WHICH is correct?

a) Wishing you a happy belated birthday; or

b) Wishing you a belated happy birthday.

Many people tell me (a) is correct but cannot explain why. I feel that it should be (b). This is my explanation for choosing (b).

The phrase “Happy Birthday” is a greeting and, a noun form – a noun phrase, in fact. Therefore, it is grammatically correct to precede it with an adjective like “belated”. It is a belated greeting. In written form, it should be “I wish you a belated Happy Birthday.” with the first letters capitalised.

Secondly, in (a), “belated birthday” is not a greeting. In my opinion, it is just a concept ... that one’s birthday is belated.

My question is: How can anyone’s birthday (as in birth date) be belated or postponed? My birthday, Oct 8, can never be Dec 8 or any other date. It’s an impossibility. – Paul

I agree with you that the greeting should make clear that it is not the birthday that is belated, but the birthday wishes. So, “Wishing/I wish you a belated Happy Birthday” is correct.

Past tense

1. Is this sentence correct?

“I will check who has/have texted me before I reply them.

2. Do we say “reply somebody” or “reply to somebody”?

3. I want to say I worried about it but now I am not worried about it anymore.

So, this sentence: “She has been worrying ever since the letter arrived”, is incorrect because “has been” is used to refer to something that continues up to the present.

4. How about this: I have always wanted to work in China. (But I want to say that is what I wanted to do, but NOW I don’t want to work in China anymore.)

Should I use “I HAD always wanted ...” instead? – Ahmad

1. The sentence should read: “I will check who have texted me before I reply to them.”

2. You reply to somebody.

3. You can say: “I used to worry about it, but not anymore.”

“Has been”, a present perfect verb, can be used to refer to something that continues up to the present, e.g. “He has lived in this house for 10 years.” implies he is still living there. But if we write “He lived in this house for 10 years.” (using the simple past tense), it implies that he no longer lives there. A present perfect verb, or a present perfect continuous verb can be used to talk about an activity or a situation that began in the past and continues to the present.

The sentence “She has been worrying ever since the letter arrived.” uses a present perfect continuous verb and is a correct sentence.

4. You don’t use the past perfect (“had wanted”) to make a distinction between what you feel now and what you have long felt in the past. You can say: “For a long time, I used to want to work in China, but now I don’t want to work there anymore.” This is similar in structure to a sentence in the online Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary that illustrates the use of “used to”: “She used to love cats but one attacked her and she doesn’t like them anymore.”

Writing out numbers

Here are a few examples of compound adjectives to express age:

A two-year-old boy was found floating in the river.

A 56-year-old man was killed in a car accident.

An 11-year-old child was abused by his parents.

A thirteen-year-old girl was sexually assaulted.

Is there a rule on when to use numerals, as in “2, 56, 11, 13”, and when to spell out the number? – Confused

Numbers from 1 to 9 should be written in words, as in your sentence “A two-year-old boy was found floating in the river.”

Numbers from 10 onwards may be written numerically as in your sentence “An 11-year-old child was abused by his parents.”

You may also write them in words, but this takes longer, especially if the number is large, e.g. “A hundred-and-two-year-old woman is the oldest person in her town.”

It would be easier and quicker to write “A 102-year-old woman ...”

You must NOT, however, begin a sentence with a numeral. So, it should be: “Eighty-year-old people seldom work in an office.” and NOT “80-year-old people ...”

Will or would?

In this sentence, which is correct?

You’ll/You’d end up doing something he never would have expected.

This is an imaginary situation. – Jenny

A situation in the future is always imaginary, because it hasn’t happened yet. But if the situation is unlikely to happen, you’ll have to write: “You’d end up ...”, as in:

“If you met the men I meet, you’d end up looking barking mad, too.” (The Independent, Oct 14, 2001)

If the situation is likely to happen given the present circumstances, it would be “You’ll end up ...” as in the following sentence from the online Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary:

“She’ll end up penniless if she carries on spending like that.” (under “end up”)

But your sentence does not give the present circumstances.

The expression “never would have expected” can be used with a main clause in various tenses, so the expression is all right in your sentence. Below are some examples of its use:

“Dr Frier ... has managed all aspects of my treatment with skill and a level of compassion I never would have expected to find in anything other than private treatment.”

“... you never know what direction you’ll end up taking – things can take a turning we would never have expected!”

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