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Dear Joe, Recently, I've encountered sentences with the verb-subject order without a question mark at the end. For example: Please would you transfer the stock to your suspense account and delete the item from your consolidated statements. Please could you sign the documents and return them to us af...

I was wondering why the below question was correct: Did you ever think about what you wanted to be when you grew up? Since it is a question asking about what you wish to do in the future, why shouldn't we change grew up to grow up ? I have troubles with the verb tenses and would be much grateful if ...

Dear Joe, I found the below example in a grammar book: She remained silent, for her heart was heavy and her spirits low. In this sentence, there is an omitted verb were . So, the full sentence should be She remained silent, for her heart was heavy and her spirits were low. However, is it grammatical...

How do we pronounce the possessive case of singular nouns ending with 's'? For example, boss's, bus's, Charles's? Would it be the same as if they are without the 's? Or shall we add an additional 's' sound at the end?

Thank you!

Lone

I was very puzzled to find the following sentence in a business writing magazine: "Further to our conversation of last week, I would like to ..." The writer of the article specifies that the preposition "of" should be placed before "last week". This contradicts my under...

He won’t tolerate anyone questioning his decisions.

In the above sentence, is 'questioning' a gerund (as part of the object of the verb 'tolerate')?
Or is it a participle, modifying the pronoun 'anyone'?

Dictionaries say that the verb 'tend' is intransitive when it means 'to be likely to do something or to happen in a particular way'. However, I was very puzzled to find the example sentence such as 'People tend to need less sleep as they get older.' In the above sentence, I can see that the verb 'te...

Dear Joe, 'There are an ocean of flowers.' I saw this sentence in the Internet. Is it grammatically correct? I was wondering whether 'an ocean of flowers' should be treated as singular or plural. If it is singular, then the verb should be 'is' - There is an ocean of flowers. Apparently, the writer c...