the statement ‘nothing can be known’ seems straightforward, right? ‘nothing’ is the subject, in which case the statement can be taken to mean that not a single thing can be known. and yet, is there a way of taking the ‘nothing’ as adverbial, to qualify the ability to know, such that the statement negatively qualifies … Read more
I was looking up “wallah” and the OED said “from the Hindi suffix -vālā ‘doer’” and I was wondering if there was a term for suffixes like this. I suspect the answer is really trivial More English examples would be -er which transforms kick into kicker or jest into jester. Answer I would call this … Read more
I’m wondering what is the actual subject in this sentence: “One of the countries she has visited that I have not is Canada.” To me, everything up until ‘is’ seems like the subject, but I can’t find any information about relative clauses being found in a subject, other than in the case of a ‘that’ … Read more
I’m unsure whether I should use “are” or “is” in the following sentence: “The art and animation in particular are incredible.” or “The art and animation in particular is incredible.” I’m sort of interpreting “art and animation” as a singular noun, since I’m referring to “art and animation” as one category to be evaluated. Is … Read more
I want to sign a letter jokingly not by name, but by a personal pronoun. Is the signature a subject or an object? I feel like using object pronoun (me) sounds better, but why? The signature looks more like a subject to me. Example: Best regards, I or Best regards, me And for more people … Read more
Can I omit the subject if it has been mentioned in a preceding sentence? For example, is the phrase inside the parentheses necessary in the below?: The sculpture A exhibits degradation at a seemingly increased rate from 30 years ago. However, the surrounding environment is considered not to have changed at a significant level since … Read more
I have this sentence from one of my IELTS books: One of the reasons scientists think that there is a link between stress and cancer is the idea that there may be a cancer-prone personality At first, I think that the main subject of this sentence is “one of the reasons”, the verb is “is”, … Read more
I am practicing for the IELTS test and end up freezing at the moment wondering whether the above structure correct: “The thinking of..” followed by a full statement as the subject and then “…is completely wrong”. It sounded right to me but I couldn’t find any example online with that structure. Hope you guys can … Read more
I’m having a hard time with this sentence: Professional bodies will monitor, and if necessary, discipline members who do not adhere to their ethical principles. Does ‘their’ refer to the members or to the professional bodies? Answer I agree with @Nigel J in that the sentence is ambiguous, but if I had to guess: Short … Read more
At times, during commentary, commentators speak sentences like “Playing well, Victor is”, “A great player, Steven was”. Answer It’s grammatical but it’s “marked”, meaning that this word order isn’t the normal declarative order but is chosen intentionally to create emphasis. Even then, it isn’t usual, and I’m surprised by your implication that commentators are using … Read more
