explanation

[valentine32]

Is it correct to say 'we're having power failure/outage, we (a) have failure/outage or we experiencing power failure/outage. 2 'it depends on whose ox is being gored' mean what? 3 'I thought' should it go with past/present tense or both. Eg I thought i could not meet this exam. Please explain it in simple gramma.

[emsr2d2]

Is it correct to say 'we're having power failure/outage, we (a) have failure/outage or we experiencing power failure/outage.

We are experiencing a power failure.
We are having a power failure.
We have a power failure [at the moment].


2 'it depends on whose ox is being gored' mean what?

Without context, it's a little difficult but if someone said "It's terrible to see an ox being gored", someone else might say your sentence, meaning that it might not be so terrible, but that whether it was terrible or not would depend on who the ox belonged to. I really can't imagine the kind of conversation that would include that sentence though!!



3 'I thought' - should it go with past/present tense or both. Eg I thought i could not meet this exam.

First, what do you mean by "meet this exam". You don't "meet an exam", you "take an exam", "sit an exam", "pass and exam", "fail and exam".

As far as "I thought" is concerned:

I thought I didn't have any money.
I thought he had some potatoes.
He thought I was very strange.

As you can see, it is indeed used with the past tense. You can't say "I thought he is a nice guy".


Please explain it in simple grammar.

See above.

[SoothingDave]

Not a teacher. "It depends on whose ox is being gored" is an expression you often hear in American politics.

The people who complain or want to change things are the ones who are being affected. On the other hand people who are not being affected often care very little.

An example from recent news: The Obama health care legislation included a tax on the use of tanning beds. The original idea was to tax voluntary cosmetic surgeries.

But the plastic surgeons were able to convince Congress to gore up someone else's ox.