I'd like to know whether "was" should be treated as a subjunctive in the following:
a. If there were a 20-story office building without an elevator, those whose office was on the 18th floor would climb many steps each day.
b. If there were someone who was able to speak over 500 languages at native levels, he would be considered a genius of some sort.
Here was is used to describe hypothetical situations and is considered correct even in Standard American English
I'd appreciate your help
Which is correct?
You may be impressed how often the technique is being used in
industry.
You may be impressed by how often the technique is being used in
industry.
The first one is what I get used to saying in daily life. It may turn out I've been wrong for ages. I immediately noticed there might be something grammatically wrong when I wrote it. I couldn't help but add the preposition by to make the sentence correct. Is it just a matter of style?
Answer
No, by shouldn't be omitted after impressed.
In writing, people generally use by, with, or that after impressed
I'm impressed by his skill
"President Obama Is Not Impressed With Your Right To Modify His Photos"
I'm impressed that it's selling so well this soon.
A sentence like "I'm impressed how tall he is" doesn't sound like idiomatic native-speaker English to my ear, but I'm sure that people say and write it. A good copy editor will change it to "impressed by how tall" or, perhaps, "impressed with how tall", or "impressed that he's so tall".
Google Ngrams shows that
1 impressed by
and
2 impressed with
are most frequently found in books,
3 impressed that
is rarely found in books, and
4 impressed how
is never found in books. This doesn't mean that people don't say it, however: people will say anything, regardless of whether it's right or wrong.
Perhaps choosing between by and with is merely a matter of style. You'll have to decide based on context and the specific sentence whether one is better than the other. Give us some choices and we'll see what everyone else thinks -- maybe.
Take the following two sentences:
- She gave him an apple.
- She gave an apple to him.
What is the difference between the two sentences?
I heard that the object at the end of the sentence gets more emphasis, but I know that there is no emphasis on the object at the end of the sentence. Instead, the object at the end of the sentence will be new information and the other is old information.
Am I right?
The word year when pronounced starts with a phonetic sound of e which is a vowel sound making it eligible for being preceded by an. Yet, we tend to write a year. Why?
Answer
I reject your premise that the word year starts with a phonetic sound of e. Here's how it is pronounced according to the various dictionaries:
Words that start with the /j/ sound are preceded by an a, not by an an. Compare: a user, a utility, a yak.
I'm writing up specs for a website with learning materials for our alpha testers to comment on. Among others, I'm describing the rating system: the materials can be rated (...) several criteria (such as usefulness, quality), e.g. by giving 3 stars for usefulness and 5 for quality.
Is "according to" the only proper way to link "rate" and "criteria" in this case? Can we rate by quality? rate on quality? 'rate in quality'?
I would usually just say 'rate the quality', without a preposition or anything, but I can't really use that in a passive sentence about the materials, and I know that even if I change this specific sentence into an active one, I'll need the passive at some point as well...
(please note that I mean the act of rating (ie. giving stars or votes or whatever), not the act of sorting things by their ratings - which is I suspect why the 'by' and 'according to' options don't sound right to me)
Answer
The most obvious rewording that fixes this issue is:
The material's quality can be rated.
But if you want to keep your original form, the best preposition would be:
The material can be rated for quality.
Relevant NGram data for "rated * quality" show that "for" beats out "on" and "by" by significant margins.
Which is correct
1 Get out the house. Or
2 Get out of the house?
I've heard that the American English standard is the first one and the British English standard is the second one. Is that true? The Oxford dictionary says in a side note that out as a preposition is standard in American English while the prepositional phrase out of is standard in British English while saying out is not standard.
"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" -- Jane Austen
Many famous authors and writers use coordinating conjunctions and commas in this way. Are these commas used to make it easier to parse, or are they indicating a pause, or are they indicating a tonal shift? What are the specific guidelines for commas preceding a coordinating conjunction that is between an independent clause and subsequent dependent clauses?
In the example sentence, I understand why there is a comma between "neighbors" and "and": the coordinating element contrasts the inversion of the dependent clauses. I, however, do not understand the comma between "live" and "but." "For what do we live" is an independent clause, not an introductory clause.
Here is another example from a college writing center's website.
"When connecting two independent clauses with a comma and a word like 'however' or 'therefore,' you can either divide the sentence into two sentences, or use a semicolon, which can be used to connect two independent clauses without a coordinating conjunction."
So, what do you think?