- Sometimes, oftentimes — is there a -times word for very rarely?
sometimes toforetime Although some of these adverbs were aforetimes written out as separate words, you should still think of them as single adverbs no matter whether they’re spelled with a space or hyphen or written with neither in keeping today’s preferred style of cleanliness
- Would I say I can sometimes. . . or I sometimes can. . .
sometimes is one of the frequency adverbs that can be placed at the beginning of the sentence, and this is felt more natural by many native speakers, and, in addition, it is an exception to the rule, since it has a peculiarity of its own: it must be placed at the beginning in a negative sentence, you say:
- phrases - Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesnt - English Language . . .
This implies that it happens sometimes, but it emphasises that there are times when it does not happen The sentence accent will fall on always Or you could use "only": This only happens sometimes This emphasises that the number of times it happens is limited The primary sentence accent falls on some-, the secondary accent on only
- Where to put sometimes in a negative sentence?
To be idiomatic, the sentence needs to be more elaborate, as Jim suggests "They play tennis on Sundays, sometimes at a club and sometimes at the park " "They sometimes go for a long walk on Sundays instead of playing tennis " Or, to make it a definite negative, you could say "They don't always play tennis on Sundays " –
- punctuation - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
Comma "rules" are tricky Most are best thought of as guidelines than rules Setting of introductory elements is indeed something that most sets of such rules would say you need a comma, so "by the rules" the form with the comma is the correct one
- Order of sometimes relative to the subject of a sentence in the . . .
Sometimes he does it, sometimes she does it Simple However, if you say "The shopping sometimes is done by him" it moves the focus onto the word "is", which in turn implies that it has previously been suggested that he does not sometimes do the shopping , ie that he never does the shopping, and that this sentence is refuting that other implied
- What word should I use for something that fails intermittently?
I initially thought the same thing, but I think it depends on OP's situation If his software works or doesn't work, e g a web server that sometimes fails to return a page, I'd say "flaky" or "unreliable" If his software seems to always be available but sometimes gives the wrong answer (e g a GPS), that's definitely "unreliable" If in his
- writing - Why are numbers sometimes spelled out and then numerals . . .
I'm referring to the peculiar habit I sometimes see in formal documents, where a number is given numerically after it's spelled out It seems quite redundant: I need five (5) kumquats, stat! (Tho
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