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It is always possible to give an expanded form for such compressed sentences. (Which is not to say that the compressed form is not the more usual or more desirable.) And in so doing one arrives at an insight into the grammatical function of the individual words. And while I agree that on a statistic...

It is always possible to give an expanded form for such compressed sentences. (Which is not to say that the compressed form is not the more usual or more desirable.) And in so doing one arrives at an insight into the grammatical function of the individual words. And while I agree that on a statistic...

It is always possible to give an expanded form for such compressed sentences. (Which is not to say that the compressed form is not the more usual or more desirable.) And in so doing one arrives at an insight into the grammatical function of the individual words. And while I agree that on a statistic...

It is always possible to give an expanded form for such compressed sentences. (Which is not to say that the compressed form is not the more usual or more desirable.) And in so doing one arrives at an insight into the grammatical function of the individual words. And while I agree that on a statistic...

Ok are, in my opinion (but I speak only strine):

Numbers 4,5,6*,7,8,9,12,19,20,22,23

* he shouldn't be punished for being rolled in the mud

Harzer

I feel that strictly speaking, 'what I did was to write ..." is not entirely sound for this reason, that there is another construction with a quite different meaning, namely: "What I did was to have a lasting effect" But, if pushed, I would have to say I prefer "What I did was write ..." But quite a...

"Guess who the French love" is shorthand for: "Guess who it is that the French love." Since the object of 'guess' is the interrogative clause 'who is it?', then the form of the word 'who' is not determined by the verb 'guess' but by its function within that clause. And the verb 'to be' only allows s...

Hi! In the first place, "finish his work" and "talk to him" are elaborations of the verb "do" and so must mimic its form which is 'infinitive'. These sentences are nothing but roundabout ways of saying: 'he has to finish his work' and 'I should talk to him'. And they are potentially even roundaboute...

I accept that as a truncated sentence in that it has a subject (the spear thrown at Carruthers) a verb (was) and an extension (very sharp-pointed). The fact that the verb was unstated does not disqualify it from that status any more than the fact the subject is often unstated in Spanish sentences di...

Hi Metal! Well, I'm not so sure even then that I would take the past pasrticiple route, since the plumber blundered. You would have to have a situation like there was a snake visiting the bathroom from time to time and the only way to de-snake it was to flood it, before I would go "hey a past partic...

Slightly off-topic but relevant: In the last 10 years or so I have found that it is OK to say "a livable city". Yet up to then, only adjectives derived from transitive verbs were allowed in that spot" An indescribable smell = a smell that one cannot describe A tortuous road = a road that tortures hi...

Well, if I am galloping down the road on my donkey and see a sign saying flooded/flooding I will definitely slow down to avoid getting my ass wet. To actually answer the original question: Since the odds are strongly in favour of the flooded road being the outcome of a natural event (e.g. rain has f...

I have never seen a sign that says "snow ahead" since I live on parallel 34S. But I can imagine a sign that has a symbol on it saying "road ahead subject to snow drifts", which is an "-ing"-concept and not a "ed"-concept, so you perk up if you see it and it happens to be snowing, and take some defen...

Surely you don't need a sign to describe the "present state of the road"; and surely you DO need one to describe the potential state of the road.

Harzer

The sign should read:

FLOODING

This would indicate that the road is from time to time subject to flooding.

There is no need for a sign saying "FLOODED" .

Harzer