2-Part Question:  1) What is the grammatical term for "to be" in the following statement? "This needs to be repaired."  2) Is it slang or an accepted trend that more and more the "to be" portion is dropped? Statement phrased as "This needs repaired."
7581
In the  (and possibly elsewhere), the following construction is possible:        This car needs washed. (=needs to be washed)   The room needs cleaned. (=needs to be cleaned)      It appears that, if a verb like needs is followed by a passive construction in the infinitive, the "to be" portion is left out.  This construction sounds so unnatural to my ear that I have no intuition as to the extent to which it can be extended to other words and contexts.  If anyone here is a native speaker of this dialect of English, perhaps they can help to explain the limits on its use.  My basic question is: how productive is this particular construction among those who use it?  To be more specific, can this construction be used with any verb (if that verb can be immediately followed by a passive construction, of course)?  That is, would (any of) the following be acceptable, for example?        At this restaurant, we always wait seated. (=wait to be seated)   My kid hates picked last in sports. (=hates to be picked)   We all want loved. (=want to be loved)      If this construction is restricted, then which verbs can be used, aside from need?  Edit: What I am really hoping for here is that there is someone who happens across this question that can say, "I actively use this construction, and here's what I can and can't say."
2840
Sorry for the title, it is not very evident and intuitive but I really do not how to tell it better...  Well, you know, several times, or better, many times, we use this form:  If I want to say:      "development of special weapons was   the first point in Hitler's   program..."   I will say this (a better form):      "special weapon development was..."   OK...  is it      "special weapon development"   or      "special weapons development" (note   the plural...)   what's the grammar rule in order to understand how to use this very used form?
72577
Which of the spans in 1.1 is the stronger? Be assured, you are in numerous company if you pick the left one at first glance, where the struts and wires are doing nothing useful at all.   Could you please tell me what is "Be assured" here?  I mean whether it is an adverb, adjective, so on?  And, would you please show me some examples exactly like such the following, considering my original sentence?     Be assured, ...
49655
I am just curious, how often this form of Subjunctive mood is used  and what alternatives are available to express the very same thing.  Examples:   I suggest that he implement a budget cut in March. It’s essential that they be heard   and so on.
75942
I'd like to say something like "Then, we have the question: why did this happen?" What is a proper way to say this using the phrase "The question then arises..."? Is it "The question then arises as to why this happened."? If this is correct usage, are there other continuations of this phrase (i.e. "The question then arises") that I could use?
17294
I was surfing the internet the other day when I found this phrase: Instead your precious time and attention is wasted. To my ears, it sounds wrong. But I'm not a native English speaker, so I consulted with a number of them, and some of them said that it was "is" because the adjective modifies only the noun "time" and not "attention". Others said it "is" because that's just how it is. But I still believe it should be "are". Any help is appreciated.
54695
Occasionally I see constructs like this in English sentences:        Not only is this true in this case, but ...      What puzzles me is the "is this" part of it. The sentence is not a question, yet it seems to have a question-like order. Isn't this correct/preferred:        Not only this is true in this case, but ...      Are there other cases where non-question sentences contain question-like parts (so to speak)?
120502
A colleague asked me which of these sentences is correct, or if they are both correct which is better to use.   Are you using the current template version? Do you use the current template version?   I recommended using the first sentence but only because it sounds better to me.  Is there anything grammatically wrong with the second sentence or does it convey a different meaning to the first sentence?
123513
A phrase I came across tonight was "Here's the good news and the bad news." Trouble is, "Here's" means "Here is", and "is" is meant for one thing, not two things. I'm describing two things. However, "Here are the good news and the bad news" sounds bizarre.  What to do?
39311
I used to study at Cambridge School.  I am used to studying at Cambridge School.  If the verb is continuous tense, it need to be added "verb to be" before used to?
38128
I got this quiz:     The carpenter repaired __ .      (A) the table's legs      (B) table's legs      (C) legs of the table      (D) the legs of the table   ...which says the right answer is D. But I think A is also acceptable.  What do you think? Thanks.  Related but not a duplicate:   If I add an option E: the table legs, is E also acceptable?
78335
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?
90014
Which of the following is a grammatically correct statement?   The value of cars depreciate over time.   The values of cars depreciate over time. The value of cars depreciates over time.   Thanks!
117607
We are currently in the process of finishing planning for the outage.    It the preceding sentence grammatically correct?    Is the preceding sentence ideally structured?   If not, what would be a better way of saying it?
10569
My friend and I got into an argument about English grammar, so I was hoping maybe you could help us out. Okay so we want to know if the following part of the sentence is correct, "People who are satisfied and feel self-fulfilled like I" rather than "People who are satisfied and feel self-fulfilled like me". I have already provided many sources to my friend showing that the first way is a formal and a grammatically correct way, however he wants an answer with this specific part of the sentence.   Please help us out  Thank you
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.
77746
I frequently see people write "all this", instead of "all of this". Is this a grammatically correct phrase? My intuition tells me that it's wrong (the spoken phrase "all this" is really a contraction of "all of this"); but I'm having a hard time finding any evidence to support the claim.