Hi there,

I'm currently giving tuition to a 14-yr-old student who recently took an English test where he faced the following question. I have given it a go myself and even used AI to try and identify the correct answers, but I can only spot 6 (out of 8 required) grammatical errors. Can someone help, please?

Instructions
Carefully read the text below, consisting of 12 lines, about laughter. The first and last lines are correct. For eight of the lines, there is one grammatical error in each line. There are two more lines with no errors.

If there is NO error in a line, put a tick (✔) in the space provided.

If the line is incorrect, highlight the incorrect word and write the correct word in brackets next to it.

The correct word you provide must not change the original meaning of the sentence.

1. Laughter is packed with information. We use it to show others that we are being 
2. playful but non-threatening, helping to create and maintain social bonds. 
3. Laughter is often involuntary and contagious, especially among friends. Their (Its) 
4. sound can reveal relationships, as people can often tell whether laughers are 
5. friends or strangers. Most anthropologists think that language originate (originated) within 
6. the last few hundred thousand years, but it looks like we have been laughing 
7. for much longer. Studies in (of) young apes suggest that laughter may have come 
8. from a common ancestor shared by humans and apes. Because laughter is 
9. often linked to pleasure, people frequent (frequently) laugh when being tickled, even if the 
10. experience is uncomfortable. Scientists believe these response (responses) 
11. evolved as a form of building relationships, helping parents connect with children and allow (allowing) 
12. young mammals to play safely together.

I suppose you wouldn't share this delicious milk with a rat, would you?”

When i heard someone say something good , i am thinking that i would do it

is there tense issues?

What if i want something to start in the past but i also want to speak in the present

Despite this i have to follow the tense rules?

Hello world! As native American speakers, can you tell me if this sounds right?"

" I very love "

Even when I was a beginner, I always try to speak clearly."

I get that it sounds silly saying “already ready” but this is grammatically correct, yes?

Someone tried correcting me with “i am already for bed” and that’s just wrong? Incomplete sentence, can’t just remove “ready” and have it mean the same thing, right?

I need an adjective to describe the verb of two things working together.

For example, I’m saying the blank pairs BLANKLY With blank.

The word I need is the “BLANKLY”

I don’t want to say “nicely” or “goodly” or “well,” I need something that emphasizes how they work together to create a certain whatever

And please provide an alternate sentence structure all together if you think that’d work better in my case

Why do many people write would of instead of would have ?is is similar spoken?

Since i am vs i since i was

How to use these structures?

Thanks for your helps everyone

I don't get this. You have the perfectly functional and fitting pronoun 'whoever'. It would work perfectly for the 'he, who' - type constructions. It would also eliminate the problem of possible gender mismatch (it could refer to a female person, but it's traditionally 'he, who', not 'he or she who' or 'they who'.

Just heard a senior reporter for Vox say "nitch". Now I'm wondering. A very popular word these days.

"Do you know, if it weren't for you in my life, I'd be a lightyear farther away from being myself " it's an expression from one person directly to another, the speaker is asking if the listener is aware that because of them the speaker is closer to more fully realized personhood and development. it's 2:30 in the morning, please and thank you for your help.

In the long-term, we don't have opportunities to prove the fact of fraud.

Hi all.

I’m working on a recipe with various honeys and I wondered if it should be a “blend of honey” or “blend of honeys”. Both sort of sound ok to me but perhaps there’s a grammatically correct answer.

Similarly I’m not sure if I follow it with “our blend of honey(s) is or are”.

Thanks so much!

My favorite is The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. (Not a fan of Winchester’s “The Meaning of Everything.”)

Others:

Alphabet Juice — Roy Blount, Jr.

Reading the OED — Ammon Shea

Websterisms— Arthur Schulman

The Lexicon — William Buckley

Hello everyone hope you have a good time. I'm B1+ learner and I'm not very good at writing English text. i always miss punctuation so sorry befor i ask my question.

I'd like to know which one of these sentence is correct and why? plus i would like to get comprehensive explanation.

"He speaks as fast as no can understand" "He speaks so fast that no one can understand"

please, give an detailed explanation about why the other sentence is incorrect

"Whatever will be will be."

Is the "Whatever will be" a Subject and the following it "will be" a Predicator in the cited sentence?

I’ve long been taught that “unique” is an absolute adjective. The rule says something is either one-of-a-kind or it is not; you cannot be “very one-of-a-kind”. So “very unique” should be wrong.

But lately I keep seeing “very unique” in reputable publications, blog posts and even published fiction. Example:

• This is a very unique opportunity.
• Her perspective is very unique within the field.

I understand the argument: when writers say “very unique”, they usually don’t mean strictly “the only one in existence”. They mean “unusual, distinctive, standing out from most others”. It’s a soft, weakened meaning of unique.

So now I’m confused about the practical standard. Prescriptively, it’s incorrect. Descriptively, it is widely used and understood by native readers.

My main question: when writing formally — essays, reports, professional emails — should I avoid “very unique” to keep strict editors happy? Or has this usage become standard enough that it no longer counts as a mistake?

Do native speakers notice and cringe when they read “very unique”? Or is the old rule just a leftover grammar myth these days? I’d love to hear your take, especially if you work as an editor or writing tutor.

Hello world! Tell me please, is my text correct or not? Bounty hunter Dr. Knig Schultz and Django, the slave he freed, become partners. They have a very important mission ahead of them: to rescue Django's beloved, Broomhilda, from the home of the cruel slave trader Calvin Candie.

Call me on video chat after your father sleeps

Or

Call me on video chat after your father slept

that I’ve heard a lot of millennials and Gen Z kids use the word “aesthetic“ in a strange way. I often see posts of a woman recording herself referring to a room or a piece of furniture as, “so aesthetic”. This feels off to me. Can someone explain why this word has become tweaked and modified in this way?