Consider this sentence: The damage extended 400 yards either side of the island. Should 400 yards be considered as the object of 'extended', an adverbial of extent, or subject complement to 'the damage'?
73169
In this sentence:     This book cost me 20 dollars.   Is 20 dollars a direct object or a predicative complement?
102615
Why is there a comma after "his" in the headline? Does this mean his AND his wife's experience? Is it correct english, or slang?  "Man discusses his, wife's experience being injured during the Boston marathon bombings."  Source:
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
74249
The sentences are:   Mary has worked as a teacher for over 25 years. It has rained heavily for 2 hours.   Does it mean "Mary" is still working as a teacher or she is no longer working now? Does it mean it is still raining or it stopped?  Since it cannot mean both, so how to suggest either one of the meanings?
46108
When an adverb is the last word in a sentence, is it preferable to insert a comma before that word or to leave it as is (with no comma)? For example:  How many employees, roughly? or How many employees roughly? How long was the driveway, approximately? or How long was the driveway approximately?
15290
I'm from Central Pennsylvania, and apparently, we have a strange language construct in this area. I was recently talking about how "my car needs washed" to a friend from NJ, and she told me that my sentence was grammatically incorrect.   I realize she's right, and I realize my options are "my car needs to be washed" or "my car needs washing". But I'm not clear on the precise rule being invoked.
58367
Essentially, I wonder that if X is a plural noun, should we use a plural or singular verb in a sentence such as "X are a subject that [verb] ..."? I believe that we should always use the singular verb form there (for example, "Eatable flowers are a subject that comes up ..."). However, I was surprised to find this sentence on the  page:     Eatable flowers are a subject that come up in almost all cooking classes eventually and I am a big fan of them.   as well as this on Google Books:     Tools are a subject that come up at our house from time to time.   I think they are typos, but I would like a double check to be sure.
39307
A friend and I are having a debate about a most perplexing piece of English grammar. Now, I am a native English speaker, and he is Polish - this means that he is rather clued up on the grammatical side of things, whereas I know diddly squat, but know what feels right.   We were discussing Poland's next world cup match tomorrow, when Poland plays against Colombia, and I wrote to him after he me sent a heartwarming video (jokingly, of course), that 'I think threats of stoning if they don't succeed would be more effective.'  He replied that such a sentance should be in the second conditional tense, and thus go like 'I think threats of stoning if they didn't succeed would be more effective.'  So after a lively debate as to whether this is the second, first, or not even a conditional, I have no choice but to turn to the denizens of the interweb, to ask them to apply their grammatical expertise to resolve this vital question.  Thanks in advance, Conor
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Here is the sentence:  I laid down on a crunchy bed of autumn leaves at the right corner of the fence and observed the mysterious residence for movement.   I'm not sure whether "laid" is the correct grammatical term or if it is lay, lie, lied, etc.
67315
Let us go   is a correct construction in the English language and definitely not:     Let we go   However, the question is: since us is an object-case pronoun, what is the subject of this sentence?
34134
When there are several cottages each with several tariffs (depending on the season), should the plural be "cottage tariffs" or "cottages tariffs"?  For context, this is to be a section title on a website renting out the cottages.  An explanation of the grammatical rules would be helpful.
37830
I wasn't sure how best to phrase the title of this question.  I'm interested in constructions of the following form:      An estimated 50 people died in the bombing.   'An estimated' could be substituted with adverbs like 'approximately' or 'about', so it seems that prepending the indefinite article to certain words produces an adverb.  My question is why the indefinite article should function in this way.  For one thing, the use of 'a[n]' when the following noun is generally plural seems odd.  There are quite a few words that fit this pattern:   An additional ... An approximate ... An estimated ... An extra ... A good ... A huge ... A mere ... A possible ... A record ... A scant ... A whopping ...
8746
Which wording with kill should be used here:     He committed a crime (killing/by killing) a bird.   My guess is the answer would be by killing. But I am really confused with the answer killing.   My questions relating to this sentence are:   Which one is correct and why? (or are they both correct?) If one of them is incorrect, why is it incorrect? (or, if both of them are, why?) If they are both correct, what is the difference in meaning? If they are both correct, what is the difference in their grammar?
28052
“So you can do what with it?”   ( by Sarah Blake, p.118)      And the focus of your research right now, Charles, is what?    (, Mon, 28 Apr 14, 14'18")   Can above questions, not having subject-auxiliary inversion, be used as the same meaning as their normal syntactic forms: “So what can you do with it?”, “And what is the focus of your research right now, Charles?”   I find no differences between the two forms above, yet I’ve only read in  that those types have some epistemic bias towards a positive or negative answer. Or they are used when what you heard is not clear or surprising (p,881;p.886). The questions above are or can be just simple, unbiased, questions or not?
58237
I have two complete sentences; the second is in parentheses, essentially a comment on the first.  Where do I place the periods?  I would use this:     They played opera. (I covered my ears.)   Is this punctuation correct?
120585
It's time something was done about the problem.   It is a sentence from Murphy's "Grammar". Using was confused me, for me it should be were. It looks like this clause is in subjunctive mood&mdash;something that is unreal / imaginary, and in that case you always use were for any object.  Unless, of course, it is not the subjunctive mood, what would knock me down.
1344
Possible Duplicate:          Would I use is or are in the following sentence?      The Pohutakawa Coast, Hauraki Gulf, and Waiheke Island is/are the backdrop for our day.   If I rewrote it so the subject (backdrop) starts the sentence, then it seems to me that as it is singular, the verb should be the singular is. But as it is written above, are seems less clumsy.