When can we use the past simple for timeless rules?
When we write a rule in a past tense narrative, should it still be in the present simple tense? This was an excellent question raised by a reader, from a fairly unexpected source – this Christmas reading exercise. It contains the phrase “everyone knew how...
Why “keep doing” is present simple and not continuous
I’ve been asked about the tense of “keep writing” – and how it relates to the rules and patterns we use for the present continuous form of “to be writing”. Many verbs can be followed by other verbs in an –ing form, such as “keep doing”, “enjoy doing”, “avoid doing”...
Using -ing forms for perfect meanings
A recent question I’ve been asked is whether or not the following sentence is correct, as it sounded strange to the learner: “With the restaurant having closed, there was nowhere to eat.” What do you think? Better as “As the restaurant had closed…” or “With the...
Comparing Examples of all the English Tenses
I have had a few requests recently to provide more examples of sentences as they are used across all the English tenses. This is useful to show how and why we might use the different tenses to describe the same situation. One example was given in my timeline (I go...
Bird of prey and other “noun of noun” constructions
Subjects formed with multiple nouns connected by of can mean consisting of, or taken from, for example ‘piece of cake’, but can also mean belonging to, or with the purpose of, such as ‘father of the bride’. ‘Bird of prey’ can be confusing, though, because it seems to...Want to Master English?
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