Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hela]

Dear teachers,

Would you please tell me if the following sentences are correct?

1) The old oak tree, which had been standing in the churchyard since before the church was built, suddenly crashed to the ground.


2) We slipped / crawled / sneaked down and out of the room.
(if the construction is correct which verb is best ?)


3) He shouted himself hoarse.


4) Milton read himself blind.


5) He drank himself into the grave.


6) I had to shake him awake.


7) She has already had the baby.

She already had the baby.
(If both correct, what�s the difference between 7) and then ?)

Thank you very much for your help.

Best regards,
Hela

[bud]

Hi Hela,

All of them are correct.

2) Each of the three verbs is plausible. It might depend a little on where you slipped/crawled/snuck down from, but probably not. It would depend most on the atmosphere you were trying to depict. Slip and sneak are pretty much synonymous in this sentence, both depicting furtiveness. Crawl could also be synonymous, or it could be focusing on the awkwardness of getting out of the room. The context would make it clear.

7) This is a case where it doesn't matter which tense you use. They are equivalent. (Technically, using the simple past focuses on the birth - a completed event in the past. Using the present perfect focuses more on the fact that now she has a baby than on the fact of the birth, although that, too, is conveyed. But the person speaking either of those sentences is not thinking about the grammar. They are simply saying that she has a new baby.)

Good job!

[hela]

Thank you Bud. Your explanation is very clear.

Have a nice week.
Hela

[hela]

Dear teachers,

Would you please tell me if the following sentences are correct?

1) a) He had not wanted to come until they had built the motorway. OR
b) He had not wanted to come until they built the motorway.

Is it true that the fact of having 2 different subjects can influence the tense of the subordinate clause?

2) Does " MUST" in Indirect speech remain unchanged?

a) She said, �He must stay here.�
b) She said that he must (or had to, or both) stay here. (?)

3) The construct / construction (?) : "It is + adj + OF + noun (to do sthg)".
ex: I know you don't care about my problems, but it is nice OF you to pretend that you do.

Is there a similar construction like "It is + adj + FOR + noun (to do sthg)" ? Would you please give me examples ?

Thank you very much indeed.
Hela

[helen1]

[hela]

Dear all,

A/ Are these sentences correct ?

1/ The latest software contains graphics which could once only have been imagined.

2/ Impressionist painters such as Manet and Monet knew how to use colour so as to create an image of reality, rather than a reproduction THEREOF. (meaning ?)

3/ Although the sculptor had hoped that he would be able to finish the stone faces at Mount Rushmore, the work was left for his son to complete.

4/ The philosophy of ancient Greece has been preserved in the scholarly writing of western civilization.

5/ By the mid nineteenth century, land had become so expensive in big cities, that architects began to save space by building skyscrapers.

6/ Before the invention of the musical staff, musical compositions were passed among composers through writing as well as by memory.

7/ A once talented child actor, Shirley Temple, established herself as a career diplomat, becoming a representative in the United Nations.

8/ There are now new ways to have access to the web using game consoles or the wap (correct ?), which is a small cell phone with A tiny screen.

9/ All the albums in this chart were released during the month of May; the top-ten listings of tracks were compiled after conducting telephone polls.

10/ If an average-length DVD movie were uncompressed, it would take at least a year to download it over a normal telephone line.

11/ By January 2003, the Fellowship of the Rings sequel had earned $US 200 million at the north American box office, outpacing its hit predecessor in 2001.

12/ Unlike the internet, built by a large group of military and scientists, the world wide web owes its creation to a single extraordinary man, Tim Berners-Lee.

13/ Few actors perform their own stunts, either because they don't wish to, or because the producer is afraid of / fears injuries.

14/ The crew did report that one of the cranes was out of order, but the replacement arrived so late that the time limit / deadline was missed.

15/ The sales of videocassettes have fallen down / away (?) in direct proportion to the rise in DVD sales.


B/ Would you please give me a couple of sentences beginning with �Be it��?

Many thanks,
Hela