My mind has been beset by a question for a great many years. Indeed when I studied English at university, I once made a mistake which was not really explained to me by our teacher.
The sentence we had to translate was the following: il était un peu ivrogne = he was something of a drunkard.
If [...]
There are two things worth knowing about the use of the pronoun ‘whom’. Firstly, in modern English usage it’s considered rather formal and old-fashioned, although it does still sometimes appear in academic and official forms of writing. ‘Who’ is the modern equivalent that can be used either formally or informally and in spoken and written [...]
I have doubts about two words which are commonly used. They are ‘I’ and ‘me’. Can you tell me when I should use ‘I’ and when I should use ‘me’?
Well this question about the difference between ‘I’ and ‘me’ is a really good one, because you know, speakers of English as a first language are [...]
They have decided this is necessary in the current economic climate. My question is, could I have said: The Government are… and It has decided…?
We can use singular or plural verbs with many collective nouns, Pamela, and government is one of these. Singular and plural forms are often mixed as are the pronouns that refer [...]
I like to be very thorough with what and how I do things and that’s why I have a question for you guys.
In more than one occasion I ran into phrases like: “here are a few of the more renowned”. My question is related to “the more”. Is it possible in this case? The only [...]
There are really three types of article, Bilal, the indefinite article, the definite article and zero or no article.
a / an
A and an are the same type of indefinite article, used when we are referring to one of many or when we don’t know which ones are referred to. The only difference is that an [...]
Thanks for your question! To find out the answer, we need to understand the difference between subject questions (questions about the subject of a sentence) and object questions (questions about the object of a sentence).
Look at this sentence:
William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
A question about the object would be:
What did William Shakespeare write?
The answer – [...]
For example:
“If you live in a foreign country, you should try and learn the language.”
‘The’ refers to the foreign country - am I right?
Another example:
“We missed our train because we were waiting on the wrong platform.”
Is it possible to use ‘a’ instead of ‘the’ in this example?
Thanks for your help! And best wishes for the [...]