Questions tagged [prepositional-phrases]
Questions about prepositional phrases.
493 questions
4
votes
3
answers
95
views
Prepositional phrase >>to talk against<<
I talked to my friend about how bad the Spaniards were in the Philippines.
I told her:
If you talked against the government, you’d be imprisoned or killed.
Can I use against with the verb talk? ...
- 251
0
votes
1
answer
62
views
Is "to" interchangeable with "in order to" here? [duplicate]
Although I know it doesn't sound natural to native speakers, I'd like to ask if the sentence below is "grammatically/technically" correct.
They sent their son to England in order to learn/...
- 165
-2
votes
3
answers
178
views
'A lot of salespeople are shouting at the market': is this statement ambiguous?
Is the title an ambiguous sentence, or has it only one correct meaning, where the salespeople are arguing with the market?
I think it has two meanings:
[1] the salespeople are shouting and they ...
4
votes
2
answers
617
views
"He pulled as hard as he could on the oars." — Is "on the oars" a complement or an adjunct?
forum.thefreedictionary.com (from post #2):
He pulled as hard as he could on the oars.
"On the oars" is a prepositional phrase functioning as an adjunct (adverbial). It is not a complement. ...
- 1,145
13
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Dubious use of ‘it’ in sentences like: “In the novel The Great Gatsby, **it** explores the theme of the American Dream.”
I’m a Grade 12 English teacher. More and more I see my students writing sentences like this one:
In the novel The Great Gatsby, it explores the theme of the American Dream.
Instead of the more direct (...
2
votes
3
answers
535
views
What is preventing the trailing prepositional phrase from committing a "run-on" error, given the absence of a conjunction?
It is simply a story about war, about the things men do in war.
Source- Samuel Hynes's Soldier's Tale
Isn't the sentence grammatically incorrect since there isn't a conjunction between the two ...
- 177
0
votes
1
answer
117
views
"Get something done with" Why does it not follow the rules for phrasal verbs or prepositional phrases?
According to a grammar published by Cambridge there are two kinds of verbs which are complemented along with a single preposition or two particles such as adverb + preposition, in which there could be ...
0
votes
0
answers
82
views
Look (like) it/*so
According to Swan's Practical (BrE), so is not normally used adverbially to mean ‘like this/that’, ‘in this/that way’.
He says he is ill and he looks (like) it/✱so*
Is like optional in the example?
- 4,412
2
votes
1
answer
104
views
'All over' vs 'all over it' [closed]
The floor has had oil dropped all over (it).
Is there any difference in grammaticality between the version with and without the final it?
That is, prepositional phrase vs adverb, respectively.
- 4,412
1
vote
2
answers
120
views
"She succeeded, but at great personal cost." Understanding the comma in such sentences
In an academic paper I wrote recently, an editor removed a comma from a sentence in a way which sounds "wrong to my ear" as a native English speaker. However, I don't know of any universal ...
- 208
1
vote
0
answers
147
views
Beneficial to health or beneficial for health?
Which option is right?
Early rising is beneficial to/for health?
I browsed through the internet only to know that with "to" the sentence is correct. But health is not a person and if we ...
-3
votes
2
answers
165
views
Exemplification: 'such as X, as Y'
Oats are used to make foods such as oatmeal, as livestock feed.
Feed: food for animals, especially livestock.
Microsoft® Encarta® 2009
Is "such as X, as Y" just a typo?
---------------------...
- 4,412
1
vote
2
answers
214
views
Can you "wish something to someone"?
Is it correct to use the pattern "wish something to someone"?
The reason I ask is that I recently saw the following sentence written by a non-native English teacher:
Please wish Merry ...
- 11
2
votes
2
answers
222
views
Placement of "of course" in a negative sentence in the present perfect construction
For [it] has of course not come about out of nothing.
…as opposed to…
For [it] has not of course come about out of nothing.
Are these two sentences equally correct in what I guess we'd call formal ...
- 1,659
1
vote
2
answers
248
views
How are the expressions "rather than" and "instead of" classified?
I found an old post lamenting people's tendency to precede "rather than" with a comma. Here is the example they used:
"We decided to go to the grocery store[,] rather than a restaurant....
