Latest Articles from ELB
Where are prepositions placed in English sentences?
How can we define the rules for placing a preposition in a sentence? Before a noun? After a verb? One of the additions to the second edition of Word Order in English Sentences is a guide to prepositions. Though they are often connected to other parts of a sentence,...
Coming this February – the expanded Word Order guide
Members of my mailing list will already be aware that I have been working on a long-overdue update to Word Order in English Sentences - and with the help of my readers it is now almost ready for publication. This February I will be releasing the 2nd Edition of Word...
2 Quick Exercises to Practice Rewriting Sentences
Here are 2 new exercises to help practice some of the lessons given in my article on the various methods that can be used to rewrite English sentences. These exercises involve rewriting given sentences based on a specific component or rule - and it combines a large...
Why we say 21st Century for years starting 20…
The way we describe ages, including years or people’s ages, can sometimes seem strange if you consider that years beginning “20” are referred to as “21st Century” (and similarly, years starting “19” were the “20th Century”). There is a very logical reason for this,...
The Christmas Mess – Mixed Tenses Reading Exercise
To bring in Christmas, I’ve prepared a themed reading exercise of the sort seen in the most horrible exams. The short story below (a harrowing tale of chores and presents) has lots of incomplete sentences. The verbs needed are all in brackets next to the gaps, but the...
The Impact of Dickens’ Christmas Carol – in Language and Culture
In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote a novella called A Christmas Carol, a story still told today. The story followed a miser (a nasty man who does not want to share his wealth) on Christmas Eve, as he is visited by three spirits that teach him about kindness and caring....
21 alternative verbs for movement
There are some common verbs for moving in English, such as to go and to walk. These are useful for general descriptions of movement, but like with verbs describing talking, there are many other verbs that you can use to provide more detail, variety and imagination!...
Ongoing time and the past simple – when a past action is really complete
I was recently contacted with a question about my Mixed Tenses Exercise, which demonstrates that different tenses can fit into the same sentence structure. The question came from the past simple use in the first example, I played tennis every Tuesday this month. In a...
What’s the difference between ‘smile to’ and ‘smile at’?
What is the difference between She smiled at him. and She smiled to him.? Sometimes, there is none. Other times, one might clearly be correct (or incorrect). It’s useful to look at individual examples of preposition use like this with examples and explanations to get...