Of course, "said" is correct in all three examples, but if you're looking for some variety: 1. "Light travels faster than sound," stated/asserted/declared Mr. Fitz. 2. "I hope your brother will be OK," offered/whispered Mum. I think in most cases the easiest way out would be use an adverb. "I hope your brother will be OK," Mum said worriedly/sarcastically/dismissively. You can add a lot of color that way. 3. The man declared/announced/insisted/asserted, "This soup is cold." I'm guessing you're trying to vary the vocabulary of storytelling. The rule of thumb would be use "said" more often than not, but break up the rhythm with other words when the emotion behind the statement can be emphasized. In some cases you can even omit the "this person said" statement when the conversation is heated or agitated as long as it's clear who is speaking. "Are you going to open the safe or not?" Julia asked. "The alarm is sounding," Matt pointed out. "The police will be here any minute." "I didn't break into the bank to leave empty handed." "Then you open the safe. I'm getting out of here."

Ghetto is not actually a slang word. It expresses in general the idea of a minority community that is separate from the majority culture, but it also suggests that the minority community is poor, isolated and that the living conditions are crowded and undesirable. In the case of American English, it refers to inner city African American communities. The word is not used so much anymore, but when I was growing up in the 1970s it was a very common term. The ghettos of the time were often centered around housing projects that concentrated people, who were always poor and nearly always black, into small neighborhoods.

They mean exactly the same thing. There are some differences in common usage. For instance, in the US at least, we refer to the spine of a book, but not the backbone of a book. Likewise, if we want to make fun of someone for being timid, we might tell them to grow a backbone, but normally not a spine. For most practical circumstances, you can use either word at any time. I guess spine sounds more medical than backbone.

Economical means using money or resources carefully. Economic most often means related to the economy or related to the way goods and services are produced, distributed or consumed, but it can also be used to mean economical. In general, you can almost always use economic, but you should not use economical when you are talking about business studies or the about a nation's economy. Economical tends to be used more often when talking about a bargain or about the choices one makes for a household budget. Hope that helps.

I think in Britain "practice" is a noun and "practise" is a verb. In the US, we use "practice" as both a noun and a verb.

The Present Perfect is used when an action happened at an unspecified time before now. The Present Perfect Continuous is used when an action happened in the past and has continued until now. I have studied German. (Present Perfect -- at some point before now I did the action of studying German but I am no longer doing that. ) I have been studying French since September. (Present Perfect Continuous -- I began my study of French in the past and I am still studying it today) These links might help: Present Perfect: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html Present Perfect Continuous: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfectcontinuous.html

I see in the picture.

The first one, "I thought a flood of people were" is correct. Both "thought" and "were" are in the past.