幾題令我confused的英文問題.help thx thx

1.By degrees是一句片語，是逐漸地的意思，放在頭與放在尾意思都是一樣的：
如yahoo字典就有這一例
Their friendship was growing by degrees into love.
他們的友誼正逐漸地發展成愛情。
而牛津高階字典（第四版）也有這一例：
By degrees their friendship grew into love.（他們的友誼漸漸地發展成愛情）

2. As likely/like as not 是大概，很可能的意思；用在前後也是一樣
　Cambridge Dictionary有一例如下：As likely as not, she'll end up in court over this problem.
　而牛津現代高級英漢雙解辭典，也有以下一例：He will suceed as likely as not（他多半會成功）
　as coincidence其實也可以說是片語，也可以用在頭或用在尾

3.當a用作one的意思時，它可以讀做A或are音，（但A音是強讀式strong form)，讀A讀are就隨得你喜歡

4. be liable to的to並不是to-infinitive的to，而是前置詞，前置詞後面的都必須是名詞或動名詞，所以用collapsing而不是用collapse；這正如look forward to hearing your good news一樣，並不是用hear因為，這裏的to也是介詞。

5.for all是片語，是儘管的意思，其英文意思是：in spite of，就如in spite of並不是連接詞，是介詞片語；所以，並不用完整子句。
　yahoo字典有一例：
For all her wealth, she is not happy.（她雖然很富有,但並不幸福。）
但若for all不是用作in spite of之意時，則可以用完整子句，如：
He may be dead for all I know（他可能死了，也未可知）





2007-05-29 11:55:57 補充：
但be liable之後也可以用to-infinitive，是指有做某事的傾向，如We are all liable to make mistakes when we are tired.但你的句子是用be liable to(prepositon)的句子，意思是”每個人在這情況下都會崩潰”

I'll try since I don't quite understand some of your questions -
1) I'm not sure what you mean 'by degrees' - do you mean 'over a period of time' or similar to that??? I can't say I've heard 'by degrees' being used in that situation, if at all. Anyhow, both sentences are fine, though the 1st sounds funny.
2) Not sure what you mean here - what's the full sentence?
3) 'a' - sounds like 'are'. Some people do say 'a', especially Australians but that's wrong technically.
4) no '-ing' after 'to' -- Everyone is liable to collapse in such a situation (or situations). I probably won't use the word 'liable' here either as it really means 'responsible'. So you'd be saying 'Everyone is responsible to collapse...'???? (Btw, spelling mistake in 'collapsing'/'collapse')
5) Not sure what you mean...what's the full sentence???
Hope that helps