The changing face of Modern English9/7/2014
Does Spanish get your tongue in a twist? Are you at the end of your wits with German grammar? Are you wondering why the French bother with the last letter on every word when they don't even pronounce it? If you think you are having a tough time learning the above languages, then have some sympathy for those learning the ten mentioned in this article. It considers the most mind-boggling and tongue-tying languages that we, as English-speakers, could attempt to learn. Whether it's the alien vocabulary of Basque, the tonal nature of Mandarin, or Estonian's fourteen cases that does it, you may find yourself thanking your deity that English is the world-language, and not one of these challenging tongues. All of them are, however, beautiful in their own way. Click here to view the article "10 Hardest Languages To Learn For English Speakers" How to write 'good'30/4/2013 Here are some tongue-in-cheek rules for writers, as written by Frank L Visco and published in the June 1986 issue of Readers' digest. My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
1. Avoid Alliteration. Always. 2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. 3. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.) 4. Employ the vernacular. 5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. 6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. 7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. 8. Contractions aren't necessary. 9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. 10. One should never generalize. 11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know”.” 12. Comparisons are as bad as clichés. 13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous. 14. Profanity sucks. 15. Be more or less specific. 16. Understatement is always best. 17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. 18. One word sentences? Eliminate. 19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake. 20. The passive voice is to be avoided. 21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. 22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. 23. Who needs rhetorical questions? No one likes to be harassed about their grammar, but you will be judged by your misuse of it. There is no other forum in which you'll be so severely punished as the internet. This, however, should be secondary to the fact that you are hindering the effectiveness of your own communication. Have a look at the below guide, put together by copyblogger, which details 15 of the commonest grammatical errors and explains how to get it right!
'To put your foot in your mouth' means saying something, often stupid, that offends, upsets or embarrasses somebody. In most cases, you should also be embarrassed yourself. A very passionate young man addresses several such language-related, foot-in-mouth moments quite humorously in the following Youtube video. Homonyms or: how not to use a spellchecker21/11/2012
Example I - Luke's plan for the evening
Me and Hannah are going to a bar. OR Hannah and I are going to a bar. In this example, the second statement is correct. Confusion often stems from the inclusion of more than one person. Luke would never say, for example, "me is/am going to a bar". Although, that probably depends on how much he's had to drink already. The easiest way to remember this structure is to try saying the sentence without the other person/animal/thing. If the result is incorrect or strange-sounding, as above, then you should be using 'I' rather than 'me'. It's also worth remembering, as a matter of politeness if you like, that the other person/animal/thing should always come first. Don't be an egoist! Say, "Hannah and I" not, "I/me and Hannah". Example II - A knock at the door A: Who is it? B: It's me! OR B: It is I! In this situation, as strange as it sounds, the latter answer is correct. The verb to be is not acting upon an object, rather, it is expressing a state of being. So, the subjective pronoun 'I' is grammatically correct. Most native speakers, however, use the idiomatic expression 'it's me'. This is acceptable in everyday speech but using it in a formal context may result in a few furrowed brows. Should someone telephone you at work and ask for you personally, e.g. "I'd like to speak to Russell Sprout, please", it would be wiser to answer with, "this is he" - or, "this is she" if you are female. To avoid all confusion you could simply say, "this is Russell Sprout speaking". Example III - Misbehaving children Mother: Which of you little devils broke my vase? Son (pointing at his sister): It was her! OR Son (pointing at his sister): It was she! The reasoning in this example is much the same as Example II. The full sentence would be: It was she who broke your vase.
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