Recent content by aggelos

When selecting between 'a' and 'an' to put before a word, what counts is the sound that you hear first when you pronounce the word, not necessarily the first written letter of the word. So, say the word (aloud or in your mind) and decide if its first sound is a consonant sound or a vowel sound...

They are different. southbound (adjective) = going towards the south A southbound train. southwards (adverb) = towards the south, in a southward direction We were driving southwards.

while is a subordinating conjunction of time. overseas is an adverb of place. Note that while overseas is an elliptical clause; in full it would be something like: while you are overseas.

"In a Java method": do you by any chance mean programming language by the word method? If so, you should say in the Java programming language, or, preferably, just in Java, just like we say: programs written in C++, Visual Basic etc. If method is what you mean, though, then it's ok, since, as I...

"as a static members": clearly incorrect - you can't use 'a' with a plural noun (members). "as the static members": correct if you're referring to all the static members there are or, at least, to some already mentioned static members. How about "as static members"? (each one declared as a...

Look at this from Wikipedia.

A common alternative way to use not until is in the form "It was not until... that...", as in: "It was not until 1993 that Mr A. became managing director of ABC company". Negative adverbs or adverbial phrases are used just like other adverbs when they're not at the very beginning of a...

...to do tomorrow (without a comma).

At evenings/at evening is not at all wrong or as rare as many foreign learners think. It is often used interchangeably with in the evening(s), but is rather preferred when the time referred to is not specified, as in your example. The expression at evenings and weekends, in particular, is more...

There is a small number of words describing persons that are very close to us or we are with most of the time. The tendency for such words, not only in English but in other languages too, is to be used without any article at all. Mother and father, as well as grandpa, grandma and some more...

And they were right. You need 'a' before 'keyboard' for the same reason you need it (and used it, too) before 'typewriter'. You must use 'a/an' before a countable noun in the singular number, when it's the first time you speak about something of which there are more than one and while it is...

Ok. Here are all the examples from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary for turn down. As you can see, in none of them is the noun object to be found between turn and down, it's always after. When the object is a pronoun (it/him etc.), it is placed in...

It could be rephrased like this: "suppose I want to ask someone if the fax that I have sent them actually contains the same information as the original in my possession...".

The following (definition + example and usage note) are from the American Heritage Dictionary. The first part, in particular, is from the edition I have on my computer. The online edition does not include a definition for hang out at all. However, you can see the Usage Note online here. hang...

For what it's worth, here are the results from a Google search: "turned all four offers down": 1 result (this thread!) "turned down all four offers": 3 results (including the find from this thread) "turned the job down": 11700 "turned down the job": 161000 And I hope you didn't base your...