Wordwizard

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Using "a memento" would be odd. A memento refers to an event eg graduation, first job, a holiday, A car has a longer period of time than is suitable for it to be a memento. Although I do know someone who bought a castle in France as a "memento" of a battle he fought there. I still have a car I bough...

When I think of sailing I think of a boat on the water and the wind catching the canvass (although it has been many years since it was actually canvass). However we can "sail off down the road", and (I noticed it first in NI) we can go for "a sail around the coast road" , whereas I would more normal...

Although there are circumstances where the suggestions could work, there is no contextual information. As a result I agree with John's example being a reference to the events of the last two days with no explicit reference to anything earlier or ongoing.

Wars come in different packaging. Technically, I think, the Korean War is the last military war in which the UK has been involved, this is for insurance reasons . Malay was only ever an emergency.
Then we have wars like the "forma wars" VHS vs Betamax or Apple vs Windows or ...

a & b essentially can be used interchangeably. Although only a can be used if you are attending high school.

azz, you are quite rights. The choice of phrasing would depend on the structure of the book. Although Erik is quite reasonable in his thoughts it is also quite reasonable to treat war and consequences as two different subjects, especially if the study is over a long historical period,say 150 years o...

The normal phrasing is more succinct. eg
It's not about the money, She dresses to impress.

It is a marketing phrase that doesn't mean anything. It is supposed to imply that only the best ingredients are used in the pastry, and that is your encouragement to buy it. However there is no definition of "quality". Like the phrase "new improved" to which I respond "improved profits". So quality ...

b doesn't sound natural.

a. What is happening now will separate us more than before. It states that the events of now will push us apart even more than events in the past pushed us apart. In the sense of "what you did then was bad but what you have just done is unforgivable."

In that case a & b work for case 1 (with b being significantly better).. e works with case 2. To give you another scenario (one of many) imagine two actors looking at the script for a play. : we are both in the market in Scene 2.Now, here in scene 3 , pointing to some text This is the first time I a...

a. This is the first time I am talking to you. b. This is the first time I have talked to you. c. This is the third time I am talking to you. d. This is the third time I have talked to you. e. This is the last time I am talking to you. f. This is the last time I have talked to you. d is the only one...

Only 1 & 2 work. To do that for a group you would need something like: each of them is too much a journalist to stay ... it needs the collection of the individual choices. Alternatively you need to bind them together first : They are such a committed team of journalists that they would not stay away...

Hitchhiking was a part of life. Although, as this video shows, not without danger
https://youtu.be/VmC-KyhvrZM

I am not a great grammatist , others here are way above me, my take is that the two versions, in isolation , convey the same meaning. Context would determine whether one was more appropriate than the other.

In other circumstances the difference between were and had been are much more obvious.