Today we are looking at a piece of grammar. It's not very simple!
I will put the examples here and some links to places for more information.
'I watch TV all the time.' - correct
'The majority of children like ice cream.' = 'Most children like ice cream.' - correct
'Most of the time I have pizza for dinner.' - correct - meaning often or commonly
'I watch TV all the time.' - correct - often I watch TV, like a hobby
'I watch TV the whole time.' - incorrect - we need to know which piece of time
Parents: 'What did you do while we were gone?'
Teenager: 'I watched TV the whole time.' - correct - we know how much time (even if they don't say 'two hours' we know we're talking about while the parents were gone.)
Teenager: 'I watched TV all the time' - incorrect - not specific enough to the time available
'Do you have to carry that bag everywhere?'
'Yes, I need it with me all of the time.' - correct - very strong, emphasises need
= 'Yes I need it with me all the time' - also correct - not as strong emphasis.
'I was up all night.' - correct - I didn't sleep.
= 'I was up the whole night.' - correct
'I was up all of the night' and 'I was up all the night' - incorrect
'I was gardening all day.' - correct
'I was gardening all the day.' - incorrect
'I spent the whole day gardening.' -correct
'How often do you watch TV?'
'All the time.' - correct - regularly/often
'I spent all night looking for you.' - correct
= 'I spent the whole night looking for you.' -correct
'Most of the time I just eat sandwiches.' - correct - common lunch meal
'Most of time I eat sandwiches.' - incorrect
'Why didn't you pick up the phone? I was calling you all day.'
'I was in meetings for the whole day.' -correct
= 'I was in meetings the whole day.' - correct
= 'I was in meetings all day.' - correct
= 'I was in meetings the whole time.' -correct
Time period is determined in the question 'all day' so we can use all of the above choices.
Michael Swan's Practical English Usage - If you are a grammar nerd you may love this book. It goes into detail about almost every bit of English grammar. However, it is A LOT! So I would suggest, for learners, probably not a good idea. Especially because you might think you need to remember it all, and you don't!
Instead, I would suggest something like Raymond Murphy's English Grammar in Use, which is built for English learners.
A word placed in front of a noun to specify a quantity or to clarify what or who the noun refers to.
Countable and Uncountable Nouns
'Lots of rice' - uncountable
'No, strike that' - when we make a mistake when we're writing we might put a line through it, this is sometimes called a 'strike' or 'strike-through'. Oh no! I made a mistake! If we make a mistake when we’re speaking and we want to emphasise that we know we made a mistake and we want to take the words back, we can say 'strike that'.
Idiom - 'I will go back to the drawing board.' - The 'drawing board' is the architect or artist's table, somewhere where we might plan out ideas before we execute. This idiom means, I will start again.
Phrase - 'the vast swathe of time':
'swathe' - (swayth) long strip or very large area
'vast swathe of time' - the enormity or whole length of time
Inhaler - medication used for asthma or breathing diseases.
'Something for bee stings' - I meant an Epi pen (or Epinephrine autoinjector) that can be used to save someone's life if they are allergic to bee stings.
'What the heck is going on' - 'what the heck' is a slang phrase, an alternative would be 'what on earth'. We can use it like this, in a sentence. We can also use it as an exclamation when we see something shocking or as a question.
