1) Yes, those first two expressions exist and make sense :) 2) Either way of saying this is really fine, it would just make a little more sense if you added in: "I hate the fact THAT there are some people defending his actions". You will be understood either way, though! I guess the only difference is that the second one seems a little stronger to me. 3) You report a robber's crime to the police. 4) The first sentence doesn't make much sense, but the second sentence is good 5) The placement of "only" in this sentence depends on what you are trying to express.. If you say "I thought you ONLY could apply for the fall courses", that means that you couldn't do anything except for apply for the fall courses (i.e. you couldn't teach them, applying is your only option). If you say "I thought you could apply ONLY for the fall courses", that means that you couldn't apply for any courses that are not the fall courses (i.e. you couldn't apply for the summer courses, you could only apply for the fall courses) Note that this is just technically what the placement means. In reality, it does not matter that much where you put only, as the context will be enough for the listener to understand what you mean. The more I think about it, English speakers put only all over the place, and we understand what the only is referring to by the context. It also has to do with the way words around it are stressed.. Like I said above, if you say "I thought you ONLY could apply for the fall courses", that means that you couldn't do anything except for apply for the fall courses. However, if you stress your words so that it is more like "I thought YOU ONLY could apply for the fall courses", even though it is the same exact sentence, the phrase "you only" being stressed makes the sentence's meaning more like "I thought that you were the only one who could apply". I'm sorry for how long this answer was, but I hope I helped a little bit :) Keep it up woohoo!