- When mutton is cooked, allow it to cool before placing it in the freezer.
- When mutton is cooked, allow cooling first before placing it in the freezer.
Are both correct? Please guide.
The first is correct.
Beeesneees,
- They don’t allow parking.
- They don’t allow parking of cars.
- They don’t allow the car to park.
- They don’t allow to park the car.
Which are correct?
1 - 2 are possible but only 1 sounds natural.
3 sounds as if the car parks itself.
Beeesneees,
If “They don’t allow parking.” is termed correct,
how do you say “When mutton is cooked, allow cooling first before placing it in the freezer.” is wrong?
Please explain the nuance of the grammar involved.
Same old problem - you are trying to group things that look similar into the same structure. The sentences have a completely different structure,
Beeesneees,
You have answered : “The sentences have a completely different structure.”
But I couldn’t get your point. It is still confusing.
1.They don’t allow parking.
2. They allow parking.
3. You allow parking first.
4. Please allow parking first.
5. Allow parking first.
6. Allow cooling first.
Please check all my sentences.
Are they not correct?
3 eo 5 don’t make much sense in terms of context. What did you have in mind?
6 - Do you mean something like?
allow the cake to cool before decorating (it)
allow the pie to cool before slicing (it)
If you do, then I would not use ‘cooling’.
An interesting theme!
As far as I know, the following two structures exist in English grammar:
(1) allow + object + to do
(2) allow + doing (without object)
However, they do not always justify themselves as we expect.
Alli, there are lots of subtle nuances in English. In order to understand them, in my opinion, we must have been born as an Englishwoman/man 
Here I think the structure needs to be changed:
When mutton is cooked, it should be allowed to cool before being placed in the freezer.
Or
When you cook mutton, (you should) allow it to cool before you place it in the freezer.
Do you really mean that only people born in England can understand them?
That’s strange.
As I said in the second message in this thread, there is nothing wrong with that particular sentence as Allifathima wrote it. It does not need to be changed.
[size=150]It is not allowed to smoke here[/size].
This sentence is a typical mistake according to “Practical English Usage”(Oxford Press)
Moreover, [size=150]allow[/size] is followed by a gerund just when there is not a personal object.
They do not allow us to smoke here.
They do not allow smoking here.
That sentence is not the same as the one under discussion in the previous posts, as it does not use the same tense
They should not be allowed to smoke here - is okay
It is not allowed to smoke here - is not okay
Beeesneees,
“It is not allowed to smoke here.”
Please explain the nuance of the grammar involved to say that above sentence is wrong.
See Masmori’s message #13
Yes, I wrongly used the word Englishman/woman. I just meant [b]a native speaker!!![/b].
I guess because when the “smoking” is prohibited, so what does “it” refer to?
Is not logical?
Masmori, the sentence as it stands is incorrect. ‘It’ relates to the act of smoking and as you say, it doesn’t work.
For this sentence to work at all then ‘it’ would have to refer to a previously mentioned or understood noun. For example:
The robot is not allowed to smoke in here.
That robot is smoking, but it is not allowed to smoke in here.
The man is not allowed to smoke in here.
That man is smoking, but he is not allowed to smoke in here.
- They don’t allow parking. (General - any kind of vehicles)
- They don’t allow parking of cars. (Specific - only cars)
- They don’t allow the car to be parked. (Passive structure is possible here)
- They don’t allow us/anyone to park the car. (Personal object is necessary here)
I hope Fathima will understand this better.