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- You'll usually hear this expression in the form of a rhetorical question: "Does a bear sh*t in the woods?". Sh*t is of course a fairly common word that means waste matter excreted from the bowels. Woods are forested areas, which is where you will often find bears (and therefore where they would normally defecate). That means the obvious answer to the question is: "Yes, of course". However the question is usually used rhetorically to make a point rather than expecting an answer. For example, if someone were to ask "Do you want another drink?", he might get the answer "Does a bear sh*t in the woods?" meaning "Yes, of course I want another drink". The other rhetorical question that you might hear used in this way is :"Is the pope catholic?". It's used in the same way as "Does a bear sh*t in the woods?" to mean "Yes. of course". Hope this helps.0 votedAugust 26, 20200
- You will hear native speakers use both "different from"and "different to". The choice may be a regional thing, here in the USA I mostly hear people saying "different from", but in the UK "different to" may be more common. You will sometimes also hear people use "different than" but the correctness of that is somewhat dubious. I don't think any native speaker would ever use "different with".0 votedAugust 19, 20201
- You're correct when you say that 'here' is not the subject, In your sentence, 'here' is an adverbial complement. That means it is an adverb that completes the predicate and not, as you correctly point out, the subject. The subject of your sentence is 'task'. That may not seem obvious because it follows the verb rather than preceding it which is what we would expect in the commonly seen subject-verb-object sentence, but you should be able to see it if you just re-arrange your sentence like this: 'Your task for tomorrow is here'. I think that with that word order, the subject is clearly 'task'. By the way, I'm not suggesting you should use the re-arranged word order. Your original sentence sounds natural and it's what native speakers would say if they were handing out tasks, I'm just showing the re-arranged word order to make it clear why the subject is 'task'. Hope this helps.0 votedJuly 20, 20201
- If you want the verb to be in the infinitive, then you're going to need another verb in the sentence as well. That is because an infinitive in a sentence, although it is a form of the verb, is usually being used in the place of another part of speech like a noun, adjective, or adverb. Words that are formed from verbs but that are not used like verbs are called 'verbals' in English grammar. I'll give you an example. Take a look at the following sentence which uses the infinitive 'to play': Kittens love to play, Now compare that to this sentence (which doesn't use an infinitive): Kittens love milk. In the second sentence, you can easily see that the subject is the noun 'kittens', the verb is 'love', and the object is the noun 'milk'. Now compare that to the first sentence and you'll see that the basic structure of the two sentences is identical; the only difference is that the noun 'milk' has been replaced with the infinitive 'to play'. In this sentence, 'to play' has become a verbal taking the place of a noun in the other sentence. Since it's not acting like a verb you need another (conjugated) verb ('love') to make a sentence. Verbals can take the place of adjectives and adverbs as well: The doctor to call is Dr Jones. ('to call' is acting like an adjective). I can't wait to hear. ('to hear' is acting like an adverb). Note that in these cases there is still another verb in each sentence ('is' and 'wait' respectively). As a final example, let's take a sentence from one of the comments on your question above: This device governs the rotation speed of the drive shaft. This sentence does not use an infinitive. You would only use 'the infinitive ('to govern') as a verbal and then of course you'd need another (conjugated) verb. Here's an example where 'has been designed' is the conjugated verb and 'to govern' is the infinitive used as a verbal. This device has been designed to govern the rotation speed of the drive shaft. Hope this helps.0 votedJuly 17, 20200
- If the game they are playing is golf, then 'scratch' refers to his handicap. People with different skill levels play golf. In order to even things up, golf has a handicap system. Basically a player's handicap is an indication of how many strokes over par he is expected to need to complete a round. The weaker your golf game, the higher your handicap. Amateurs can deduct strokes from their scorecard according to their handicap; the higher your handicap the more strikes you can deduct. The very best amateur golfers (and all of the professionals of course) have a zero handicap. That is referred to as a scratch handicap and you'll often hear the players with zero handicaps referred to as 'scratch golfers'. It just means they're very good at the game and have a zero handicap.0 votedJuly 7, 20205
- In a sentence that has the form of <some imagined situation> then <some possible resulting action>, the <some imagined action> part should use the subjunctive and the <some possible resulting action> should use the conditional tense. The grammatical model is: If + <subjunctive> then + <conditional>. For example: If I were (subjunctive) the king then I would live (conditional) in a palace. Note that, especially in informal speech, it's often possible to omit the word 'then' without changing the meaning of the sentence, but the grammar remains the same. For example: ' If I were (subjunctive) the king I would live (conditional) in a palace', In your case, your sentence is a question, but it follows the same basic model. The 'if' part should use the subjunctive and the result part should use the conditional: 'If you were a parent, would you give your kid an allowance?' Note also that this kind of sentence describes a hypothetical situation. The person to whom you are addressing the question may not be a parent and may never become a parent. It's a hypothetical or imagined situation and that's why the subjunctive is used. On the other hand, if you were talking to expectant parents and you were asking about their real future plans (as opposed to a hypothetical situation), you would just use the indicative: 'When you become parents, are you going to give your kid an allowance?' By the way, just as a further example, if you look at the last sentence in the paragraph above (the sentence that starts with "On the other hand,...") you'll see that I wrote it using exactly the "if <subjunctive> then <conditional>" model: "... if you were talking (subjunctive)..., you would (conditional)...".0 votedJune 23, 20200
- It's a question of direct and indirect objects. The direct object of 'to steal' is the thing that you stole. The person or organization from whom you stole it is an indirect object. So, using 'to steal' as the verb, you could say 'I stole money from him', with 'money' being the direct object and 'him' being the indirect object and needing a preposition. You cannot use the person being stolen from as the direct object. In other words, sentences like "I stole him of his money' are incorrect, On the other had, the direct object of the verb 'to rob' is the person being robbed and the thing that is being taken is the indirect object. So, using 'to rob' as the verb, you could say 'I robbed him of his money' with 'him' being the direct object and 'his money' being the indirect object and needing a preposition. Note how the direct and indirect objects are swapped in these two simple model sentences and you'll get it right every time: I stole something from somebody, I robbed somebody of something.0 votedJune 23, 20200

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