Vocabulary 'Skeptical'

Your use of skeptical is just fine.

In your second sentence, you can dispense with "have"--However, i trusted it as soon as a Chinese medical doctor cured my injury.

Hi Setanta thanks,
English grammar is so tough and difficult to remember.

Don't i know it! I'm now in my sixties, and beginning to get a grip on it.

Dearest Setanta,
I hope I can also begin to get a grip on it when I am in forties.

I might also get rid of the word "previously". I don't think it is grammatically incorrect, but it sounds awkward to me and doesn't add anything to the sentence.

I hope so, too. (One would say, "when i am in my forties.")

British English spelling: sceptical.

This one, above, isn't, Jane.

This one, below, is.

Are my sentences, below, acceptable? below




Setanta made note that you should drop 'have', which I've underlined above. The reason that it sounds odd here is that when the present perfect is [almost always] used to denote a past action that is current to now, ie. a hot topic, we don't combine it in the same sentence with an adjunct [addition] that notes a past time period or event -->"as soon as a Chinese medical doctor cured my injury".

You could say the following;

I was skeptical about acupuncture previously because Chinese medical certificates were not well recognized. However, I have come to trust it. That happened as soon as a Chinese medical doctor cured my injury.

Another example:

I went to London.

An excited individual

I've been to London!

*??I've been to London last week!??*

[* denotes ungrammatical]

Though it isn't ungrammatical, it is used sometimes for special reasons that I won't describe just now, it is a strange occurrence for native speakers to put the present perfect with a past time adverbial adjunct, in this case - 'last week'.

We would separate the two.

I've been to London! I went last week.

It most assuredly is not.

It's a stylistic choice but I don't agree that it adds nothing.

Hi Jkk,since you are online,may I know if my sentence is acceptable below?In the email attachment are the photos.

Hi, Jane. It's jtt, not jkk.



Asking, may I know if my sentence is acceptable below? asks if the position of the sentence is okay, not whether the sentence itself is okay. Word order matters in English. Changing the word order can change meaning.

'may I know' sounds strange. It sounds strange because one can't ask for another's permission to KNOW something.

May I ask if my sentence below is acceptable?



If you are asking about the sentence above, in the quote box, yes, it is fine.

May I?

It should be "The photos are in the email attachment". Your sentence isn't exactly wrong, but it sounds very stilted.

When you refer to something below, it will look better if you hit the Enter Key so that what you refer to is actually below, and not beside. Again, it's not wrong, so that's just a suggestion.

Yes, it actually is wrong, Roger, if it's 'beside' and it's described as 'below'.



If you're incapable of explaining the whys, perhaps you should take a seat on the sidelines.

Dearest roger,I have replied by using an IPhone and I can't find the 'Enter' key.😩I study English grammar,I am trying to comprehend the fronting and inversion rules because they are confusing.

Sorry JTT,I typed your name wrong.

That's not a problem, Jane. Think nothing of it.

I knew that.

Anyhow, much of the stuff about word order comes down to what seems odd, and not what is wrong.

I have no idea what happens with iPhones, by the way.

Dearest roger,my IPhone has no enter key so I couldn't press it just now.

I will keep that in mind.