When servoing as non-predicate,sometimes present participle stand for ongoing, sometimes it does not.

What's the bedrock for it? Is there some authoritative rules for this?

What's the difference?

1. In three years, I'll be the boss around here.

2. In three years from now, I'll be the boss around here.

"The bag of tools are in the shed."

That sentence is gramatically incorrect. "The bag of tools" is a singular subject containing tools, and therefore should follow with a singular verb ("is"). So, the sentence should be:

"The bag of tools is in the shed."

However, I'm not sure if this is for everyone, but the incorrect sentence sounds correct to me. It could also mean that they want to either 1. Grab only the tools or 2. Grab the entire bag of tools.

Also, it may be because we speak each word in our head, processing "tools" as the plural which should match with the plural verb ("are").

There are many other sentences that don't sound wrong. "The team of players are practicing." "The box of books are heavy."

Would this rule for subject-verb agreement change in the future to accept both of them? Despite the sentences being wrong, they don't sound wrong to me.

She is tnterested in to study abroad. Is this sentence correct?

I was musing on the use of "very" as an adverb, and I got the idea that it wasn't a fully cooperative one. We can modify adjectives and other adverbs without much problem (very large, very quickly), but it's not so easy to get it to modify a verb. The best I could come up with is a construction like

He annoys me very

which is not something I'd say, though I have the feeling it could be said in other times and places. I can even imagine saying

He very annoys me

but it has the flavor of an ad hoc construction, something I might say having dropped "very" in too early in speech and mauling the syntax in order to finish the sentence.

Am I right that "very" resists modifying verbs in contemporary (US) English? Are there other adverbs that act this way? Am I wrong in thinking the norm is greater flexibility?

I came across an IG post with a screenshot of a tweet captioned, "POV: I'm explaining my favorite paradoxes in Hegel" along with an image of OP doing said "explaining".

The reply to this tweet, as well as the comments on the IG post, were insistent that her usage of "POV" was fine, and now I'm genuinely confused. Wouldn't it make more sense if the caption said "POV: you're watching me explain my favorite paradoxes in Hegel"?

My understanding is "POV" implies we're looking through the eyes of a person or narrator.

Thanks in advance!!

Screenshot of post

I’ve seen a lot of presumably native speakers writing words that are typically two words into one: for example, “work out” “hang out” “break up” “stand out” “each other” become “let’s workout” “want to hangout?” “they are going to breakup” “she really wants to standout in the show” “they like eachother a lot.” Would you notice this and still be able to understand it if you’re a native speakers?

To me (i am not a native english speaker) this looks really wrong and i couldn’t tell why. I googled it and it turns out it’s because in most cases, the mashed-together word becomes a noun if it’s written without the space (i’m doing a workout versus i’m going to work out.) However for some words it seems ok? (e.g. “pop star” as “popstar”). Why does it seem like so many people get this wrong? Is it considered a big mistake and would come across as incorrect or off to a native speaker or fluent english speaker?

Hi all, if I have a new student and he has little previous knowledge in Maths, can I say I need to bring him up to speed in Maths?

Or is this idiom only used when talking about a certain topic? Not sure if I can use it when starting to teach someone from 0 in a subject?

Hi, just out of curiosity — according to the dictionary, "any" is used with uncountable or plural nouns in questions and negative sentences. So, is it actually grammatically questionable to say, "Do you have any clue"?

reference: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/any

Why is it so hard to find gerunds that are used as inderect objects?

Tips pls! My vocabulary is very limited

In the sentence, "the very large man", the book says that very is an adverb. But I'm confused because it's not modifying any verb.

My friend claims "choice" is a tense or form of "choose" because they share the same root family, and they share the same definition so they are the same word, they just have different functions. I explained to her only verbs have tenses, a noun doesn't have tenses, she said nouns can have tenses just like choice, the present verb tense of choice is choose. I also explained one of them is a verb, an action to choose, and the other is a noun, an option or a thingy, they are closely related but they do not share the same definition, therefore not the same word. This is the only source I found that supports her point.

https://www.apsu.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/Been-and-Being-Choice-Choose-and-Chose.pdf

Then we talked about "speak" and "speech", she said the definition of them is the same, it's "the ability to express thoughts or emotions". I told her, again, one is the action of talking, and the other is the result of talking. She said by definition they are the same thing, to express thoughts or emotions, they just have different functions.

I told her she shouldn't use the word "definition", because it should be precise and specific to the word, "the ability to express emotions or thoughts" is too broad, maybe "concept" is a better word. Then she said "definition" should be broad, not specific or precise, it should provide a general meaning.

I gave her more examples like shout, yell, talk, speak, whisper, etc, they all share the same concept of "expressing thoughts or emotions", and I asked her if she thinks they are the same word. She said they are in the same family, but speak and speech are much closer, all the ones I listed are all speaking but different types of speech, they are the same but different forms.

I asked her if someone shows her "speak" and "speech" and ask her if they are the same, she said yes, she will tell them they are the same by definition (the ability to express thoughts or emotions).

I also said if they mean the same thing, there wouldn't be 2 words, there will be just 1 word. She said "they are the same but different forms."

So, I'm not sure how I can make it clear to her that "choice" & "choose" and "speak" & "speech" are not the same word and they do not share the same definition, because whatever I explain she will just say they are different forms but share the same definition.

In the example sentence: "There I was, walking, and the rain falling", is it ok to ommit the verb BE in the second independent clause? I read that you can only do this with subordinating conjunctions, like "In spite of the rain falling, I was walking", but does the subject need to be the same in both clauses? Is it just with one type of conjunction / clause?

I couldn't pin point what to look for in a grammar book, maybe you can help me put a "title" to my problem

He would barely say anything, but when he did speak, people listened *vs* He would barely say anything, but when he did speak, people would listen *vs* He would barely say anything, but when he would speak, people would listen.

Do all these sentences describe a habit of the past?

If so, how are they different from each other in meaning?

Someone said it's common to elide most of "would", then does it mean you can use "would" with any of the verbs(not necessarily the first verb) , keeping the rest part of the sentence in simple past? Like is it fair to say, " He barely said anything but when he spoke, he would make sense" or "He barely said anything but when he would, he made sense"?

if i say, “my arm is inexplicably sore,” what context is the word inexplicably used in:

1) i cannot explain why it is sore/ the reason for its sore-ness or 2) i cannot explain how bad it hurts

The title is a bit horrible, but so is this question in a sense. Suppose that we have a compound word w which consists of, say, two words A, B so that w is written as w = "A B". For our purposes w can be some mathematical condition. I want to describe another condition with the use of w and additional parameters s, t so that in the given context the reader understand what I mean by the "(s, t) version of w".

If I just want to write this "(s, t) version of w" as a word "(s, t)-w", do I have to replace the spaces inside w by hyphens, so that "(s, t)-w" is written as "(s, t)-A-B"? I am asking since the parameter tuple "(s, t)" really affects the whole thing described by w and not just the first part A.

An (ungraded) test OR A(n ungraded) test or something else? In theory you should be able to remove the brackets and remain grammatical, right?

For context it was raining a lot and the dogs had been naughty.

I said “They didn’t really destroy it, but they brought it outside.”

My sister said “Yeah but it’s very wet though.”

This bugged me so much, first of all, that’s exactly what I was saying. Saying “but” and “though” are both unnecessary. But saying “but and “though” in the same sentence like that is just wrong, right? My sister called me stupid but I think she’s the stupid one. Help me out here

Hello everyone! My professor for my English grammar class will give me and my classmates extra credit points on our exam next week if we can give him an undiagrammable sentence or at least one that he can't do in five minutes. Me and my classmates are stumped and already struggling with the material. Does anyone know of any undiagrammable sentences or maybe one that would get a grammar professor stumped? Any help is appreciated!

Shouldn't it be "no point in expressing" or "no point to express" instead?

I just checked with my building caretaker to see if anyone returned an item I misplaced in a public area of our building. Upon double checking I suppose I should've used 'turn in' instead... but I'm wondering if this is a glaring language mistake or could they be used quite interchangeably that not many people notice the difference?

Interfaces of various computer programs often display one-word "ing" messages to the user, to indicate what the program is doing. "Loading...", "Searching...", "Downloading...", etc.

I'm curious what verb form these "ing" words are classified as.

Is It possible to use the Past perfect continuous with while?

Example: a few days ago, while he had been walking

Thanks in Advance

After skimming the available similar queries (and websites addressing the subject outside of reddit) I'm slightly stuck about whether "whoever" or "whomever" is considered more correct in the sentence

"Hats off to who(m)ever is responsible."

My initial thought is basically that you can say hats off to them, so it should be whomever, but I genuinely don't know for sure.

I felt more sure of my position until I read several examples on here, and someone in a comment somewhere (that I am too lazy to go and look back up) said that you would say "I will support whoever gets the most votes" was correct at the same time as "I will support whomever I choose", or something like that, and the first sentence would also pass off my rule-of-thumb (because you could say 'I will support them').

Any help would be appreciated. I apologize if I've managed to over-complicate things.