Seeking to avoid prejudging the facts in a crime and protect the rights of the accused, reporters sometimes over-use “alleged” and “allegedly.” If it is clear that someone has been robbed at gunpoint, it’s not necessary to describe it as an alleged robbery nor the victim as an alleged victim. Thi...

Are there any significant structural or semantic differences between seem, appear and look in the sense of to give the impression of being or doing something? She looks unhappy. He seems angry. They appear (to be) contented. It looks as if it's going to rain again. It looks like we're going ...

alleged harasser has the right to be informed. It's also alleged that there are more young black men in jail at any given time than there are in higher education. alleged breaches. alleged misconduct of officers. alleged infringement on which we act. alleged perpetrator, 29 year-old Mar...

Brian Hooper: I had a look via Google for more information on this point, but, try as I might, I couldn't find anything. I remember reading an article on the difference between "Launching the lifeboat may have saved lives" and "Launching the lifeboat might have saved lives" but I can't remember w...

If I recall correctly, the Académie française states that, for French, quantities comprised within [-1,1] are singular, and anything else is plural. This means, for instance, that we should say (in French) 0.3722 apple, instead of 0.3722 apples. I know for 1 and -1 in English, but how do real nu...

I have seen people say both 0.25 mile and 0.25 miles. Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile?

If I recall correctly, the Académie française states that, for French, quantities comprised within [-1,1] are singular, and anything else is plural. This means, for instance, that we should say (in French) 0.3722 apple, instead of 0.3722 apples. I know for 1 and -1 in English, but how do real nu...

Do we say -1 thing or -1 things? EDIT: I am interested in both cases: two things minus one thing(s) and the quantity minus/negative one thing(s). BOUNTY: While there are some good answers, I'm starting a bounty in an attempt to get an authoritative answer. I'm looking for either a solid, undeni...

How can one determine what an adjectival complement is in an English sentence? Are there are any subcategories to this classification? I'd love concrete examples, to help me better understand this aspect of grammar.

AAVE — African-American Vernacular English AE, AmE — American English AHD — American Heritage Dictionary BE, BrE — British English BNC — British National Corpus CGEL — Cambridge Grammar of the English Language COCA — Corpus of Contemporary American English COHA — Corpus of Historical American En...

Be careful: Personnel is not a synonym of "people" or "person". While person is general noun that indicates a human being, the personnel is "people employed in an organization or engaged in an organized undertaking such as military service". And being a plural noun the sentence you saw is perf...

I'm reading a novel based in ye olde pirate-times, and I have come across the author's usage of "cannon" (without the "s") to refer to multiple cannons. The ship boasted 32 cannon onboard. Is this just an archaic usage that the author is employing for purposes of story-telling? Also, how/why di...