Getting to Grips with English

A sort of moron...

Of all the morons that I've met, and I've met plenty, the most interesting and amusing moron is the oxymoron!

So what is an oxymoron? Some people say that phrases like 'military intelligence' or 'honest politician' are oxymorons (and, I have to admit that these are the ones I really like).

An oxymoron is a figure of speech where one part contradicts or cancels out the other making it, in some ways, an impossible combination. For example, the commonly heard 'pretty ugly' is a great example of an oxymoron if taken literally. Another good one, often found in furniture shops is a 'genuine imitation'. There are lots of them - you can find a good starter list here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oxymorons where you can see that there are various kinds of oxymora (yes, that's the plural!) ranging from the bland 'detailed summary' to the amusing 'Microsoft Works'.

As I like the ones that Wikipedia have listed as joke oxymora I thought I'd ask you all if you had any good examples - so if you have a good example of a joke oxymoron please send it me and I'll post it up. Don't feel tempted .... please, to send: 'exciting English grammar'

Don't be so negative...

We're living in a world that can easily give rise to negativity but being doubly negative is something we should really try to avoid! ... Well, at least in English grammar.

What is a double negative? It's when you find two negative parts in a sentence (where one is enough).

For example, 'She didn't know nothing before she went to university.' In this sentence the verb is already in the negative - didn't know - and is followed by another negative - nothing. So how could we change this sentence to make it correct? Try changing one or other of the parts:

• She knew nothing before she went to university.
• She didn't know anything before she went to university.

Other words like nothing to watch out for are not, hardly, barely and scarcely :

• 'Not all my friends don't have cars' would be better as 'not all my friends have cars'.
• 'They hardly ate nothing would' be better as 'they hardly at anything'.
• 'She couldn't barely stand up' would be better as 'she could barely stand up'.
• 'She wouldn't scarcely give me the time of day' would be better as 'she would scarcely give me the time of day'.

Some of these may look pretty obvious but you'd be amazed how often I am confronted with the double negative coming from my native English speaking clients and my foreign clients alike.

Advise or advice?

A question sent in by  Jose Rodriguez asking about the difference between 'advise' and 'advice':

is "advice" correctly spelled or is it "advise", or both are correct but have different meanings in the United States? which is it? please advise or advice:-)

Thanks

Jose, here comes the advice!

'Advice' is a noun: you can give someone a 'piece of advice'. For example, let me give you some advice about travelling in China.

'Advise' is a verb: He advised me to always keep my passport on me when I was in China. His advice was very useful.

Another example: She was asked to advise (verb) the government on immigration. Her advice (noun) was used to prepare the new programs.

Hope that helps, Jose!

Putting the Past in its Place

This one, for all of you tortured by the illogicality of irregular past forms in English, was emailed to me by Jane Jennings an English4Today Club Member. It is from Guy Duetscher's book, the Unfolding of Language. By the way, there's a full list of all of the English irregular verbs with their past forms and sound files for pronunciation on the Club website.

The teacher claimed it was so plain,
I only had to use my brain
She said the past of throw was threw.
The past of grow -of course- was grew,
So flew must be the past of fly,
And now, my boy, your turn to try.
But when I trew,
I had no clue, if mow was mew -
Like know and knew
Or was it knowed
Like snow and snowed

The teacher frowned at me and said
The past of feed was - plainly - fed.
Fed up, I knew then what I ned:
I took a break, and out I snoke.

She shook and quook (or quaked or quoke?)
With raging anger out she broke:
"Your ignorance you want to hide?
Tell me the past form of collide!"
But how on earth should I decide
If it's collid (Like hide and hid)
Or else - from all that I surmose,
The past of rise was simple rose,
And that of ride was surely rode
So of collide must be collode?

Oh damn these English verbs, I thought
The whole thing absolutely stought !
Of English I have had enough.
These verbs of yours are far too tough.
Bolt upright in my chair I sat,
And said to her "That's that. I quat!".

Taking Possession : Where does that possessive apostrophe go?

One of the most asked questions that we get at english4today.com is about the placement of the apostrophe for possessives. This is a 'young' blog so I'm going to answer it here for Trish Upham from Australia who writes:

I am a Virtual Assistant working with lawyers and regularly come across the problem of multiple possessives in legal documents. For instance, when a group of people is buying a company, none of us can agree on the correct way to type something like "Smith, Dunn, & Bradstreet's ownership". Or should it be "Smith's, Dunn's, and Bradstreet's"???

I would REALLY appreciate some expert opinion on this.

Thanks in anticipation!

Starting with your question first, Trish, the rule is that

• For joint ownership, show possession only on the last noun.
  So your second example,'Smith, Dunn, & Bradstreet's ownership', is correct. As is,
  There is always a great atmosphere at Joan and Max's parties.
• For individual possession, show possession on all of the nouns.
  Maire's, Pierre's and Hubert's cars were all burnt during the recent riots in Paris.
  Smith's, Dunn's and Bradstreet's lives may not have been wildy exciting.

Some other rules for the possesive apostrophe are:

• For singular and plural nouns that do not end in -s, form the possessive by
  adding -'s. The women's shelter, The dog's bone.
• For singular nouns that end in -s, (whether pronounced or unpronounced), form the possessive by adding -'s. Anthony Hughes's blog, The class's teacher.
• For plural nouns that end in –s, form the possessive by adding only an apostrophe.
  The books' covers were all damaged. The queens' powers were eroded over the centuries.
• For compound nouns, show possession at the end of the compound.
  The Queen Mary's last cruise was to New York. The Republic of Congo's government is not very stable.
• We do not use the possessive apostrophe with possessive pronouns (hers,
  theirs, yours, whose, and its).

Hope that has helped Trish. What is a 'virtual assistant' ... it sounds like one of those annoying little software beings Microsoft pops up in their programs all the time. If you let me know what it is I'll put it up here so that we can settle a dispute now raging in our office! I keep telling them that those Microsoft animated bugs would not be able to email us...