"He did everything except mow the grass"
Isn't the bold word supposed to be mowing? It was a multiple choice question and my instructor said the answer is "mow". Why is that?
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
(1) May I share some information with you that may explain why your teacher gave "mow" as the correct answer?
(2) The great grammarian George O. Curme in his two-volume masterpiece gives this
sentence (I have copied it exactly as he wrote it, including the parentheses and the brackets):
I will do anything to show my gratitude
but (or
except) [that I do]
marry the daughter.
I guess that the sentence above is a beautiful way of saying something like:
I will do anything to show my gratitude, but there is one thing that I will not do: marry the daughter.
(3) Thus, it is only my opinion that your teacher's "complete" sentence is:
He did everything except [that he did] mow the grass.
(He did everything, but there is thing that he did not do: mow the grass.)