147 replies to this topic

[Valkyrie]

Oh not that! I meant the people who write the books! science usually ignores grammar rulings. And shouldn't it be "has" instead of "have"? This is confusing

You're right! I don't usually check my grammar when talking informally. No point.

And Science books usually ignore grammar but it's not true necessarily true.

[HalfAngel]

Actually, Ed0gawa was correct when he used 'is concerned'. While "concerned" is past tense, "is concerned" is present tense.

Valkyrie's sentence is incorrect, however, although I'm struggling to explain why ^^' Probably because I should be asleep right now. What I can tell you is that just because you are talking about something in the present, doesn't mean that absolutely everything in the sentence must be in present tense.

"Right-angled triangle" always remains that way, no matter what tense the rest of the sentence is in. "Right-angled" is the description of the triangle.

Eg.
Sarah crouched down to pick up the folded piece of paper.

This sentence is being told in past tense, so why did I not write "picked up"?

If we break this sentence down a little bit, it becomes:
1)Sarah crouched down
2)to pick up
3)the folded piece of paper.

The verb in phrase 1 is the one that describes what the subject, Sara, is doing. This verb tells us what tense the sentence is in.
The verb in phrase 2 describes what Sara is doing to the piece of paper in phrase 3.
The verb in phrase 3 is merely describing the piece of paper.

You could also change the sentence around to make it present tense or future tense.
Sarah crouches down to pick up the folded piece of paper.
Sarah will crouch down to pick up the folded piece of paper.

[MadelineLime]

I have a question.

My professor said that the sentence "That was her on the phone a while ago" is grammatically wrong and that "her" should be replaced with "she" which is in the nominative case. Well, never in my life have I read or heard such a sentence as "That was she on the phone." Why is that so?

You could avoid the whole thing by saying, "she was on the phone a while ago." In whatever context it would be used in conversation, e.g.: "where is Sandra?" "She was on the phone a while ago," the context is completely implied and you can avoid using the "that was..." portion. Or even use "that earlier phone call was Sandra,"/"that phone call earlier was Sandra."

Actually I don't believe the above is a run-on sentence. Here is my example:

John loves rebecca he is madly in love.

It's missing the proper punctuation. There are two different ideas incorrectly combined.
The correct way to write this would be:

John loves Rebecca. He is madly in love.

It's usually best to break the sentences down into two simpler sentences. Sure it's really simple and basic, but it's also the proper way to do it.

While it is made of different ideas, they are related and can stay as a single sentence. I make mistakes in proper English sometimes, as I had trouble memorizing grammar in school, but I am a native speaker. There are a few ways that you could use the run-on example in conversation, whether or not it's perfectly correct. (Sorry! I think these are correct, though! lol)

As stated previously, "John loves Rebecca. He is madly in love."

You could also use:

• John loves Rebecca; he is madly in love.
• John loves Rebecca... he is madly in love.
• John loves Rebecca, he is madly in love.

Explanations:

• I'm a huge fan of semi-colons, and feel they do not get enough love!
• I am also a huge fan of ellipsis. However, most people use them incorrectly. An ellipsis has only three periods in it, and a fourth is uses to end a sentence. Examples: "blah blah blah...." blah blah blah...? "blah blah blah...!"
• The comma might not be completely correct, but most native English speakers would not even notice. I am questioning it, but I'm not entirely sure.

While I'm on about ellipsis, I highly suggest reading the link I made to it. They have so many uses!

[Alcadeias]

Need info on Paragraph Writing.

[Wicky]

^When writing a paragraph, you must have at least three lines/sentences in the paragraph, but you can have up to about six/seven. You should leave 1/2 lines/sentences space inbeetween each paragraph. Or you can do this: // \\ at the beginning if you forget to leave a gap, as far as I know. Make any sense?

[Alcadeias]

^When writing a paragraph, you must have at least three lines/sentences in the paragraph, but you can have up to about six/seven. You should leave 1/2 lines/sentences space inbeetween each paragraph. Or you can do this: // \\ at the beginning if you forget to leave a gap, as far as I know. Make any sense?

not much, need to know about the content of sentences, and how it should be related.

[Anime Girl 4 Eva]

not much, need to know about the content of sentences, and how it should be related.

Hmm, like how the first sentence should introduce the topic or subtopic, the second three should support it and the third should wrap it up?

[snowflake]

Question: is it incorrect to use ellispses in formal writing? My teacher says so and I can't understand why. When are you not supposed to use them and how do you know?