After the therapy, eight children (43%) became able to crawl/move on their back.
Or should I use "on their backs"?
Singular because each child only has one back, or plural because we're dealing with eight backs?
Answer
Plural, because we are, in fact, dealing with eight little backs. And a back is a back, no matter how small. A child has a back, but children have backs.
I'm sure others will back me on this.
is it 'a usual' or 'an usual'? 'A usual' sounds more correct in my head ('Today was a usual day.') than 'an usual', but u is a vowel. Which one is correct and why?
Answer
Usual (pronounced /ˈjuː.ʒu.əl/ as in you) begins with a consonant sound and, as such, it should be preceded by a not an.
As an aside, I cannot help but point out that the sentence
Today was a usual day
is not usually heard in regular conversation.
Today was an unusual day
is what one might hear, instead!
Indeed, I rarely hear the construction a usual. The definite article is more commonly used, in my experience:
That's the usual thing.
In place of a usual, one would also be more likely to hear not an unusual:
- Today was a usual day / Today was not an unusual day
- This is a usual occurrence / This is not an unusal occurrence or This usually happens
You are right in saying that a usual sounds weird. As speakers, we tend to avoid constructions which, though correct, do not flow easily from the mouth. In sum, the following are valid and commonly used alternatives:
not [an] unusual • the usual • usually
I'm writing a section about some mathematical properties and have trouble with the use of articles (indefinite/definite/no).
I could come up with the following variants, but don't know which one is the correct one.
What I want to say is that if we pick any values for A and B, considering they are
integers, there will be items such as (A, B, 2), (A, B, 3), ..
Which article should come before item?
Answer
The correct article to use is "an". However, the fact that people don't actually understand what any of your sentences mean indicates that you are not being precise enough. Put the sentence in more mathematical language.
I think that what you mean is either:
For any integers A and B, there is an integer C > 1 such that an item of the form (A,B,C) exists,
or
For any integers A and B, there is an integer C > 1 such that (A,B,C) is an item.
Which of these you should use depends on the exact definition of an item, which we cannot deduce from your question.
So I thought I'm sure about this and my instincts say that: "If anyone has seen them .." would be right but then again when I said it like: "If anyone have seen them .." I started thinking which one would be the right one.
Can you please guide me through which is the right one and why?
P.S. English is not my first language.
Answer
It's "if anyone has", because "anyone" functions as third person singular. It probably just seems right to use "have" because you would for any other number or person.
We usually say "10 pounds", but for a single bill we say "10 Pound note" and not "10 pound(s) note". And when we have a lot of notes we say again "10 Pound notes". Why this disparity?
Answer
There is a general tendency in languages that when a word that inflects is incorporated into a word or a phrase as a modifier, it loses its inflection.
Since we don't have many inflections left in English, this is not as obvious as in some other languages; but it is generally the case that when a noun is used as a modifier in English it does not take plural inflection irrespective of the sense:
cow house, dog kennel, car park(ing), tree surgeon, window cleaner, bookseller, flea circus, language lessons, container ship, crop spraying, child poverty ... the list is endless.
There are exceptions of course: "drinks cabinet" is an example. But in the overwhelming majority of cases (including all measurements used attributively) the qualifying noun is in the singular.
I'm a bit confused about this. Which expression is correct?
You can't just do that.
or
You just can't do that.
I'm trying to say:
You can't just bash an ideology because of what someone has said/done.
Answer
As with only, one should exercise care in carefully placing just. In your sentence, you want:
Because you want to be perfectly clear that just applies to because.
In the original pair of question, this one:
Applies just to do, whereas this one:
Applies just to can’t.
I would like to ask why the following sentence is only possible according to grammatical rules:
I'm reading a novel of Steinbeck's
What's wrong with "I'm reading a novel of Steinbeck" or "I'm reading Steinbeck's novel"?