Which one is correct: '$5 billion was spent' or '$5 billion were spent'? It seems like the former is correct (can you explain it?). But would the answer change if I spelled the sum out (like, 'five billion dollars was/were spent')?
17913
Are the two sentences correct or is one of them incorrect?     1) Five billion dollars is earmarked for the project.   2) Five billion dollars has been earmarked for the project.   I know dollars are countable. So I think both 'is' and 'has been' are correct here.   Also, do they differ in meaning?
45892
Which of the following sentence is correct ? If both are correct, do they have the same meaning ? The company's sales grew by 70% year-on-year to US$100 m. The company's sales grew 70% year-on-year to US$100 m.
56477
I received an email saying that the documents are/were being processed.   Which is correct? Are or were?
67952
She has five kids. I can imagine how busy she would be.   Is the use of would be right in this sentence? What about      She has five kids. I can imagine how busy she is.   Are both correct? Do they mean different things?
102785
There is a question in our grammar book that goes like this:  Her husband, a plumber's assistant, earns only 300 dollars a month, which makes it very difficult for her to feed and clothe her children properly, ______________ send them to school. a. much more b. still more c. much less d. even less  The book says that the answer is C. How do i explain it in the clearest way possible to my student? She is an intermediate level.
108642
I was in a Teacher's selection for a school in my country, and one of the coordinators said that she heard a mistake from another teacher that was unacceptable. I tried to figure out why was that, but I thought it was silly and forgot about it. Then I was asking about the weekend in my classroom and one of my Ss said the same sentence. I corrected him according to the coordinator, as she is way more experienced than me, but I couldn't actually explain why to him. The sentence was:     I went to the church.   I can't see the mistake in this sentence if the church had been previously mentioned in the context of the conversation. I understand, as a non-native speaker, that if you are talking to a person that doesn't have any idea of where you were and doesn't have any previous information about the specific place, the article 'the' should not be used. Also, I am assuming church as a count noun. So instead, we would say:     I went to a church.   Is it correct to use the indefinite article since I don't have any idea of which church he is talking about?   I made a research about it and found that places that people use in common (like school, church, hospital, work) but are not necessarily the same, we would omit the article, so we would use the sentence that the coordinator accept:      I went to church.   Like this sounds strange to me, but since I am not a native speaker, I think that it is OK.   I really don't think that it was an unacceptable mistake, since the use of the article will depend on the context. So, if I am talking to my student, asking what he did last weekend and we were not talking about anything before, which one should he use?
114448
While editing some ad copy, and I was given the sentence, "Defending a lawsuit can be a big cost for your business." (My italics.)  I keep thinking the proper word to use is "expense" rather than "cost" as in: "Defending a lawsuit can be a big expense for your business." But I'm just not sure I'm correct.   Can anyone help with more definitive guidance? Can "cost" and "expense" be used interchangeably in a sentence like this?   Thank you!
31340
I'm having problems with hundred and thousand.   If someone asks you, How many trees are in this forest? Would you answer seven thousand or seven thousands, because thousands are countable?  I know that you usually say seven thousand, but I also know that thousands are countable, so wouldn't that make it seven thousands?  And when you are talking about multiple countable nouns, you would make it plural, but the plural isn't thousand, it's thousands, so it couldn't be that thousand is the plural.  Why isn't it a few thousands? Is it because of an exception in English? Any help would be appreciated.
39069
I believe the sentence in the title is grammatically correct.   Recently I've seen too many people writing it this way:     I'm not sure what is the right way.   Is it grammatically correct as well? Maybe in a different sense? Or simply misuse by non-native speakers?
58862
I know the rule is to use past simple when you specify the time when the described action happened, but I strangely dislike this sentence and I'm not sure if the rule applies:   "It's the best movie I saw this year".  Shouldn't it be: "It's the best movie I've seen this year"?  Please, could you justify your answers? Thank you in advance!  Cheers
40639
I have one question, what is the best way to say that sentence below? Are both grammatically correct?     He has been working on mobile development for 4 years and has published more than 15 apps.   or     He has been working on mobile development for 4 years, having published more than 15 apps.
67311
Please tell which one is correct. I am much interested. Or I am very Interested.  Please explain scientifically.
1976
I can't figure out if the below sentence should use “was” or “were”, since I'm not sure what the subject of the sentence is. Is the sentence incomplete? How do I handle this kind of sentence, where no nouns or pronouns are present?     Knowing how to jump and being able to run was / were crucial during my high jump career.
17061
Which is correct?     Everyone were convinced that he would go to the game.   Everyone was convinced that he would go to the game.   I think it's "was", because "everyone" is singular, but I just wanted to check.
9950
When I have to use information and performance I'm always confused.  However, I'm asking whether when I'm referring to more than one piece of information of performance I should use "information/performance is" or "information/performance are."
95376
I've been trying to work out which of the following make best grammatical sense but have been looking at them for so long now that my mind has turned to mush and they both seem wrong.    Which is better form:     A total of 0.0605 moles (3 s.f.) of NaOH was originally added to the aspirin   Or:     A total of 0.0605 moles (3 s.f.) of NaOH were originally added to the aspirin   I know that moles is plural but personally I think was is the better of the two.  I would appreciate some opinions on which reads better to people.
105157
Do my analyze is correct? If don't then correct it.  Sentence: The tsunami and the undersea earthquake which triggered it, the largest ever recorded in the region, killed nearly 20,000 people, destroyed over 100,000 homes and threw the lives of tens of millions into turmoil.  Subject: The tsunami and the undersea earthquake Principal verb: triggered Adjective clause of subject:the largest ever recorded in the region, killed nearly 20,000 people, destroyed over 100,000 homes Use of parallelism:threw the lives of tens of millions into turmoil.