Archief voor December, 2007
Dit debat ging totaal me door over tot ik op a chanced Washinton Post het verhaal vanochtend, maar het verschijnt dat er consternatie over het algemene gebruik van „Oh, mijn God!“ is
Sommigen debatteren dat het de naam van de God vergeefs neemt, anderen dat het enkel een dagelijkse uitdrukking gelijkend op „Oh, mijn Gosh“ of „Oh, s!“ is (De Mensen voegen „heilig“ aan soms de „s“ uitdrukking toe, doet dat die dat zeggen? eveneens sacrilegious maken)
U leest „Let op Uw Acroniemen“ en beslis voor zich.
Droevig, maar ik ben ingehaald in vakantiebustle van het winkelen en terugkerend stelt en zo veel lettend niet op blog voor.
Ik heb ook enkele movies bemonsterd die als favorieten van Oscar wordt vermeld. Bewezen één zeer literair; andere was lyrical en gory ().
Atonement is literaire. De dialoog en de commentaarstemmen (interne gedachten) vervoeren krachtige, mooie Engels, vrij literair in toon.
Sweeney Todd is lyrical, letterlijk omdat het een muzikale Broadway/opera is die in movie door Tim Burton wordt gemaakt. Het verhaal is goede, maar de gevolgen zijn vrij gory. (Als u niet het perceel, enkel bezoek een plaats zoals MRQE.com en type in „Sweeney Todd kent. “)
Oordeel? Ga aan Atonement als u van de literaire werken houdt die het scherm met zowel krachtige visuele beelden als het krachtige gesproken Engels vullen. Ga aan Sweeney Todd als u een ventilator van of Stephen origineel Sondheim of van Tim Burton bent. Als u gaat, echter, voorbereidingen getroffen voor meer bloed dan u ooit in uw leven hebt gezien.
Beide movies zijn uw tijd de moeite waard.
Ik heb reeds uit de scores en honderden universiteitsklassen besloten ik heb onderwezen dat slechts één in 100 studenten in het gunstigste geval zelfs een aanwijzing heeft die het woord hun bestaat. De meeste studenten enkel uit routine net daar of zij het als bijwoord of possessief voornaamwoord nodig hebben.
Met dit veel wijdverspreide onwetendheid en misbruik, ben ik zeker gool ol' obligin' mensen bij Het Engelse Woordenboek van Oxford will soon sign off on the use of there as both adverb and possessive pronoun. Oh, sad day.
Now, here’s a cute double-whammy I came across this morning in one of my U.S. history classes.
A student did some research on presidents and discovered that only 19 in total ever served at least four years (seems low, though I didn’t challenge it), but her rationale was more revealing: Since, she wrote, most people don’t become president until they’re really old in their (she wrote there) 60s, they quickly die of hard attacks.
You can’t argue with such logic.
I don’t know how many of you live in the United States, and of those who do how many follow baseball, but I spent yesterday watching, first, the George Mitchell news conference on steroid use among athletes, and then, union boss Donald Fehr’s response a few hours later.
I thought both men were well spoken with reasonable statements and arguments, but that aside, let me judge their English usage.
Mitchell was impeccable in his grammar. At one point in a long sentence beginning with everyone–and then interrupted by a bunch of names in between–he even managed to get the correct singular usage of the verb to match his subject. Most people would’ve gotten confused by all the names listed in between and reverted to an incorrect plural verb.
Mitchell gets a home run for his English performance.
Now, Fehr–who tended to speak more circuitously but not necessarily incorrectly–did make one boo-boo (which is why I said he “whiffs”) when he said he had given something “to he….”
Naughty, naughty–prepostions always (a simple rule) take the objective case, so he should’ve said “to him.”
Okay, Fehr hit a triple rather than whiffing, but I had to make a contrasing headline.
It’s baseball that struck out.
English employs three verb moods–indicative, imperative and subjunctive.
Indicative mood is for simple statements, while the imperative is for commands: “Run!”
However, it’s the subjunctive, represeting a wish or untrue situation, that befuddles virtually every English speaker.
Remember the line from the song in Fiddler on the Roof, “If I was a rich man…”?
Completely wrong verb usage!
Since the singer (”I”) is expressing an untrue situation, or a wish, the verb must be changed to the plural subjunctive form, were: “If I were a rich man….”
If can be a big indicator that the subjunctive mood is called for, but not invariably. I wish is a definite call for the subjective: “I wish you were more serious.”
For more examples, peruse this handy guide.
Because a lot of immature fools out there can’t handle the responsibility of free speech, I’ve deleted my grammar questions forum and instituted an e-mail form for you to send me your grammar questions.
All serious grammar questions will be answered by a posting on my main page. Please send serious grammar questions only. My delete button is quite functional, as it was with the now-defunct grammar forum. Sad, sad, sad.
Out where I live in California, the saying, "It is what it is," is gaining a lot of use and cachet.
However, what exactly does it mean? It seems to be one of those usages that, like awesome, has somehow become the saying du jour.
There’s nothing wrong with this particular sentence, but I’ve always wondered how certain words and sayings make the rounds.
Is this an example of viral language (like viral marketing)?
Whenever I teach a grammar/writing class, invariably more than a few students (read: a majority) keep confusing passive voice with past tense. (I covered tenses in a previous Building Blocks post.)
English verbs can have just two voices–active and passive.
The active voice is what you employ for almost everything you say.
Active: "I am sitting at my desk typing a blog post."
Simple, straightforward English that depicts an action taking place–that’s the active voice.
Now, were I to make this into a passive voice sentence (I can’t imagine why I would, however), it would read something like this:
"A blog post is being typed by me while I am sitting at my desk."
Notice that the whole point of the passive voice is to turn the object (of an active voice sentence) into the subject. In this example, blog post has switched from being the direct object to being the subject. That’s why you end up with the passive voice verb construction, is being typed.
To make things even more ridiculous to the ear–and to the comprehension–to change the subject of the active sentence, I, to the object, I has to take the form of a prepositional phrase, by me. (And in this example, getting that "sitting at my desk" part in there is really cumbersome.)
I didn’t pick the greatest example, but here’s another.
Active: "I am eating a hamburger."
Passive: "The hamburger is being eaten by me."
The distinguishing feature between active and passive is that the passive construction actually starts with an object in a role reversal as a subject.
Bottom line: Avoid the passive voice as much as possible. Leave it to scientists ("the patient was observed to expire after three weeks of non-feeding") and crime scene investigators ("the body was found in a pool of blood").
English grammar was indeed found to be complicated when the student shouted in frustration, "English grammar sucks!"
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