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Mark Nichol: Can We Cooperate About “Co-”?
KNOW WHO YOUR CZARS ARE –ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SICK —ONLY OBAMA COULD CREATE POSITIONS FOR THESE INCOMPENTENT COMMUNISTS AND SOCIALISTS (Photo credit: SS&SS)
I’m not holding my breath about world peace, and I’m not any more sanguine about consensus on the prefix co-, but here’s an appeal about coming to terms about this term.
Generally, no hyphen is required to link this prefix to root words. In the case of many prefixes, the element is initially attached to the root word, but as readers and writers become accustomed to the new construction, the linking device is omitted, and the components are joined.
However, some constructions resist this transformation because the resulting fusion looks odd. We make exceptions for certain contiguous vowels (anti-inflammatory) or for some awkward-looking combinations (pro-choice, thoughproactive and most other pro- constructions are closed). But the default setting, at least in American English, is to discard the hyphen and close up the resulting space.
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Can We Cooperate About “Co-”?(dailywritingtips.com)
10 Varieties of Linguistic Siamese Twins
English: Korean Siamese twins photographed in 1903. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of the most intriguing aspects of idiomatic phrases is their fixed nature, an aspect acknowledged in two terms for the class of idioms distinguished by the use of the conjunctionand or the conjunction orbetween the constituent words: irreversible binomials and freezes. (They are also referred to as binomials or binomial pairs, or are identified by the colloquial expression “Siamese twins.”)
Ten sometimes overlapping variations of linguistic Siamese twins (which, because they are often clichés, should be used with caution) follow, including a category for triplets:
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10 Varieties of Linguistic Siamese Twins(dailywritingtips.com)
7 Examples of Valid Passive Construction
Active Voice (Photo credit: GAPHIKER)
One of the easiest principles of grammar to remember is to avoid the passive voice, or passive construction, but it’s just as essential to recall that this rule is not absolute. Passive construction has its place. Appropriate uses are described below.
Passive constructions are those in which the acted-on noun, rather than the word(s) denoting the actor, is the subject of the sentence, as in the last sentence of the lead paragraph of this post. The well-founded prejudices against the passive include that such constructions are usually less concise than those organized in the active voice, that they obscure the identity of the actor, and that they upend traditional English syntax.
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Pass the Passive Writing, Please!(changeitupediting.com)
Active and Passive Voice(eveproofreads.com)
It Was Written In the Passive Voice(stgrady.wordpress.com)
Long time, no write(esltechteach.wordpress.com)
Passive verbs are for zombies(onewildword.com)
Passive voice(slideshare.net)
Words formed from place-names
In the last two decades there has been an abounding interest in Hinglish, and with lexicographers bringing out revised editions every other year, the interest has been sustained in Indian and foreign publications. Addressing a meeting of the Indian community, Prince Charles affirmed that the influx of Indian words has enriched English.
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The Whys and Hows of Paraphrasing
English: Logo of Academic Project publishers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Paraphrasing, rewording of spoken or written content, is a necessary skill for every writer. This post discusses the purposes of process of paraphrasing.
Why Paraphrase?
Quoting directly without attribution is plagiarism, an offense against those responsible for crafting the original message. In a scholarly setting, it constitutes academic dishonesty, which when committed by students is punished with a failing grade, suspension, or expulsion; it also compromises their future in academia. In the case of faculty or academic researchers, it signals a lack of integrity and can ruin one’s career.
Even with attribution, however, extensive direct quotation in course assignments or in scholarly research is discouraged; some sources recommend that no more than 10 percent of an academic paper or article consist of exact wording from a research source. In both trade books and scholarly publishing, the same benchmarks seems appropriate; journalism is more accepting, but direct quotation consisting of more than 25 percent of an article (except in the case of a question-and-answer interview) is likely to be regarded as excessive.
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- The Whys and Hows of Paraphrasing (dailywritingtips.com)
R Grammar Gaffes Ruining The Language? Maybe Not
Good grammar may have came and went.
Maybe you’ve winced at the decline of the past participle. Or folks writing and saying “he had sank” and “she would have went.” Perhaps it was the singer Gotye going on about “Somebody That I Used to Know” instead of “Somebody Whom I Used to Know.” Or any of a number of other tramplings of traditional grammar — rules that have been force-fed to American schoolchildren for decades — in popular parlance and prose.
You can find countless examples of poor construction in the news, like this report from a radio station’s website about a thief who “had ran out of gas” or this Fox News item about a dog owner who said “her dog had ran away” or this gossipy blog post about actress Demi Moore and her daughter, Rumer, “when her and Rumer attended the Friends Cinema for Peace event in Los Angeles and posed for photos on the red carpet!”
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Learn elocution, brighten your career
English: (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
How now brown cow! This jingle was made famous by teachers of elocution and public speaking. They used it to illustrate the pronunciation of the diphthong /au/ which we also find in “plough”, “brow” and “doubt”. Indian speakers have no difficulty with these words. There may be a minor difference, since native English speakers have a perceptibly longer sound for “ow”. The mouth position is also slightly more open. The jingle has been used in many movies and television shows.
Most readers will be familiar with a similar jingle in literature. Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” had the character Henry Higgins, who was elocution teacher par excellence: he transformed a Cockney flower girl into a duchess who could speak “proper English”. The jingle he used was “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”
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- How to Learn English (eslschoolforenglish.wordpress.com)
