Thread: grammar
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Unread Aug 22nd, 2010, 08:30 am
susan53 susan53 is offline
Sue
 
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Default Re: grammar

Hi excellency,

Oh OK - in that case no problem with the explanations. Here we go ...

1. Top is correct. Think about it. If something is "top" then it's already at the extreme point of a scale. Turning it into a superlative would make no sense - you can't go higher than the top. Top means "highest/most important". Too, on the other hand, is incorrect for both the reasons I gave : semantically the idea that follows is a positive idea, not a negative one - the writer is saying that it's good, not bad. And syntactically remember it would have to be too (adjective) + to/infinitive, or so + that SVC. here you've got that + SVC, so it must be so. So he book is correct.

2. Again the book is correct. I said : When describing purpose, "for" is always followed by a noun : I'm going to London for a meeting. This could be rephrased using (to + infinitive) as I'm going to London to see John. So here, the sentence would have to be : ... for the creation of ...

3. The book is correct for exactly the reason I gave : afterwards (note the s) is an adverb, not a preposition. The sentence should be : ...and after his death...

4. "psychology is fine - it forms a compound noun with "laboratory". Other examples - a psychology course, a psychology student, a psychology textbook. The incorrect word is "probable" which is an adjective. Here you need the adverb, "probably".

5. "The wind" would be an alternative but "wind" is also possible. Remeber that "the" expresses a specific object. So if the writer had in mind the wind which is common in that area s/he would use "the". If, on the other hand, s/he was thinking about wind in general - any wind - then s/he would omit the article. Remember that grammar just gives us a way of expressing different meanings - the choice of which meaning we want to express is up to us. Try this thread for a detailed explanation.

However, I think here that either you've made a mistake in copying the sentence, or there is actually a mistake in the book. The mistake is "it". The pronouns must refer to "grains" - plural. So it should be "them" not "it". Hurling is fine.

6. You're right that the position of "long" is wrong - but it should be : Limestone has long been quarried ... See this thread for a full explanation of the position of adverbs with auxiliary and main verbs.

You're right though that there's a second mistake - but your correction is also wrong: "for to" is never possible. There are two possible correct versions of this sentence :
a) for + noun (as above in 2) : ...quarried for use as...
b) to + passive verb : ...quarried to be used as...

And quite honestly "building stone " sounds odd to me too. I'd say "building material". But I Googled it and it exists. It's a technical term - a bit tough as an item in a general purpose test, I'd say.

Hope that helps. Check back to the book and see if you copied things down wrongly. If not, then there are errors in the book - it obviously hasn't been proof-read and edited very well.

Sue
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