My Grandchildren say "May you pass the salt" etc. They say their teachers say this is ok. To me it sounds very clumsy and I had never heard it used except by them. They have grown in Wiltshire while we are south Hampshire. Is it regional?
33174
Which word to use when we ask for help?  Some conditions:     We know that the person asked is able to do it. We don't know if the person asked is able to do it.
6781
Could anyone help me with finding the difference between saying "catch a bus/train/etc" and  "take a train/bus/etc"? I'm afraid I haven't been able to glean one from my dictionary.
6213
I see a lot of people saying things such as      Nice work, Nick   Or     Thanks, Mat   Is the comma really needed? I'm not 100% sure because my spelling and grammar is not great, but I think it reads very strange.
21888
Then touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near to him, he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner:      "I pray you, good Sir," said he, "who is this woman? -- and wherefore is she here set up to public shame?"      "You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend," answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion, "else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne and her evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you, in godly Master Dimmesdale's church. "   As far as I know we always use first form of the verb after "must". For instance: "You must go". We never say "You must goes". Also, we never use -s/es with a verb that comes with "You". What are the circumstances in which writer has used "needs" after "You must" in "You must needs to be a stranger in this region."?
71399
Lately, something has struck me.  I've been hearing several expressions in English, some clearly borrowed from French and preserving their noun-adjective form.  Some examples are:  Attorney General Secretary General Court Martial Notary Public   I suspect there are more that I have missed.  However, in each of the 4 cases listed above, I feel 'OK' saying them the 'English' way; that is, adjective-noun, which is the way we almost always do things except for these borrowed phrases.  One might receive a statement from the General Attorney, or be sent to a Martial Court.  My father is actually a lawyer and does indeed describe himself as a Public Notary.  Doing things this way makes the plural sound a lot more sensible in English, too; which sounds better: General Secretaries, or Secretaries General?  How common is it for people to flip these borrowed phrases around and say them the more standard English adjective-noun way?  Might it be clearer in the long run if we did so?
20994
I received a letter of confirmation for funding from an English native speaker. She started the letter with:     To whoever it may concern,   I am not a native speaker, but that sounds quite odd to me and I would change that to To whom it may concern. Can anyone confirm whether her starting phrase is at least grammatically okay or is it just wrong?
72636
I wrote “I know all these stuff; I don’t have to go over them again” in my writing-exam paper and the teacher corrected it to read, “I know all this stuff; I don’t have to go over it again.”  The teacher is Irish so I don’t think he would make a mistake but I think even if the first one (these) was wrong, the second one (them) should have stayed the same. Am I right?
47497
Now and then I come across an "affirmative imperative + will you?" construction where, I suspect, the speaker seems to be telling someone NOT to do something or censuring him/her for doing so, as opposed to making a request for a certain action, as in:     “Run away from me, will you?” His voice was hoarse and strangled in his throat. “I'll have your skin off your bones, I will!” He took a lurching step.   However, no English usage guides I turned to seemed to address this (supposed) usage.  Is my suspicion correct or am I on the wrong track here?
481
It seems I put a   Bounty assigned by outside party, two lengthy, reference-citing answers, one "-1" (awarded the bounty), one "-2", two others scored "0" and "-2" respectively, the answers suggesting one or the other is correct, 73 comments and no consensus so far - and me, as the asker, lost without a clue what to think of the answers anymore -  this is no longer "Learners' Level" question, so I thought I'd bring it here and hear what the experts have to say.    Original question:  Plurality of verb depending on plurality of list elements  An edit was suggested to my sentence.     There was were an orange, some grapes, two apples and a small pile of cherries on the plate.   In my native language plurality of the verb always follows plurality of the first element on the list. There were an orange,... sounds awkward to me, no matter what follows up. My simple solution was reordering:     There were some grapes, an orange, two apples and a small pile of cherries on the plate.   But that's not the first time I faced this situation and I'd like to know what the rules of grammar say about that - was my editor overzealous or am I trying to copy rules of my language that don't apply in English?    Someone linked a  for negatives, where the situation is more clear-cut ("There is no..."). Same applies to connection with "or" apparently, per accepted answer there. Still, nothing for "and".  It seems there is a consensus that in that if the verb goes after the list, it will be plural.     an orange, some grapes, two apples and a small pile of cherries were on the plate.   There doesn't seem to be clear consensus for:     On the plate { was | were } an orange, some grapes, two apples and a small pile of cherries   Adding more to the confusion is the abbreviated form: "There's"     One last note. In North America, at least, there is a widespread use of using a singular form like "there is" and "there was", without regard for the subject item or items, and this "there is" is often shortened to "there's":           There's three apples on the table!      Could you please clarify this mess?
89247
I came across an English learner writing     It snowed hard Monday.   After saying that it didn't snow on Friday and Saturday.  It didn't quite feel right to me.  I'd be okay with     It snowed hard.   or     It snowed Monday.   Is it okay for there to be two things ("hard" and "Monday") modifying the snowing without an "on" breaking things up a bit?
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?
72452
My friends and I were walking down from the road. The road was too steep, so I said:     I am climbing down the road.   As I used to climb down with the word road, we had argument, and my friends said that climbing down the road is not correct usage. Were they correct?
4023
"Mornings came and cast a blinding sunlight over everything, and he felt like nothing worthwhile could be accomplished."  For some reason, I feel like "a blinding light" is ok, but if its sunlight, then I should drop the "a" and write "cast blinding sunlight", but I'm not sure why I feel this way.   Can anyone offer some enlightenment?  edit - alternate phrasing, closer to being a literal translation: "Mornings came without warning, flooding the day with a strong sun, and he felt like nothing worthwhile could be accomplished."   I would still like an answer to the technical question of whether I should drop the "a", but would also appreciate knowing if anyone thinks option #2 is a better choice.
15555
I'm writing a leaflet for children from primary schools who will visit our school.  Is it correct to write:     the "amerigo vespucci" school is waiting for you!!!!   Is the use of the definite article correct in this case? I am defining which school is waiting for them, I'm saying we and no others but us are willing to meet them?
40223
I took an English assessment test online and this was my answer:     Someone suggested to go for a walk.   My answer was wrong and this was the correct sentence:     Someone suggested going for a walk.   Can someone please explain why my answer was wrong?
119164
After ______ MA Economics he joined the London School of Economics.  I am confused about using "passing" or "having passed"?  *Edit - I did some research and from what I gathered, the answer is "passing" because using "having passed" with "after" will bring a sense of redundancy. The "having passed" form of the verb has the "after" inherent in it.
28027
Why do British speakers omit the article in constructions like "go to hospital" or "go on holiday"? Pretty much all American speakers would rephrase those as "go to the hospital" and "go on a holiday", I think. Is there any good reason, or forgotten sense behind those words that might explain why the articles are ommitted?  Are there other common constructions other than those two that the British use that drop the article?  EDIT: I just realized per Kosmonaut's comment that Americans do much the same thing with a few nouns, so this isn't all that special.   Do grammaticists designate nouns that can have their article dropped with anything, i.e. do they have anything in common?