continual and continuous

There is a good explanation of continual and continuous at
AlphaDictionary.
The explanation is as follows:

Notes: Continual is often confused with continuous. However, the meanings of these two words differ significantly and they cannot be used correctly as synonyms. Continuous refers to an action that continues in an unbroken fashion, as a continuous hum or buzzing sound. Continual refers to a repeated action that is periodically interrupted, as continual complaints about the dog from the neighbors.

Both of these adjectives come from continue, but the differ in meaning so much that they can not be used interchangeable, that is they cannot be synonyms. If I want to write that something happens without stop, then I use continuous.

• There was a continuous whistle in my ears while I had a cold.
• Her continous complaining made her uncomfortable company.

Continual, as the explanation points out, means a repeated action.

• He made continual use of the whistle to stop play.
• The protestors faced continual pressure from the police.

In an earlier post, I wrote about time and times as noncount and count. It would seem that continuous is like the noncount time in that it is not broken into different actions. Continual is like the count time because it refers to several actions that keep getting repeated.

FANBOYS

The Triangle Grammar Guide has a fine post on the FANBOYS, the coordinating conjunctions For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So. This blog is written by Pam Nelson, an experienced journalist for the The NewsObserver of Raleigh, North Carolina. As is clear from the title, she writes about grammar.

A few points that she makes are:

"The words can connect words, phrases or clauses. They are called coordinating conjunctions because they join equal things."

and

"Newspaper style varies from academic style on commas and items in a series. In newspapers, we drop the comma just before the coordinating conjunction:

Stir in sugar, oil, beaten eggs and vanilla."

finally

"You have probably heard that you should not begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction. Piffle! You shouldn't begin every sentence with a conjunction, but you can use the conjunctions sometimes. But don't put a comma after the conjunction."

I found a few things interesting in her discussion of the FANBOYS. I liked that she pointed out how journalistic style is different from academic style. Second, she points out that we can use a coordinating conjunction at the beginning of a sentence. There is no rule that a sentence cannot begin with a coordinating conjunction, but there are some teacher rules that forbid the use of coordinating conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence. Finally, remember the final sentence I quote above:"But don't put a comma after the conjunction."


By the way, for those who do not know, according to Merriam Webster's on line, piffle means "trivial nonsense".

That

That can serve different functions in English. I will discuss four uses.

Pronoun
As a pronoun, that usually refers to something specific.

What kind of car is that?

That can be used to refer to an event.

The bicycle race finish was very close. That was really exciting.

That can be used to refer to something farther away in contrast to this.

That calculator is mine; this one is hers.

Relative Pronoun

That can be used to form two kinds of clauses: noun clause and adjective clauses.

Noun Clause:

That he was wrong is very clear now.
The important thing is that she did not panic.

Adjective Clause:

The store that used to be on this corner was my favorite place to buy magazines.
Storm is the name that her mother gave her.

Conjunction

With some adjectives and verbs, that can serve as a subordinate conjunction.

He is sorry that he missed her performance.
I wish that she would pay closer attention.
She knew that she should wait longer.

so that

I worked hard all afternoon so that I could pay my rent this month.

Adjective

That is used to point at a specific thing.

That rose is my favorite one.
He brought that guitar to the party.

Leaving out that

In some cases, that can be left out.

So that clauses

She baked a cake so that her sister would have something special for her birthday.
She baked a cake so her sister would have something special for her birthday.

That can be left out of clauses when it is the object of the clause.

She went to the store that sold the best watches. (that is the subject so it can not be left out.)
She went to the store that her sister told her about. (that is the object – her sister told her about that store- so it can be left out)
She went to the store her sister told her about.

all the time, every time

There is some confusion between every time and all the time in a couple of papers. Every time refers to several different events. All the time consists of an extended event.

At McDonald's, I work every time. (In this sentence, it is a little unclear, but the sentence suggests that when McDonald's needs me to work, I work. It means several different times.)
At McDonald's, I work all the time. (In this sentence, the writer is saying that the person works the full time that he or she is at McDonald's.)

a number of

In an exercise we were working on in class, a sentence began with A number of students. This caused confusion because a number indicates one, so it would seem that the verb should be has. However, the correct answer is A number of students have. The reason the plural verb form is used is that a number of is an idiom. The idiom, a number of, means several. With this in mind, we can go back to our sentence

A number of students (has, have) problems with pronunciation.

and substitute several for a number of.

Several students (has, have) problems with pronunciation.

With several, it is clearer that the correct verb choice is have.

Several students have problems with pronunciation.

A number of students have problems with pronunciation.

Like/As if

Here is a very helpful post from Triangle Grammar Guide on the use of like and as if:

Write as if you know what you are doing

"Like" is a preposition and should not be used at the beginning of a clause. Here is an example I encountered in my editing recently: The two friends look like they’d be more at home knocking the stuffing out of people on a football field. I changed that "like" to "as if." I seem to do that a lot, so it occurs to me that writers either don't know the correct usage or are deliberately ignoring it in favor of "conversational" writing.

John Bremner in "Words on Words" has a clear rule for determining whether to use "like" or "as/as if." Remember that "like" means "similar to" or "similarly to." Substitute "similar to" in the sentence above: The two friends look similar to they’d be more at home knocking the stuffing out of people on a football field. You can see that how wrong that is or hear how incorrect it sounds.

The post clears up for me the difference between like and as if in a way that helps me understand how the words differ in use.

Noun adjuncts

Even an old dog can learn something new.

I have taught for years that the noun coming before another noun and describing the second noun is simply a noun acting as an adjective. But there is a name for this noun. It is a noun adjunct.
Here is what I am talking about.

In the phrase raisin bread, the word raisin is a noun adjunct. It is a noun describing a second noun, bread.

This differs from a compound noun like toothbrush which is two nouns combined to form one word.

Although noun adjuncts will not be on any tests that I give, it is nice to learn something new. By the way, I checked my old grammar books, and there is nothing in them about noun adjuncts, so I guess I have an excuse for my ignorance.

suppose / supposed

1) I suppose I should go.
2) I am supposed to go.
3) He is the supposed leader.

The first difference between suppose and supposed is that suppose is a verb and supposed is an adjective. With this difference in mind, we can begin to understand the differences in meanings.

In 1), suppose has a meaning similar to think. Suppose generally expresses a belief that lacks certainty or an opinion.

In 2), supposed means required or obliged. It is similar in meaning to the modal should.
In 3), supposed means either mistakenly believed or based on not very strong evidence.

In 3), the meaning is closer to the verb meaning 1) than is 2).

Since 3) and 1) are somewhat similar, how can we tell them apart in reading?

Here are two sentences with supposed in them.

A. After waiting for a half an hour, she supposed her friend was not coming.
B. Her supposed friend had failed to support her in the disagreement.

In the first sentence, the verb, supposed, follows directly after the subject. In the second sentence, supposed is in the adjective place in a noun phrase, that is, it is in front of the noun.
The most common use of supposed, however, is after the BE verb as an adjective. In writing, don't forget the adjective form looks like the past tense, but it isn't really a verb, so it doesn't agree with time of the other verbs.

Suppose is sometimes used at the beginning of a sentence in an imperative sentence.

Suppose your parents don't come.

This sentence is used as a hypothetical statement, a sort of if-clause. It is similar to:

What if your parents don't come?

This use of suppose occurs when a writer wants the reader to think of something in a way that is different from the current reality.

WordWeb

If you bought a Longman , Oxford , or Cambridge dictionary, you may have gotten the cd with it. Then you don't really need a another dictionary on your computer. But if you don't have a dictionary cd or other type of dictionary for quick reference, I suggest you download WordWeb from http://wordweb.info/free/. This is a good dictionary, and the free version should work well enough for most of us. I have been using it now for about half a year and rely on it much of the time. It not only provides information about words, but it also has a thesaurus, so I can look up related words.

Future time in complex sentences

When we write complex sentences combining dependent and independent clauses, we use the same tense in each clause.

When I visited Miami, I went to Coconut Grove. (past)
When I eat at a restaurant, I order fish. (present)

If we want to use future time with a complex sentence, we use the future form with either will or be going to in the independent clause only. We use the present tense in the dependent clause.

I will go to the Mall of America when I travel to Minnesota.
When he gets home, he is going to be hungry.

Conclusions

The conclusion of a paragraph consists of one or two concluding sentences.  The conclusion should accomplish at minimum the task of reminding the reader of the main idea of the paragraph.  It can also be used to recall the key points in the paragraph.  Furthermore, the conclusion can include the writer’s comment on the paragraph.

     The difficulty of hitting a baseball should not be underestimated.  First of all, the baseball is moving and hitting anything moving is obviously much more difficult than when it is sitting still.  Hitting a mosquito squatting on my arm challenges my abilities some, but whacking one in the air requires great hand to eye coordination, which I don’t have.  The baseball is not very large.  It fits into a person’s hand and is smaller than only a part of the bat.  So a batter only has a few inches of wood that they have to move to the correct spot at the exact time that a ball moving at speeds of up to 90 miles an hour gets there.  If that isn’t difficult enough, the ball has been thrown by someone who does not want the batter to hit it.  The pitcher throws the trying to make the batter miss it.  He tries to make it elusive by making it curve, sink, or rise so the batter can not hit it.  With all these challenges, it is a wonder anyone hits a baseball at all.

Three Strategies illustrated:
Restatement: As we can see, hitting a baseball is very difficult.
Summary:  A pitcher throwing a baseball as fast and as elusively as possible makes it difficult to hit a baseball.
Comment: With all these challenges, it is a wonder anyone hits a baseball at all.

We can use the comment with either the restatement or the summary, or we can use the comment alone.

To summarize, we have five possible ways to conclude a paragraph.  We can use restatement, summary, comment, restatement plus comment, or summary plus comment.

Fragments and Relative Clauses

As we talked about in class, fragments are pieces of sentences instead of complete sentences. Sometimes, it is easy to see that a sentence is a complete sentence. But the kind of fragment I find most difficult is one with a relative or subordinate clause in it.

Here is an example:

The car that has worked fine for the last five years

This is a fragment. It looks good because it has a verb, has worked, and appears to have a subject, car. However, the subject is the relative pronoun, that, which admittedly does refer to car. In this sentence, car does not have a verb.

Other examples of this kind of fragment are:

The boy who ran through the park on his way to the hospital

The regiment of soldiers who fought alongside each other during the last war

The building, which has stood in that location for over a hundred years

In each case, the subject, boy, regiment, and building, does not have a verb. There is a verb that looks like a main verb, but it follows a relative pronoun and is, therefore, in an adjective clause.

The relative pronouns are that, which, whichever, whatever, who, whom, whomever, and whoever.

Vocabulary Notebook

A recently published book by Keith Folse is Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. He writes about how he has his students keep their vocabulary notebooks. He has them write four types of information for each new word or phrase they put in their notebook:

• the word or phrase
• the definition
• a translation
• and the words used with the word.

This information is put into two columns. In one column is the word and the definition. Across from the word is the translation. Under the translation are the words used with the new word with a blank used to show where the word was in the original phrase.

Let's look at how this works. I will use French as the first language.

The word I will use is knife. Under knife I write a definition: a tool with an edge used for cutting. Across from knife I write couteau, the French translation. Underneath couteau, I write _______ to cut the meat, which is the phrase I found the word in.

It would look something like this.

knife      couteau
a tool with an edge used for cutting  ______ to cut the meat.

Make sure to skip at least one line before starting a new word.

To review the new words, use a notecard or piece of paper that will cover the vocabulary information. But cut out one corner.















Use this card to review by putting the open space over the part of the vocabulary information you want to use and try to remember the other information. In other words, you could show the translation and try to remember the English word. Put the empty space over the definition and try to remember the English word or translation. There are four possibilities.

Vocabulary Resources

This is a little pitch for a website I maintain that links to many vocabulary resources that are available on the internet.  It includes general vocabulary resources, dictionary sites, idiom, and wordlist sites.  Check it out.  If you have suggestions for additional sites, just let me know.

Site for finding word partners

Adding to our resources is the link for Variation in English Words and Phrases. This resource enables a person to research the words that go with a particular word. For example, I entered the word "paragon" which Merriam-Webster defines as "a model of excellence or perfection," and found that the most common phrase that follows it is "of virtue." I did this by skimming down the list of uses that was returned.
This can be a useful site for finding out what words follow a word you want to use.

A quiz site

Here is a site where there are several quizzes of different levels. Try some of them out.

always, nearly, only

Almost, nearly, and only are three adverbs that can work interesting changes of meaning on sentences depending on where they are placed in the sentence. They are three words that can cause misplaced modifier errors.

Almost and nearly are synonyms, so they can be used interchangeably.

Start with the sentence: Stuart won fifty dollars.

Add almost before the fifty dollars to have the sentence,

Stuart won almost fifty dollars.

This sentence says Stuart won less than fifty dollars but only a little less that fifty dollars.

In contrast,

Stuart almost won fifty dollars.

This sentence indicates Stuart did not win fifty dollars, but he came close. Perhaps he was playing blackjack and drew cards for 22 when 21 is the winning number.

A few days after I took my masters comprehensive exams, I went to the departmental office to get my results. The secretary told me I was the only one, and my stomach almost hit the floor. Perhaps she saw the look on my face, for I thought I was the only one who failed the exams. She then added that I had received honors. That news made me feel a little better. Well, to be honest, it made me feel a lot better.

Only John got honors.
John only got honors.
John got the only honors.

The first sentence indicates that John was the only one to earn honors. The second sentence indicates that getting honors is not important because there are higher awards. The third sentence is similar to the first sentence in meaning.

Select the correct place to put the adverb so your sentence will clearly express your meaning.

Fast

Fast is an interesting word because two of its meanings seem contradictory.

As an adjective, fast means swift or quick.

• She is a fast runner.
• The internet is very fast.

But fast also means firm or without movement.

• The farmer made fast the door to the storage shed.
• He is my fast friend and has stood by me in difficult times.
• The desk drawers were stuck fast.

The second meaning according to Merriam-Websters Online dictionary is the original meaning historically.

When we use fast as a verb, it means to eat little or no food.

Christians fast during lent, and Moslems fast during Ramadan.

marry/get married

I got married in 1989.
I married in 1989.

These two sentences have basically the same meaning. The use of get married works with the singular but probably is more comfortable with the plural.

We got married in 1989.
We married in 1989.

Personally, I think the plain verb marry is better than get married, but since get married is in common use, I am sure I will see it again and again.

Marriage, however, is a noun. A person or a couple cannot get marriage. They can have a good marriage, a happy marriage, a bad marriage, or an unhappy marriage. If they have a bad marriage they might choose to get a divorce or to divorce.

used to

Used to is always used in the past tense when the writer refers to a habitual action from the past.

He used to build model airplanes.
Stephanie used to study until 1:oo a.m.

When used to is preceded by a be (am, is, are, was, were, been) verb, used to can be followed by either a simple form of the verb or the -ing form. However, there is a big difference between the meanings of sentences with the simple form and with the -ing form.

Examples
Cement is used to make the walls stronger.
I am used to seeing her every day.

In the first example, the sentence is in the passive voice. The subject of this sentence is the object used by someone one or something to accomplish or do something. In other words, in the first sentence, the cement is used to accomplish the goal of making the walls stronger. We do not know who or what is using the cement. This sentence is in the present tense in the passive voice. If we did know who or what, it would follow the preposition by and be placed after the verb.

Cement is used by engineers to make the walls stronger.

In the second example, the sentence is an active voice sentence. The subject (the one doing the acting) is at the beginning of the sentence. The sentence expresses the idea of something that was habitual and true in the past, so it expresses past tense. This sentence uses the -ing form of the verb.