I would like to know if &quot;start&quot; and &quot;begin&quot; are always interchangeable in sentences similar to the one below? I know that &quot;begins&quot; is more formal, but other than that is there examples where one of them would sound awkward to use? I know you can't list examples, but I just want to know if it's something I should be aware of when writing.  Suddenly the tree starts/begins to move violently from side to side.  Are &quot;start&quot; and &quot;begin&quot; both completely natural here?
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Are 'begin' and 'start' interchangeable? Both &quot;This is a new start&quot; and &quot;This is a new beginning&quot; work, right? Then during games, they say &quot;Let's start&quot;, but I never heard &quot;Let's begin&quot;. So is there supposed to be a difference? And then one guy said this &quot;They could not begin to start a conversation&quot;. What is this supposed to mean? Is it correct?
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I just read a book to learn English. And the topic I read is about the phrasal verbs, but a big doubt has come up to my mind.  Is it correct to change the position of the preposition (putting it with the verb instead of after the direct object)?  As in:  Common structure:   My wife backs me up over my decision to quit my job. We have to blow 50 balloons up for the party.  I need to break these shoes in before we run next week. Please help me out to get this job done.   So, would it be correct to do the following:   My wife backs up me over my decision to quit my job. We have to blow up 50 ballons for the party.  I need to break in these shoes before we run next week. Please help out me to get this job done.
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Except when we use right to denote direction, what is the difference between these two terms?  Also, which one is the preferred construction between these two     Am I right?   or     Am I correct?
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We always change subject and verb positions in whenever we want to ask a question such as "What is your name?". But when it comes to statements like the following, which form is correct?        I don't understand what are you talking about.   I don't understand what you are talking about.      Another example        Do you know what time is it?   Do you know what time it is?      Another example        Do you care how do I feel about this?   Do you care how I feel about this?
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What is the difference in meaning when the catenative verb “like” is followed by an infinitive, or by a gerund? For example:      Do you like ski jumping?    vs.      Do you like to ski jump?   Also, what is the difference between:      My brother taught me to read and write.    vs.       My brother taught me reading and writing.
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This question may seem to be very simple, but something I get confused whenever I want to speak.  I read a book entitled "re-start your English", and saw a sentence.     This is a leg. It is part of your body.      This is a neck. It is 'a' part of your body.   Why didn't they use 'a' in the first sentence? And why did they use one in the second one?  I'm not a native, so I hope you will please understand,  even if there's something awkward about my question.
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My teacher recently marked on my paper not to use a gerund to start a sentence. I have been told by teachers in the past to use that format to vary sentence structure. It seems to make the paper flow better oftentimes. An example:     Learning to confront his problems is an important part of [character's] growth and maturity in the novel.   Is there a grammar rule about this? I haven't ever heard/seen one before.  Edit: It would also be helpful to know of any good examples or arguments I would be able to use when discussing this.
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Possible Duplicate:                 I heard that "but, and, so" are not supposed to be used at the beginning of a sentence.  I have noticed, however, a lot of sentences use "but, and, so" as the first word of the sentence.  Are the words at the beginning of the sentence grammatically correct?
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Personally, I use “but” and “so” to start sentences, but not “and” and “because”.  Today I was talking to a friend of my brother on this matter, who is in 6th Grade. He takes tuition from a private tutor who told him that in early days using “and”, “but”, “so” to start a sentence was okay, but now-a-days it is becoming obsolete and that we should not use them to start a sentence. He is a reputed teacher here and he keeps track of current affairs. (He is the one who told me, when I was his student, that “will” is being used after “I” now-a-days and I followed the advice.) So I could not deny this information. Tried to find in Google about this but no source made me think it is trustworthy. So I would like to know this in StackExchange,   What is the actual rule and is this rule being changed?    PS- I don't use “because” to start sentences but I always had a doubt. So I added it!
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I know we can begin a sentence with Therefore. We can also use it after commas in a sentence.  For example, which is correct?   She had previous experience, therefore she seemed the best candidate. She had previous experience. Therefore, she seemed the best candidate.   I myself feel when the first or second clause is long or when the subject is switched, using "therefore" at the beginning of sentence is better. Therefore, I think sentence #1 is better here because it uses the same subject and both sentences are short.
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Is it proper to use the following expressions  I started to London yesterday afternoon . I started to London yesterday morning  I ask because it is supposedly correct to say 'last night'. Why don't we say 'last afternoon' or 'last morning'?
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Repeating the indefinite article. Is it a matter of style? If so, which quote is more natural [or maybe sounds better]?     My name is Amy Purdy, I am a survivor, snowboarder, founder of   Adaptive Action Sports, globetrotter and daydreamer.   vs.     My name is Amy Purdy, I am a survivor, a snowboarder, a founder of   Adaptive Action Sports, a globetrotter and a daydreamer.   Source: Amy Purdy Note: the first comma is from the source. It should be replaced by a period.
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Today, when looking up the definitions of the phrasal verb "take sth up", I noticed that one of them was written like this: "to start or begin something such as a job." For the first time I realised that probably "start" and "begin" don't exactly mean the same thing.So the question is what the difference is between the two, and if there are cases when they mean exactly the same thing.
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I want to know firstly if it's grammatically correct to start a declarative sentence with "Am". For example:     Am excited about the game today.   Secondly, if it is grammatically incorrect, then I wanted to ask how much "head room" there is for the above usage. I can't think of an example now, nor find one here at english.stackexchange. However I imagine there are usages of the english language that grammatically are illegal, yet have somehow become accepted as colloquial or idiomatic perhaps.
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Can we use though and although interchangeably? Somebody told me that the difference is that though cannot be used at the beginning of a sentence. Is that the rule?
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Relevant:  and   The answers in the linked question don't quite help me. Specifically, what happens with this case:  My three pens are green. Each of my three pens are green. Each of my three pens is green.  Part of the confusion seems to stem from the inclusion of &quot;three&quot;:  My pens are green. Each of my pens are green. Each pen is green.  There doesn't seem to be a way to rewrite the last example with &quot;three&quot;:  Each three pen is green.  The more common application would be:  All three pens are green.  But in the event that I want to say, &quot;Each of my three pens are green&quot; which is correct? And, in the event that the correct sentence is &quot;each of my three pens is green&quot; why does prepending &quot;each of&quot; to the beginning of &quot;my three pens are green&quot; change the verb?
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Consider the following sentence:     The labour-intensive and time-intensive part starts tomorrow.   I want to write this without rewriting the word "intensive."  Is this the correct way to do it?     The labour- and time-intensive part starts tomorrow.   Note the hyphen hanging after the word labour. Or should there be no hyphen after labour? Can anyone point me to a reference that talks about this?