Pull of phrases
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
WHEN do we use “pull round” and “pull through”? In the sentence, “Have you pulled through your influenza/sore throat/gastritis/thyroid?”, is the tense correct?– MOE Chinese reader
1. “Pull round” as a phrasal verb is not as commonly used as the phrasal verb “pull through”. In fact, the Advanced Learner’s dictionaries I consulted (Oxford, Cambridge) and the online Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English don’t even list this verb. The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary (an American dictionary), however, includes this verb and says that it is “chiefly British”.
“Pull round” means “to recover from sickness or fainting” or “to restore a person to health after sickness”, or “to put [something] into a healthier or better condition” (Oxford English Dictionary)
“Pull through” has slightly different meanings, which involve a lot of effort and difficulty. It means “to get through an illness or other dangerous and difficult situation”. (Concise Oxford English Dictionary) or to get someone through this. Here are some examples of their usage which I got from the Internet:
“When they left her there Wilfred and Ilene were told to expect the worst during the next 24 hours. But the worst didn’t happen and Lita gradually pulled round.” (from a UK website)
“He caught Andrew as he fainted and dropped on the spot ... Andrew pulled round in a back room of the shop.” (from an online book titled Jack Frost & The Hooded Crow)
“All we know is that he’s extremely ill. Everyone is so worried. We’re praying he’ll pull through.” (from dailyrecord.co.uk)
“Hampson appears to have pulled through the early stages of the aircraft industry’s difficulties, and demand for its specialist machines tools remains robust.” (from investorschronicle.co.uk)
Your sentence names the disease after “pull through”. We would normally only write “pull through” after naming the disease, as in:
“My friends wife gave birth to a boy that had both left and right sided congenital diaphragmatic hernias and he was very ill and struggled for life in the early months. However he pulled through and I believe he is fine now.” (from uk.answers.yahoo.com)
Also, it is in the present perfect tense and the past participle of the main verb (“pulled”) should be used with “have”. Besides, it is better to use “recovered from” rather than “pulled through”, since influenza, sore throat and gastritis” are not life-threatening diseases (unless the flu is bird flu or H1N1). “Thyroid” is not a disease, but a gland. We may have problems with our thyroid gland, and you could write “thyroid problems” instead of “thyroid”.
Pronoun problem
I am confused about the use of the pronoun which I have been told, refers to the antecedent noun in the sentence:
“We have a series of six articles that gives a good description of the heritage building.”
Shouldn’t it be “give” to reflect the plural “six articles” since “that” is the pronoun referring to the antecedent noun “six articles”. My teacher told me that it should be “series”. I find this hard to accept. Would the following be different?
“We have a number/library/collection of six articles which gives a good description of the heritage building.”
Then when do we apply the grammatical rule of using the pronoun “that” or “which” to refer to the antecedent noun? – Paul Chan
I agree with you. When a collective noun like “series” is followed by “of + plural noun”, like “a series of six articles” that you mentioned, and this is then followed by a relative pronoun (“that” in your sentence), a plural verb is used in the relative clause. This is because, the plural noun is seen to be a more important antecedent than the main noun (“series”) of the noun phrase. So the sentence should read:
“We have a series of six articles that give a good description of the heritage building.”
There are other examples of this structure, e.g.
“A herd of cows that belong to the farmer are grazing in his field.”
“From January, BBC World News will broadcast ... a series of topical debates ... which are set to stimulate and challenge the channel’s audience across the world.” (BBC press release Dec 12, 2008)
Regarding your other sentences:
Number: The sentence does not need the “six”. It should just be written: “We have a number of articles which give a good description of the heritage building.” “Number” here is a quantifier, and when used in the phrase “a number of + plural noun + relative pronoun” is also followed by a plural verb. The more important antecedent here is “articles”, not “number”.
Library: This sentence does not make sense. How can a library have only six articles within it?
Collection: The sentence follows the pattern of your original sentence, since it uses the collective noun “collection”, and so should read: “We have a collection of six articles which give a good description of the heritage building.”
The relative pronoun “which” can be used when the antecedent noun it refers to is not a person, but “that” can be used for a person, an animal, a plant, or a thing.
Learning grammar
How do I learn strong English grammar ? – Wilson
Do you mean how to improve your English grammar? I don’t know whether you are a student or a working person. If you are a student and have an English teacher, it would help to ask your teacher questions about what you don’t understand in English grammar. If you are a working person, it would help if you have a good grammar book. Since I don’t know what level you are at, I don’t know what book to recommend to you.
Above all these, however, reading a lot of good books on any subject would improve your command of the English language, which means your English would be grammatical. You may not know the names of the various terms in English grammar, but you would be able to use the language well.
Speaking better
How do I improve my English conversation? – Tan
You need to talk regularly to one or more people who speak English well to improve your English conversation. If you don’t have such friends, try enrolling in a Conversational English class or finding a tutor who can help you speak English better.
If you can’t afford the class or the tutor, but you have access to a computer, there is a BBC website that has downloadable material to help you with pronunciation and conversation. Try and explore its features and use the ones that you think can help you. Here is its url: www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish
Source: By FADZILAH AMIN @ The Star Online - Mind Our English
Click here to enter your email for more SPM 2019 tips and sample essays! Free essay writing guide on how to write an essay in five simple steps. Good essays, essay writing, essay examples, essay topics & essay guide. Improve your writing skill and become an effective writer. Model essays for GCE O Level, A Level, SPM English 1119, SPM EST, STPM MUET, IELTS Writing & TOEFL
Friday, January 18, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Common Grammar Mistakes / Grammatical Errors
Spot the error
EACH funny story below contains an error. Can you spot it?
1. Three white blind mice who live in a museum are having some fun after the place has closed. One of the little creatures crawls into a suit of armour – and then realises that he is lost. “I can’t get out!” he shouts to his playmates. “Help me make it through the knight!”
“Three white blind mice” should be “Three blind white mice”. In the order of adjectives, observation/opinion (“blind”) comes before colour (“white”).
We can also say that “white mice” is a compound noun, which is modified by the adjective “blind”.
2. A man who needs a pair of new shoes walks into a shoe store and tries on a pair recommended by the sales clerk.
“How do they feel?” asks the clerk.
“A bit tight,” replies the man.
Bending down to take a closer look at the shoes, the clerk says, “Pull the tongue out.”
“Theyth sthill feelth a bith tighth.”
“A pair of new shoes” should be “a new pair of shoes”, with the adjective “new” modifying the noun phrase “pair of shoes”.
3. Sam sported a luxurious beard that was the envy of his friends. One day, a stranger stopped him on the street and said, “I once had a beard like yours, but when I realised that it looked ugly, I shaved it off.”
Keeping his cool, Sam replied, “I once had a face like yours, and when I realised that I couldn’t shave it off, I grew a beard.”
“Luxurious” should be “luxuriant”. The former is an adjective which means “characterised by luxury”, while the latter is an adjective which means “characterised by abundant growth”.
4. Joe was telling his wife about a former classmate whom he met recently: “It was 30 years ago since we last saw each other. He is so bald and fat that he didn’t recognise me!”
“Ago” means “earlier than the present time”. When it is followed by a clause, the clause is introduced by “that”, not “since”: “It was 30 years ago that we last saw each other.”
Source: By OH TEIK THEAM @ The Star Online - Mind Our English
EACH funny story below contains an error. Can you spot it?
1. Three white blind mice who live in a museum are having some fun after the place has closed. One of the little creatures crawls into a suit of armour – and then realises that he is lost. “I can’t get out!” he shouts to his playmates. “Help me make it through the knight!”
“Three white blind mice” should be “Three blind white mice”. In the order of adjectives, observation/opinion (“blind”) comes before colour (“white”).
We can also say that “white mice” is a compound noun, which is modified by the adjective “blind”.
2. A man who needs a pair of new shoes walks into a shoe store and tries on a pair recommended by the sales clerk.
“How do they feel?” asks the clerk.
“A bit tight,” replies the man.
Bending down to take a closer look at the shoes, the clerk says, “Pull the tongue out.”
“Theyth sthill feelth a bith tighth.”
“A pair of new shoes” should be “a new pair of shoes”, with the adjective “new” modifying the noun phrase “pair of shoes”.
3. Sam sported a luxurious beard that was the envy of his friends. One day, a stranger stopped him on the street and said, “I once had a beard like yours, but when I realised that it looked ugly, I shaved it off.”
Keeping his cool, Sam replied, “I once had a face like yours, and when I realised that I couldn’t shave it off, I grew a beard.”
“Luxurious” should be “luxuriant”. The former is an adjective which means “characterised by luxury”, while the latter is an adjective which means “characterised by abundant growth”.
4. Joe was telling his wife about a former classmate whom he met recently: “It was 30 years ago since we last saw each other. He is so bald and fat that he didn’t recognise me!”
“Ago” means “earlier than the present time”. When it is followed by a clause, the clause is introduced by “that”, not “since”: “It was 30 years ago that we last saw each other.”
Source: By OH TEIK THEAM @ The Star Online - Mind Our English
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Manglish (Malglish/Mangled English) - English Based Creole Spoken in Malaysia
Mangling the language
We encounter Manglish every day, but do we have to tolerate it?
C’MON lah you all, can you all faster decide lah.” This was part of a dialogue in a kopitiam TV commercial. Hearing locals speaking like this is now very common.
Welcome to the very interesting and intriguing world of Manglish.
Malaysia is, as everyone already knows, a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-custom and multi-cultural country and one can always tell which community a person belongs to from the way he or she speaks.
Alamak, ayoyo, adoi, apa nama, apa ni, alah, alahai etc, and suffixes mah, kan, one, and the perennial and lovable lah are now almost always heard in Manglish.
“Please” is rather selfishly used. Why? I am not sure.
One-word sentences are also heard often when Manglish is used: “can”, “cannot”, “go”, “come”, and short phrases, questions and sentences such as “Can or not?”, “Want or don’t want?”, “Go or not?”, “Come or not?”, “Also can one”, etc. However, some of these examples, such as “go” and “come”, are perfect when used as sentences on their own as far as English is concerned.
“On the switch” (Please put on the switch), “Off the switch” (Please put off the switch), and “Keep and touch” (Keep in touch) are some instructions and phrases we commonly hear too, especially amongst young people. Changing the middle word in the last expression from “in” to “and” has remained from the early 80s and must have been due to the failure of our young people to understand the “accent” of native speakers, hearing the “in” as “and”.
“Open”, “closed” and “sale” are words commonly used in notices and advertisements and many use them wrongly by adding “ed” to open, omitting the “ed” from closed or adding an “s” to sale. Regardless of the number of stores in a shopping complex offering lower prices on their goods, it should be “year-end sale” and not “year-end sales”.
English words are also mixed with Malay. “Suasana glam” was used at the recent Anugerah Industri Muzik by MC Awal Asyari to refer to the glamorous event. Other non-Malay terms that celebrities like to use include: All right, right on, clubbing, yamcha, fashion, speed, photo shoot and location.
For some reason, youngsters, and some adults, like to use long sentences in Manglish. You can see examples of these on Facebook.
Radio ERA runs a very popular and delightfully funny series hosted by the effervescent Aznil Hj Nawawi on weekday mornings. It’s called Can I Help You?
The concept of the show is that it makes pranks calls to unsuspecting people (their numbers are supplied by friends) to ask about products and services. This is done in impeccable English and with a British accent by someone named Haniff. Most of the people called cannot speak English properly but they have to because Haniff acts as if he does not understand Malay at all. You can imagine the Manglish that you will hear over the airwaves! That show always makes my day. But I think, “May I help you?” would be a better and more polite tagline.
In Manglish, I also find that speakers do not pay attention to grammar and the most common mistakes are: not differentiating between present tense and past tense, singular and plural, and spelling errors.
The other observation is the wrong pronunciation of English words, something that happens often on the TV3 late news programme, Nightline. A certain news presenter always reads “head” as “had”; “said” as “sad” and recently, “Islamic Civilation Park in Terengganu” instead of “civilisation”. In an early morning programme on Berita Awani, a presenter pronounced Pope John Paul as Pop John Paul.
I recently attended a lecture by an IT expert with a doctorate who is also the head of the IT Department at a leading local private university. In his PowerPoint slides, he had phrases such as “is sents” and “is determines”, with the additional “s”, and that was the way he spoke too.
Even with the numerous constructive ideas and suggestions put forth by various interested and knowledgeable parties on the poor standard of English in the country, I notice that the problem has still not been properly addressed by the people responsible for formulating our education policies.
We see examples all the time. A notice at a mobile phone kiosk at Larkin Bus Terminal in Johor uses “cut” for “card”. You like to have “flied lice” or “one ton mee”?
But, it’s Manglish, and they say, “Anyhow oso can”.
Source: By HUSSAINI ABDUL KARIM @ The Star Online - Mind Our English
We encounter Manglish every day, but do we have to tolerate it?
C’MON lah you all, can you all faster decide lah.” This was part of a dialogue in a kopitiam TV commercial. Hearing locals speaking like this is now very common.
Welcome to the very interesting and intriguing world of Manglish.
Malaysia is, as everyone already knows, a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-custom and multi-cultural country and one can always tell which community a person belongs to from the way he or she speaks.
Alamak, ayoyo, adoi, apa nama, apa ni, alah, alahai etc, and suffixes mah, kan, one, and the perennial and lovable lah are now almost always heard in Manglish.
“Please” is rather selfishly used. Why? I am not sure.
One-word sentences are also heard often when Manglish is used: “can”, “cannot”, “go”, “come”, and short phrases, questions and sentences such as “Can or not?”, “Want or don’t want?”, “Go or not?”, “Come or not?”, “Also can one”, etc. However, some of these examples, such as “go” and “come”, are perfect when used as sentences on their own as far as English is concerned.
“On the switch” (Please put on the switch), “Off the switch” (Please put off the switch), and “Keep and touch” (Keep in touch) are some instructions and phrases we commonly hear too, especially amongst young people. Changing the middle word in the last expression from “in” to “and” has remained from the early 80s and must have been due to the failure of our young people to understand the “accent” of native speakers, hearing the “in” as “and”.
“Open”, “closed” and “sale” are words commonly used in notices and advertisements and many use them wrongly by adding “ed” to open, omitting the “ed” from closed or adding an “s” to sale. Regardless of the number of stores in a shopping complex offering lower prices on their goods, it should be “year-end sale” and not “year-end sales”.
English words are also mixed with Malay. “Suasana glam” was used at the recent Anugerah Industri Muzik by MC Awal Asyari to refer to the glamorous event. Other non-Malay terms that celebrities like to use include: All right, right on, clubbing, yamcha, fashion, speed, photo shoot and location.
For some reason, youngsters, and some adults, like to use long sentences in Manglish. You can see examples of these on Facebook.
Radio ERA runs a very popular and delightfully funny series hosted by the effervescent Aznil Hj Nawawi on weekday mornings. It’s called Can I Help You?
The concept of the show is that it makes pranks calls to unsuspecting people (their numbers are supplied by friends) to ask about products and services. This is done in impeccable English and with a British accent by someone named Haniff. Most of the people called cannot speak English properly but they have to because Haniff acts as if he does not understand Malay at all. You can imagine the Manglish that you will hear over the airwaves! That show always makes my day. But I think, “May I help you?” would be a better and more polite tagline.
In Manglish, I also find that speakers do not pay attention to grammar and the most common mistakes are: not differentiating between present tense and past tense, singular and plural, and spelling errors.
The other observation is the wrong pronunciation of English words, something that happens often on the TV3 late news programme, Nightline. A certain news presenter always reads “head” as “had”; “said” as “sad” and recently, “Islamic Civilation Park in Terengganu” instead of “civilisation”. In an early morning programme on Berita Awani, a presenter pronounced Pope John Paul as Pop John Paul.
I recently attended a lecture by an IT expert with a doctorate who is also the head of the IT Department at a leading local private university. In his PowerPoint slides, he had phrases such as “is sents” and “is determines”, with the additional “s”, and that was the way he spoke too.
Even with the numerous constructive ideas and suggestions put forth by various interested and knowledgeable parties on the poor standard of English in the country, I notice that the problem has still not been properly addressed by the people responsible for formulating our education policies.
We see examples all the time. A notice at a mobile phone kiosk at Larkin Bus Terminal in Johor uses “cut” for “card”. You like to have “flied lice” or “one ton mee”?
But, it’s Manglish, and they say, “Anyhow oso can”.
Source: By HUSSAINI ABDUL KARIM @ The Star Online - Mind Our English