i'm not an native english speaker. I came across the &quot;Dying ! Dying in the night &quot; poem by E. Dickinson. A verse is bothering me: &quot;Where is Jesus gone ?&quot; Is it grammaticaly correct ? Would &quot;Where has Jesus gone ?&quot; be better ? Or by her initial sentence, it means: where is he now that he is dead ? I'm not implying that such an acclaimed poet could do grammar errors but i've never seen anything like this. Thanks for your help.
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When should I say "She is gone", and when should I say "She has gone" (and why)?  I think that when I mean "She went away and she's still there", it should be "She has gone". Are there exceptions where it should be "She is gone" ?
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My native-speaker's grammatical intuition tells me that:  There is a sleeping man under the tree.  is fine but  There is a fishing man by the river bank.  is wrong.  Why? Both  There is a man sleeping under the tree.  and  There is a man fishing by the river bank.  are fine. I've thought about this a little, and I've come up with some grammatical hypotheses, but I'd be very grateful if somebody could point me to a general reference on this matter. Addendum: Someone asked me what hypotheses I've come up with. I've identified two cases where an -ing modifier can come before a noun:  When the -ing acts to modify the noun (like an adjective), rather than describe an action being performed at that time, it goes before the verb.  E.g. flying fish, dancing girl.  When the verb suggests a sensory impression.  E.g. crying baby, shining light.   But there must be at least one more class to account for expressions like a sleeping man. Second addendum: I should clarify precisely what fishing man is supposed to mean.  It does not mean a man who fishes.  That would be taken care of by case 1 of the hypothesis above.  The intended meaning is a man who is fishing.  (Just like a sleeping man is supposed to mean a man who is sleeping rather than a man who sleeps.)
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What part of speech is there in the sentence “There is a book on the table?”  Also, while typing it out, another question pops up vis-à-vis punctuation. In my complete first sentence above, I ended it with a question mark since my main sentence is a question. The quote is not a question, but it looks like it because of the question mark. Is this the right way to punctuate?
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I hear and read them all the time. I mean stuff like:      You're just going to stay here?   Instead of:      Are you just going to stay here?    Then I write like this out of habit and get called out on my grammar issues by people who speak English much worse than I do. That's kinda embarrassing. So, could someone please explain to me whether it's correct or not? Are they acceptable at all, and if so, in which situations?      So, what? You're gonna kill me now?
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To me, using Present Perfect form means the event can occur again. So, saying      someone has died   may not be grammatically correct.  Also, I noticed (it might be just coincidence):     passed away   is used more often than     has passed away   Is using Present Perfect correct here?
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From a film subtitle:     "What would've happenned if you were a few minutes later, Hani?"   I think that 'What would have happened if you had been a few minutes later,Hani?'is right?  I think this is third conditional sentence. Could you tell me the grammar I don't know? Or is this wrong sentence?
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I am always confused with the preposition. Can somebody point me to the material where prepositional phrase is explained?  Here is the problem I am facing currently.     This was discussed (stated/announced/said) at the last meeting when you were not present.    or     This was discussed (stated/announced/said) in the last meeting when you were not present.
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Now that I think about it, it was from   that moment where I started to have   doubts about him.   Would it be better to use the word "when" instead of "where," or are they both equally valid word choices? Is there any difference at all?
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I was teaching an ESL class and came across this sentence which confused me a lot:  &quot;The Queen Alice is the place that I go to the most&quot; &quot;Isn't that the place which kids under 12 can't enter?&quot;  Are these 2 sentences correct? Shouldn't &quot;where&quot; be used for both sentences when it's referring to the place and replacing the object?
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When for the first time A new question I answer This haiku appears:     Little slab of meat   In a wash of clear jelly   Now I heat the pan   Such a message is Very strange; is anyone Seeing the same thing?  Have not seen again. Came and went like the wind does! Why I am so blessed?
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This is from a textbook for ESL students.     At the information desk, a lady asks, "Where is the restroom?"  A man says, "It's just behind you.  Do you see where the sign is?"   Is this sentence structure "Do you see where the sign is?" the same as, for example,      "Do you know where the restroom is?"   If I take this sentence as a relative clause, does it work?
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In the book A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, I've noticed the use of the subjunctive mood after wonder if:     In truth, he had scarcely considered the mudmen at all, beyond eyeing   Meera once or twice and wondering if she were still a maiden.   And again, later in the book:     He listened to the blasphemies and wondered if he were dying.   My (non-native) grammatical intuition makes me think this sounds really wrong. I would say "he wondered whether he was dying" and therefore also "he wondered if he was dying".  I would be tempted not to use the subjunctive with an if that can be replaced by whether, and to only use the subjunctive with an if that actually has a conditional value, for instance: "he wondered, if he were dying, why he was feeling so alive".  Also, I believe that using Martin's structure in the present tense may sound even more wrong: "he wonders if he be dying" (present subjunctive)...  So, am I right, or is it correct to use only a subjunctive clause after wonder if?
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What's the deal with this idiom? I know what it means, but cannot wrap my head around its grammar structure. The sentence structure of     "Never say die"   looks like that of     "Never admit defeat"   but it does not make the same grammatical+semantical sense.  Is it an archaic use? Is it a contraction of a longer phrase? Was it originally misspoken by someone of note and survived memetically? What are its roots?  Edit: Well, the comments made me realize that I worded my question poorly. I'm not saying I think this phrase is ungrammatical. I'm asking how the heck "saying 'die'" came to mean what it means.
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Here's my problem:  I've been confused about the placement of adverbs in present/past perfect phrases. For example, which sentence would sound better:     "We had been slowly drifting down the river when a bear attacked."      or      "We had slowly been drifting down the river when a bear attacked."   Personally, I'd go with the former, and this led me to believe that if the sentence contains both "had been" and a verb, the adverb should be placed after "had been"--if the adverb is indeed modifying the verb.  This, however, led to me to think of other uses of the present/past perfect, where another verb isn't present. The is the best example I could formulate:     "He has always been an academic and a charitable person."   See, right there, always--an adverb of frequency--was placed in between has and been.  Does this mean only adverbs of frequency (e.g., always, usually, etc.) should be placed in between such constructs?  A final example to put this topic over the edge is "He had been either sick or exhausted." Now, if you were to move "either" in between "had been," would the sentence be grammatically incorrect? I've noticed that the former is used more frequently, but the sandwiched version doesn't sound wrong either.  Thanks!
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We went to an electronics showroom, where we chatted with a sales girl. She explained some technical stuff about the things we were interested in. When she had finished explaining, she said      "By the way, I have been Jessica."   This usage is not new to me: it's pretty common in the US, and in Hollywood movies. But I have always wondered about how it could be correct (if indeed it is). I understand what it means, I just don't see it as grammatical. What is the logic of taking it as grammatical?  You have been Jessica. So what are you now?   A lot of people in the comments are saying that they never heard nor saw anyone using this line to tell their name. Here is an example:    at 00:25
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I am trying to find the right words for the sentences.     (1) The book ____ "Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching".      (2) Charles Dickens writes/wrote in his book: "Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching".   Questions:  (1) The quote is just an example; I want to know how to refer to exact words written in the book, and I need to explicitly quote them as above.  Obviously, "says" fits here. But I am looking for a word whose meaning is closer to "write".  (2) I am curious whether to use the present or the past tense. Does it matter whether the author is still alive?
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There was the following sentence in New York Times (April 12) article titled, ‘Lone Wolf’ Theory Gains Ground in Texas Deaths”     “The Kaufman County district attorney’s office is small compared with   those in Houston or Dallas. It has about 13 prosecutors, and Mr.   Hasse’s docket the month he was killed provides a glimpse of the kinds   of cases common in the county: burglary, aggravated assault, forgery,   theft of a firearm.”   Is it common in today’s English not to use prepositions such as “in,” “of,” or "during" before nouns specifying time?  I know the expressions like “It happened the day he arrived in New York” is prevalent, but does it look redundant or outdated if I put “Mr. Hasse’s docket of (in) the month he was killed ....”?  Are there any handy rules with which I can judge easily when I should use and not use prepositions before nouns of time - year, month, week, day, and hour?