I've been thinking for a while that it might be useful to have a thread where people can ask questions about the English language - spelling, grammar, punctuation and things like that. After getting the thumbs-up for this idea on the "Down Crack" thread, I've decided to give it a go. Also, if anyone has questions about specific texts they are studying at school, people who've read them might be able to help out with those, too.
I'll get things started with a quick explanation about something that confuses lots of people (English or otherwise) - the apostrophe (').
Apostrophes have two main functions:
1. to show that letters have been left out of a word
2. to show that something belongs to someone or something.
They should never be used for plurals, so writing something like "I love animal's" would be wrong.
Here are some examples with the correct usage:
It's raining.
I'm feeling fine.
He's very silly.
They've moved house.
The apostrophes are there to show that the writer means "It is...", "I am...", "He is..." and "They have...".
Incidentally, when writing about decades, we don't need an apostrophe, because no letters have been left out:
The 1980s
That's simple enough, now for the more tricky part.
When we want to say that something belongs to someone or something, we write an apostrophe after the owner, and add the letter 's':
The dog's bone. (One dog owns the bone.) John's house.
If the person or thing ends with the letter 's', or we want to talk about something with more than one owner, it's common to put an apostrophe after it, and not to add another 's':
James' football. The dogs' bone. (More than one dog owns the bone.)
We always put the apostrophe after the owner, so in the two doggy examples above, in the first one the owner is "the dog", in the second the owner is "the dogs".
Still with me? OK. Now for the confusing part - the word "its". How do we know whether to write "it's" or "its"?
The answer is that we only use "it's" when we mean "it is". If you want to talk about something that is owned by something else, use "its":
Every rose has its thorn. The dog was playing with its bone.
Right, I hope that's been useful for somebody. For now, bring on the questions...
By the way, people, if you're regularly beset by questions of the "sang / sung", "who/whom" variety, this is an excellent book to look into:
Bill Bryson: Troublesome Words
Peace
I have read several of Bryson's travel stories and enjoyed them.
Is this book written in a similar humorous style? (Can one write a book on language usage in a humorous style?? )
Peace glo
Here I stand.
I can do no other.
May God help me.
Amen.
Come, let us worship and bow down •
and kneel before the Lord our Maker
[Psalm 95]
I have read several of Bryson's travel stories and enjoyed them.
Is this book written in a similar humorous style? (Can one write a book on language usage in a humorous style?? )
Yes - there are flashes of his humour throughout. It's much more entertaining than reference books usually are.
I have never really gotten past the first few pages of Bryson's books. It's not that they are boring necessarily, but they are just not sufficiently 'gripping' as it were. Perhaps they are not supposed to be but a gripping style is what I look for in a book. I love books that really hold your attention, such that you hate having to put the book down.
"I spent thirty years learning manners, and I spent twenty years learning knowledge."
I don't know if you are familiar with iGoogle but is can be very useful as a home page and because it lets you add gadgets; of which there are hundreds. But one I find very useful is called "Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus". It is in fact a cut down version of a full product and you can access the full product as well though there are some restriction (mainly to do with printing).
Often when you are writing you might feel you have not quite got the word you want and this is where a VISUAL Thesaurus can come in very handy because you get a kind of spider diagram and as you move the mouse pointer over it definitions appear. It of course is also useful if you come across words you don't fully understand.
Reported speech..
She said she loved me.
She said she loves me.
What's the difference between these two sentences? They're all supposed to describe her love to me that is still lasting.
Reported speech..
She said she loved me.
She said she loves me.
What's the difference between these two sentences? They're all supposed to describe her love to me that is still lasting.
If the intended meaning is that the love is still lasting, then both sentences are fine. It's your choice whether you use the verb in the past or the present tense.
If the love only existed in the past, then only the first one would be correct.
If the intended meaning is that the love is still lasting, then both sentences are fine. It's your choice whether you use the verb in the past or the present tense.
If the love only existed in the past, then only the first one would be correct.
Which means she had loved you in the past but doesn't love you anymore.
I know what it means but I'm not sure what the difference betwen using past perfect and regular past tence in this particular case, if there is any. According to czgibson "she said she loved me" can refer both to love that stopped at some point in the past as well as one still lasting and 'she said she's loved me' can only refers to the past, though glo says it refers to love that stopped in the past.
I thought it was similar to
I wish you were here (present)
I wish you had been here for me (past)
So I thought "she said she loves me" was wrong, but it isn't.
I know what it means but I'm not sure what the difference betwen using past perfect and regular past tence in this particular case, if there is any. According to czgibson "she said she loved me" can refer both to love that stopped at some point in the past as well as one still lasting and 'she said she's loved me' can only refers to the past, though glo says it refers to love that stopped in the past.
There may be little difference between the use of the past perfect and the past simple in this case, although if you use the past perfect it allows for some precision in the time scale of events, as in:
"She said she'd loved me from the moment she saw me."
Note that using the past perfect does not necessarily mean that the love no longer exists.
So I thought "she said she loves me" was wrong, but it isn't.
It's not wrong, but it's rarely seen. A similar example turns up in a Beatles song:
"She said she loves you
And you know that can't be bad."
There may be little difference between the use of the past perfect and the past simple in this case, although if you use the past perfect it allows for some precision in the time scale of events, as in:
"She said she'd loved me from the moment she saw me."
Note that using the past perfect does not necessarily mean that the love no longer exists.
Peace
I can see that now.
When I read the sentence for the first time I had assumed that the love no longer existed ...
... as in "She said she'd loved me until she found out about my unfaithfulness."
So the only thing we know is that the love had existed prior to the time the statement was made, but we only know whether or not it still exists depending on other information given?
Peace glo
Here I stand.
I can do no other.
May God help me.
Amen.
Come, let us worship and bow down •
and kneel before the Lord our Maker
[Psalm 95]
So the only thing we know is that the love had existed prior to the time the statement was made, but we only know whether or not it still exists depending on other information given?
That's right, but the not quite the whole story:
We know that the love had existed prior to the time of the statement, and prior to some other event in the past. That is the general usage of the past perfect tense.
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