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1500 questions
13
votes
7 answers
What is the difference between "I am done" and "I am through"?
What is the difference between when we say "I am done" and "I am through"? Please give examples to make the difference clear.
chanzerre
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5 answers
a brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex: why not "the" brain region?
From a news report:
Now that they had evidence that the brain could generate both strategic and random behavior, Karpova and her colleagues wanted to know how it switched between modes. Since that switch determines whether or not an animal's…
CowperKettle
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13
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7 answers
Why can't you say: "You have been having a haircut." when you see your friend in the street with his new shorter hair?
Here are the two same situations where you say something based on the results that you see. But one is said present perfect continous and the other is not.
"It has been raining." (Ok, you use this tense, because wake up in the morning, and look out…
yunus
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13
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10 answers
Why "stepped off the train" instead of "stepped off a train"?
There is an article in The Guardian, and it has a sentence with a definite article that I would replace with an indefinite one.
'I am out to beat everybody in sight and that's just what I'm going to do,' she said when she stepped off the train in…
Dmitry
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13
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6 answers
Why is the answer "it" --> 'Mr. Akagi was unable to buy tickets for the concert because it/they was sold out'
How can the answer in the following test question be "it"?
Mr. Akagi was unable to buy tickets for the concert because it/they was sold out.
manh nghiem
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13
votes
2 answers
"I'm wearing a red PANT." or "I'm wearing a red PANTS."
Is correct to use "Pant" or is "Pants" better?
Here the phrase below:
I'm wearing a red pants.
Redska
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13
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2 answers
Is it correct to change the verb to "being" in "Despite no one was hurt in this incident…"?
I was doing a grammar practice where we are to correct the grammatical error without changing the meaning when I came across this sentence:
Despite no one was hurt in this incident, about 70 shark attacks take place every year worldwide, some of…
rain soupreme
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13
votes
7 answers
Cut the price "by" or "to" or "in" half?
Suppose the cost of a product used to be $100 and now the seller has discounted it to $50.
Which preposition is appropriate here ("by", "in", "to", ...):
The seller cut the price ... half?
Can I also avoid using any proposition here and use half…
alireza
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13
votes
3 answers
Is the expression "hold the fort" used incorrectly here?
This is a part of a podcast called "Norm Macdonald live"
The phrase occurs 01:49 into the video:
420 was the birthday of Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the national-socialist German worker's party. A fellow went by the name Adolf…
Static Bounce
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13
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7 answers
Is it correct to say "his wife ghosted him although they lived in the same house"?
The dictionary says
ghost somebody: to suddenly stop all communication with somebody, usually online, in order to end a relationship
so, according to the dictionary, we often say "someone ghosted someone" in an online communication.
My question is…
Tom
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13
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6 answers
What is the logic behind "I am X years old"?
In most languages (I know of), people say their age with a construction like "I have X years". In English, however, you say how old you are instead. So I'm curious about what is it about the logic of English that makes this sound more natural than…
San Diago
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8 answers
What do you call a place where certain ideas are prevalent?
What noun could I use? "Hotbed"? "Hotspot"? Please don't mention the expression "safe state".
The city was hardly a liberal __________: the conservatives have won five consecutive elections there
Sergey Zolotarev
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13
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3 answers
Article Confusion Again! Why is there an 'a' instead of a 'the'?
Articles give me a lot of pain! Here is the latest one.
From the Yahoo! News page -
Have you seen Facebook posts claiming to link to a video message that actor Robin Williams made before his death earlier this week? Do not click on it — the video…
Maulik V
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13
votes
3 answers
What's the meaning of 'I'm so calling you that'?
The below is the part of conversation in the TV series, Modern Family:
Denise: He had a boom box and a piece of cardboard in his locker. And
what was your dance name?
Haley's dad: O-Zone, Yeah
Denise: I drove
him to his Star Search…
hbadger19042
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13
votes
6 answers
What does "the money was the chips" mean?
Bank robber Willie Sutton said:
Why did I rob banks? Because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I'd…
Fabio says Reinstate Monica
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