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Usenet Posted 23 years ago
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Grammar Questions IV

Thank you all for your kind help with the last set of questions. I still found some areas in English grammar/syntax I'm not familiar with:
1) "A black cloth hung over the bird cage, where it had been placedmany evenings ago." My test-prep book corrects it to "Many evenings ago, a black cloth had been placed over the bird cage." However, this new sentence shifts the tense from simple past to past perfect and thus alters the meaning. How would you convey the same idea while maintaining the simple past tense?
2) "In the coming elections, we citizens are asked to vote on the saleof state bonds." My book says the conditional tense "are being asked" should be used instead. What is the "conditional tense"?
3) "I know that my sister has and will always be my champion." Thebook claims the sentence is correct, but shouldn't it be "...has been and will always be..." instead?
4) "Number of workers" is correct while "amount of workers" isn't,correct?
5) Which is preferred: "had proved" or "had proven"?
6) "Johnson's main point in the article in the newspaper was hisbelief that the corrupt politicians would never be prosecuted for their misdeeds." The book claims, "The possessive pronoun 'his' cannot refer to the possessive proper noun Johnson's." Is the book correct?
Thank you.
  

Top answer

(Email Removed) (AnandVishy) burbled [nq:1]Thank you all for your kind help with the last set of questions. I still found some areas in English ... [/nq] This is a terrible revision by the book.

  • (Email Removed) (AnandVishy) burbled [nq:1]Thank you all for your kind help with the last set of questions.
  • I still found some areas in English ...
  • [/nq] This is a terrible revision by the book.
  • If this is a description from a story, for example, the author is focusing the reader's attention on the black cloth hanging over the birdcage, not when it was hung over the bird cage.
  • It doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.
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8 Answers
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(Email Removed) (AnandVishy) burbled
[nq:1]Thank you all for your kind help with the last set of questions. I still found some areas in English ... bird cage." However, this new sentence shifts the tense from simple past to past perfect and thus alters the meaning.[/nq]
This is a terrible revision by the book. If this is a description from a story, for example, the author is focusing the r
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[nq:2]Thank you all for your kind help with the last ... simple past to past perfect and thus alters the meaning.[/nq]
[nq:1]This is a terrible revision by the book. If this is a description from a story, for example, the author ... over the bird cage and that it had been placed there "many evenings ago" (a strange locution here, I think).[/nq]
I think it does change the meaning or
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[nq:1]Thank you all for your kind help with the last set of questions. I still found some areas in English ... past perfect and thus alters the meaning. How would you convey the same idea while maintaining the simple past tense?[/nq]
There is nothing wrong with the original sentence. It is standard idiomatic English and has no need of correctiong. You lose information if you switch to the "cor
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A correction of a mistatement of fact in my response to #2.

CyberCypher (Email Removed) burbled

I like totally spaced out when I wrote this last sentence. I kept thinking that it should have be written as "we are being asked" and that was what I was thinking when I said this, which is obviously wrong.
The tense is present and the aspect is simple and the voice is passive. I w
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Harvey Van Sickle (Email Removed) burbled
[nq:1]I think it does change the meaning or at least introduces potential ambiguity.[/nq]
Yes, you're right about the potential ambiguity. The cloth might still have been hanging there or it might have been removed by the time the description was delivered. Without a context, though, or a picture, we'll never know.
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A clarification is now necessary.
CyberCypher (Email Removed) burbled
[nq:2]There is no "conditional tense". The tense is present and the aspect is continuous/progressive.[/nq]
[nq:1]I like totally spaced out when I wrote this last sentence. I kept thinking that it should have be written ... I was unable to sleep (I went to bed about 45 minutes ago) because I kept thinking about my mis
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[nq:1]Thank you all for your kind help with the last set of questions. I still found some areas in English ... past perfect and thus alters the meaning. How would you convey the same idea while maintaining the simple past tense?[/nq]
I think I am going to change the sentence as follows: hung over the bird cage, A black cloth was placed many evenings ago.

Explanation: the " hung over..
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(snip
[nq:1]Can you tell us more about this book? Like the author(s), the publisher, the date of publication, the purpose of ... should put it in the nearest round file with a healthy dose of lighter fluid and a match or ten.[/nq]
Thanks everyone once again for your kind help.
The book I use is "SAT II SUCCESS: Writing" written by Margaret Moran and W. Frances Holder and published by t

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