LifeDeath wrote:So, what do you actually think about using "having" and "having done" in the sentence? I explained my views above, are they correct?
["Visions" are
imaginary things one sees.]
I think using the perfect implies that the drawbacks were removed before the material was used. If the drawbacks are still present, the imperfect infinitive (
having) is preferable. So I disagree with your teacher. I think both are acceptable, but they have different meanings.
LifeDeath wrote:I didn't want to ask another question not to seem impudent, before the previous has been answered in order not to seem impudent. And still if you willwant, you can just answer it in at least in a couple of words with what you think on the matter.
So today I just have a couple of simple questions.
What is the difference between "for" and "in" when talking about time periods? Are they usually interchangeable?
For example "I think I will do it for a month", "I think I will do it in a month". Are they both correct? I think that the first puts emphasis on the action of doing, more, then the second, while the second just shows that there's a limited period of time, by the end of which the action must be finished. Right?
Not quite. "In" (as opposed to "within") means "X time from now". For instance, "I'll do it in an hour" means "One hour from now, I will do it." So if the action is not instantaneous, that means it will be more than an hour from the time of speaking before the action is finished. "For" is completely different. With time, it means "with X duration". That is, if you do something for an hour, you start doing it at a certain time and an hour later you are still doing it (or have just finished doing it).
So: "I will do homework in a month". (A month from now, I will do homework, but I won't start it before then.)
"I will do homework for a month". (For the duration of month, I will do homework.)
LifeDeath wrote:Can the word "consult" be used as a noun? Google says it can, but I'm not sure, because I thought that the proper form was "consultation". But I wrote a review for a text about telecommunications on my English class, and I came up with a sentence, something like: "This is a really short, but comprehensive text, especially if one needs a brief consult about telecommunications". So the teacher underlined the word. Does it sound wrong here? Why? If it may work as a noun, I don't see why it should not work here, so please help.
Without seeing more context, it's hard to tell whether it sounds natural there or not.
Consult and
consultation are basically synonymous, but the former is more restricted in its usage. (It's apparently not used much at all in British English, for instance, and even in US English can't be used everywhere that "consultation" is.)
LifeDeath wrote:And one more question about that case, is the following particle "about" the only one that can be taken by "consult"? I thought to use "over", at least I didn't seem completely wrong, and, for some reason, looked familiar. Like "A brief consult over this matter".
I would say it sounds odd to me.
Over can be used to specify the means. E.g. "a brief consult over the telephone" would be most commonly interpreted as "a consultation which took place by telephone rather than in person" and not as "a consultation on the subject of telephones". So using it before "telecommunications" is awkward. Stick with "about" here.
LifeDeath wrote:And the last question. What is the correct option, "sounds nonsense" or "sounds nonsensual"? If I want to say that something is illogical, incoherent, doesn't make sense as spoken.
Neither. The accepted adjectival form of "nonsense" is "nonsens
ical". "Nonsensual" means
something completely different.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons