Common mistakes learners make - discuss about

Foreign learners quite often want to say something like - "we discussed about last night's match". This is perhaps not surprising, for two reasons:

• "discuss" is really just another (more formal) way of saying "talk about"
  We discussed (talked about) the new system.
• the noun "discussion" is often (and correctly) followed by the preposition "about"
  We had a discussion about the new system.

But in Standard English, we don't use discuss about like this.

Whom watch #3 - Silly infographic

Continuing an occasional series where I look at silly or downright bad articles etc about whom on the Internet.

The other day I was looking through a teacher’s blog which had kindly linked to mine, when I came across an ‘infographic’ with the title “Who vs whom”. I rather feared the worst.

Outwith - collected quotes

Collected outwith quotes

Some time ago I wrote a post titled 'Is outwith a word?' (link below), which continues to get quite a lot of hits. The preposition outwith is used in educated Scottish English to mean something like 'outside, not part of'. One way to look at it is as the opposite of within.

Recently there have been a couple of comments on that post which have led me to look for examples among well-known Scottish writers, and I thought it might be a good idea to collect these examples of outwith together, where possible linking to them in Google Books or other source.

I've also included a section with more historical use, often using facsimiles from the books themselves. Apart from anything else, these show what the Scottish English of the Court and the Law of these times looked like, and the sort of spellings that were then prevalent.

As it is my intention that this should be an ongoing work, and that I will be adding examples to it as and when I find them, I've made a page rather than a post for them, which can be found here.

• Collected outwith quotes
• Is outwith a word?

Confusing verbs - consist, include, make up, comprise and constitute etc

We can use several verbs to talk about the parts that form or make up something (the whole). Some can be a little confusing, and with one, not everybody agrees on all its uses. Read a bit about them and do a short exercise. (Hat-tip to Peter Harvey at Lavengro, whose post gave me the idea - see links).

Random thoughts - he was sat, she was stood

Some time ago there was a rather lively discussion on the language blog, Pain in the English, about these two idiomatic expressions. Let's take a look at a couple of examples from Google Books:

He was sat there with his arms over the back of the sofa looking really upset so I thought there was something ...

Under the Rotunda - Danny Bernardi

In an instant Dave knew that he was stood on a road and that there was a vehicle coming ...

The Company - James McCann

And here's one with both

We saw him later on chatting to another bunch of bemused holidaymakers, only they were sat down and he was stood in front of them, in his Speedos ...

Thai Tales - Justin Dunn

Read a bit more about these expressions. What do they mean and are they grammatically acceptable?

Random thoughts - on the cusp

A couple of weeks ago, the Guardian ran what they called 'a fiendish language quiz', set by their 'style guru', David Marsh, author of the recently published 'For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man's Quest for Grammatical Perfection'. In one of the questions, entrants had to say what was wrong with this sentence:

'Outstanding performances include Caryl Morgan's Beatie, in bobby socks and denim, on the cusp of womanhood but still impressionable and dreamy, and Sara Harris-Davies as the mother she still looks up to.'

The answers have now been published, and the official answer to this one was:

You can't be on the cusp of one thing. Although it is often misused to mean "on the brink" or "on the verge", strictly "on the cusp" involves two things, for example "on the cusp of Taurus and Gemini" or, as it should have been here, "on the cusp of girlhood and womanhood".

While taking the point that a cusp is between two things (often two periods), I wondered whether it was really necessary to explicitly mention both; on the cusp of womanhood looked fine to me. So I decided to investigate.

Common mistakes learners make - according to me

When giving your opinion, it is quite common in some languages, for example Polish, Spanish and Italian, to use a construction which can be directly translated as according to me:

• Polish - według mnie
• Spanish - según yo
• Italian - secondo me

In English, however, we don't usually use according to like this.

Some random thoughts on tell about

When reading ESL teachers' blogs I sometimes come upon as instruction like - 'tell about something that happened to you this week'. Now that doesn't sound quite right to me; I expect to read 'tell me' or 'tell us' about something. Without a personal object, I'd expect 'talk about something that happened to you this week'.

At first, I thought this was because the teachers weren't native speakers, but then I noticed a couple of examples from American writers, so I thought I'd have a bit of a closer look

Some random thoughts about hurt people and dictionaries

We can often use participles (usually ending in -ed or -ing) as adjectives. A present participle (-ing form) usually has an active meaning and a past participle (3rd form) usually has a passive meaning:

• The winning team was cheered loudly by its supporters.
  = the team which won - active meaning
• The players of the defeated team looked exhausted.
  = the team that was defeated - passive meaning

In this post, I'm interested in one particular pair of adjectives made from past participles (PPs): injured and hurt.

Random-ize: Bentley's Miscellany and the spelling of -ize suffix verbs

Founded by the publisher of the Standard Novels series, Richard Bentley, his Miscellany was a literary magazine, publishing novels in installment form. The first editor was Charles Dickens, whose second novel, Oliver Twist, first appeared in the magazine, starting in the first issue.

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page. For more on the spelling of -ize verbs in periodicals, see the Periodicals start page.

Random-ise: The Spectator and the spelling of -ize suffix verbs

The Spectator started off life as a liberal-radical periodical, and is now the intellectual forum of modern conservatism. It bears the same name as, but has nothing to do with, a famous 18th century magazine published by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele from 1711 to 1712.

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page. For more on the spelling of -ize verbs in periodicals, see the Periodicals start page.

Random-ise: The Edinburgh Review and the spelling of -ize suffix verbs

The Edinburgh Review (the second of this title), was founded in 1802, and became one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century, alongside its literary ald political rivals The Quarterly Review, and Blackwood's Magazine, the latter also published in Edinburgh.

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page. For more on the spelling of -ize verbs in periodicals, see the Periodicals start page.

Random-ise: Blackwood's Magazine, the spelling of -ize suffix verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page. For more on the spelling of -ize verbs in periodicals, see the Periodicals start page.

This post shows how in one important nineteenth-century magazine the use of s spellings gradually increased towards the middle of the nineteenth century, and how z spellings fought a rearguard battle, only to virtually disappear from its pages for the rest of the century.

Random-ise: the works of George Eliot, -ize and -ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ise: the novels of Jane Austen and -ize and -ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Adjective order plus - various exercises

These exercises will give you some practice in adjective order, and also in word order in general. This post is part of an experiment to develop more tablet-friendly exercises.

Random-ise: the books of George Borrow, -ize and -ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ise: The Quarterly Review, -ize verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page. For more on the spelling of -ize verbs in periodicals, see the Periodicals start page.

Random-ise: Thomas Nashe, mummianize, tympanize and other -ize verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ise: A Sicilian Romance, -ize and -ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Song lesson - Nicest thing by Kate Nash

Practise I wish constructions with this song and and a couple of exercises

Random-ise: Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, -ize and -ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ize: The King James Bible, -ize and -ize verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ise: Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall, -ize and -ise verbs

"Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, published in 1604, was the first single-language English dictionary ever published. It lists approximately 3000 words, defining each one with a simple and brief description. A number of the words listed in the 'Table Alphabeticall' were thought of as 'hard' - or unfamiliar to the general public - as they were derived from foreign or ancient languages such as Hebrew, Greek, Latin or French." - British Library

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

More random thoughts on examples of the passive

Last year I wrote a post listing some unnatural examples of the passive I've found in books and on websites from people who should know better (linked to below).

It's fashionable in some circles to denigrate the passive (which we'll talk more of in a moment)- although many of the people who do so can't always recognise the passive themselves - which I've also written about - and I can understand why the people who do this might (and do) use silly examples to show how 'bad' they think the passive is.

But there are some more neutral or even supportive observers who also seem to come up with some rather strange examples, which is a bit puzzling, to say the least.

The twelve tense system in English - an overview

Not everyone agrees on what comprises a tense. It is common to talk about present, past and future tenses, but some people think a tense must involve inflection (or morphological change), that is a change in the form of the verb itself, as in Latin and many European languages, so they recognise only two tenses - past and present. On the other hand, one early grammar book talked of six tenses.

In EFL/ESL we usually work on the basis that a tense combines a time (present, past or future) with an aspect (simple, continuous, perfect simple or perfect continuous). This gives us twelve active tenses. In theory we could also have twelve passive tenses, but in practice, only eight are used.

Although I will be talking a bit about individual tenses, my main aim here is to show how, in this way of looking at things, all twelve tenses fit into a neat, easy to understand scheme.

Random-ise: Jonathan Swift, ise and ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ise: Congreve's The Way of the World, -ize and -ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ised thoughts: -ize verbs and -ise verbs - the basics

There is a large group of transitive verbs formed from nouns or adjectives which have a suffix with the sound /aɪz/. In American English these are always spelt with an -ize ending, but the standard position in British English is that they can be spelt with either -ize or -ise, depending on your fancy.

There's another, much smaller group with the same /aɪz/ sound, which are always spelt with an -ise ending, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Here I take a quick look at the basics.

Zero article or the with place names - the basics

Some general principles and a few tables to help you with the use of zero article or the with place names.

Random-ise: Milton's Paradise Lost, -ize and -ise verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Random-ise: Shakespeare and -ize suffix verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Anchorage - Michelle Shocked - Song exercise for Past simple

A short song exercise for elementary to pre-intermediate learners to practise basic Past simple forms.

Prince Philip, My Dear - Mighty Sparrow - Song lesson

On July 9th 1982, a man managed to climb up to the roof and get into Buckinham Palace, for the second time in a month. But this time, he also managed to get into the Queen's bedroom, where the Queen was sleeping alone. This lapse in security caused a big scandal in Britain at the time, and inspired Trinidadian calypso singer Mighty Sparrow to write a song very loosely based on the event. Do a couple of exercises and listen to the song.