of emphatic usage?

2. I know how to express a fractional number like one third (1/3)
or two thirds (2/3). On the textbook I find an expression showing "
two-thirds pounds" and "one-third pound" My question is a fractional
number is less than one. (2/3 < 1)
The noun behind the fractional number should be a single one instead
of a plural. Why does "2/3 pounds" have "s" behind? Why doesn't "1/3 pound" have "s"?

[Lorikeet]

With respect to your first question:

He's coming here tomorrow. (He's coming to my house, to the school, to wherever we are talking.)

Can I borrow a pen? Sure...Wait, I can't find my pen in here. (I'm looking in my purse, but I can't find it inside.)

Where's my shirt? It's in here. (Pointing to the closet)

So....for my English, it appears that you can add "in" in cases where it means "inside." Someone else may have other examples and ideas.

[CP]

2. It should be written 2/3 pound or 2/3 lb. When spoken, we say, "Two thirds of a pound."

Similarly: 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch: Say, "One half inch / half an inch, three quarters of an inch."

If your book pluralizes it for 2/3 but not for 1/3, it is either an editing error or a mistaken notion on the part of the author.

By the way, 17 pounds would be written 17 lb. People put an s on the end, but that's incorrect.
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