British – English Grammar Profiler

English grammar tells us that: I haven’t got a clue. I don’t have a clue. are the correct ways to express negative possession.  However, there is the rarer, older British sounding: I haven’t a clue. Notice that a superlative phrase is common to give emphasis: I haven’t the slightest idea how he works. listen Here are the search results from […]

HAVE NOT + noun phrase Read More »

‘a bit‘ can modify verb phrases with the meaning ‘by a small degree or amount‘ Here’s a search in NOW corpus to find words before this time/distance etc. adverbial phrase: * in|for a bit . 1 THAT IN A BIT. 572 We‘re going to come to that in a bit. TED 2 OUT FOR A BIT. 191 I‘m going

IN | FOR + A BIT Read More »

‘shall’ used to make suggestions, seek advice, or ask for permission, often with ‘I’ or ‘we’.

SHALL (question) Read More »

‘BIT’ related to quantity is countable = a bit of … bits of … For example: By inserting those genes into yeast, we could produce little bits of that smell and be able to, maybe, smell a little bit of something that‘s lost forever. TED A2 in the English Vocabulary Profile: bit = a small amount or piece of something B1 in the Oxford Learner Dictionary: [countable] bit of something (especially British English) a small

a little | bits of | a bit of | a bit of a | a little bit of Read More »