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NKM |
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Advanced Member |
| Retired computer programmer; musician |
| Language in general, English in particular |
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Saturday, February 14, 2015 |
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Tuesday, April 24, 2018 5:52:00 PM |
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Koh Elaine wrote:Studying hard is indispensable to the challenge for/of achieving good results.
1. Which is the correct preposition?
2. Is the sentence grmmmatically correct?
Thanks.
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Certainly "of" is better than "for", if only because "challenge for achieving" sounds very strange for this use.
In fact, I don't really like "indispensable to the challenge" either. I'd prefer "… indispensable for the sake of achieving good results."
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papo_308 wrote:It seems to me that the "by" is not needed (or even incorrect??).
The key should be a noun phrase.
The key is studying hard. not The key is by studying hard.
Or am I totally wrong?
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That's exactly right. The word "by" feels out of place in this construction.
On the other hand, one might say "… the key is in studying hard." (But it's probably better with no preposition at all.)
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One might specify a particular arm of the services. In that case we would say "go into" instead of "go to", and we would use the definite article with the name of the service branch — e.g., "go into the Navy …".
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Generally speaking, "go-ahead" is synonymous with "OK" (when used as a noun). Both are informal, but widely used and universally understood.
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Nikitus wrote:Hello.
First of all, thanks for your help.
Are the following sentences grammatically correct?
"When Liz returned to the bar, after a few minutes looking for Cindy, she found her near one of the televisions, using a fork as if it were a microphone, singing a song with a couple of people applauding the improvised performance, since the bar did not have karaoke. Before it will probably end in a disaster, Liz took her friend, who was obviously drunk, and bring her to the table, asking for two coffees."
Thanks.
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"When Liz returned to the bar, after a few minutes looking for Cindy she found her near one of the televisions, using a fork as if it were a microphone, singing a song with a couple of people applauding the improvised performance. (The bar did not have karaoke.) Fearing that this might end in disaster, Liz took her friend, who was obviously drunk, and brought her to the table, then ordered two coffees."
Note that the original wording — with commas both before and after the phrase "after a few minutes looking for Cindy" — seems a bit ambiguous. I removed the second comma, to indicate that Liz returned to the bar and then started looking for Cindy.
"When Liz returned to the bar after a few minutes looking for Cindy, she found her …" would mean that Liz had been looking for Cindy somewhere else, then came back to the bar and found her near one of the televisions.
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If I heard "today last week" or "this day last week", I'd have to wonder what not only was meant but also what dialect was being spoken.
"Monday last week" would be perfectly clear and quite normal; "this time last week" would be "a week ago today, at about this time of day".
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"It would be good if each of us went through the text …."
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As Audiendus has pointed out, this construction is perfectly normal in certain contexts.
"The kids are usually well behaved, but they're being little brats today."
"I can't believe you said that! You're being too judgmental."
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Yes, it needs the comma.
Aside from that, the whole thing reads quite naturally, and appears to have been written by a native speaker.
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Islami wrote:English is not a complete language therefore,
"We can't tell whether "come" is a noun or a verb in "all that come"."
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English is far more than a "complete" language, largely because it is not completely bounded and defined.
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