According to yesterday's Times of India, "doctors' children fair better than that of engineers" in IIT entrance exams.
Nope; they fare better.
The second mistake is the use of that, which refers to children. Since children is plural, the sentence should have read: Doctors' children fare better than those of engineers.
Monday, 15 July 2013
Thursday, 30 May 2013
I wish I were an astronaut
I wish I were an astronaut on the International Space Station; I could then look out through the portholes and take in breathtaking views of the Earth. Sadly, I am not.
But what does this have to do with the English language?
Well, when we talk of situations which are not true (for example when we express a wish) we should use a verb in the subjunctive mood. In the sentence If I were an astronaut..., were is in the subjunctive mood because I am talking about a situation which is not real. Many people would have written If I was an astronaut..., where was is in the indicative mood.
Similarly, the song If I were a rich man from the movie Fiddler on the Roof correctly uses the subjunctive were because the character in the film is not rich; he is just singing about what he would do if indeed he were rich.
Likewise, were is correctly used in the following sentences:
It is for this reason that If God was a Banker, a novel written by Ravi Subramanian, should have used the subjunctive, were, in the title. The same holds true for the Ronan Keating song Carrickfergus, whose first line reads: I wish I was in Carrickfergus; were would have been more appropriate. Ditto for Enrique Iglesias' Wish I was your lover.
You can read more on this topic here and here.
The use of the indicative was is very common, nevertheless. A google search for "I wish I was" produced 350 million results whereas "I wish I were" gave 59.4 million.
But what does this have to do with the English language?
Well, when we talk of situations which are not true (for example when we express a wish) we should use a verb in the subjunctive mood. In the sentence If I were an astronaut..., were is in the subjunctive mood because I am talking about a situation which is not real. Many people would have written If I was an astronaut..., where was is in the indicative mood.
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| Source: www.grammar.net/iwishiwere |
Similarly, the song If I were a rich man from the movie Fiddler on the Roof correctly uses the subjunctive were because the character in the film is not rich; he is just singing about what he would do if indeed he were rich.
Likewise, were is correctly used in the following sentences:
- If I were you I would... (in reality I am not you)
- If you were the Prime Minister what would you do to tackle corruption? (in reality you are not the Prime Minister)
- I wish you were here.
It is for this reason that If God was a Banker, a novel written by Ravi Subramanian, should have used the subjunctive, were, in the title. The same holds true for the Ronan Keating song Carrickfergus, whose first line reads: I wish I was in Carrickfergus; were would have been more appropriate. Ditto for Enrique Iglesias' Wish I was your lover.
You can read more on this topic here and here.
The use of the indicative was is very common, nevertheless. A google search for "I wish I was" produced 350 million results whereas "I wish I were" gave 59.4 million.
Monday, 7 January 2013
Prone vs Supine
I don't know about you but I used to think that these two words were synonyms. They are not. A person is prone when they lie on their stomach and supine when they lie on their back.
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| Prone Photo: Daily Mail |
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| Supine Photo: Finger Lakes Runners Club |
Sunday, 6 January 2013
Learn a new word: tare
While searching for a digital weighing scale for my kitchen I came across the term tare, a word which I had never heard before. I looked it up on Macmillan online dictionary and this is what it said:
So let us say that you are going to bake a cake and want to weigh baking powder on a digital weighing machine. The tare function will help you by deducting the weight of the container and arriving at the net weight of the baking powder in it.
The weight of an empty truck or large container, used for calculating the weight of the goods that it carries.And according to Collins dictionary:
1. The weight of the wrapping or container in which goods are packed.It can also be used as a transitive verb to mean to weigh (a package etc.) in order to calculate the amount of tare.
2. A deduction from gross weight to compensate for this.
So let us say that you are going to bake a cake and want to weigh baking powder on a digital weighing machine. The tare function will help you by deducting the weight of the container and arriving at the net weight of the baking powder in it.
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Use twitter to improve your English
Are you on Twitter? If yes, here is a list of accounts that you might like to follow:
And why not visit this page to see how good your spellings are: Oxford dictionaries spelling challenge
- https://twitter.com/guardianstyle Style guide of the Guardian newspaper. You can ask them questions about word usage.
- https://twitter.com/OxfordWords Oxford dictionaries. They tweet a Word of the Day and links to articles on their website.
- https://twitter.com/awad A Word a Day from www.wordsmith.org.
- https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster Merriam-Webster dictionary. They tweet a Word of the Day.
- https://twitter.com/MacDictionary Macmillan dictionary. They tweet links to their blogposts.
- https://twitter.com/learnglionary Dictionary of errors. Learn English from your common mistakes. Errors accompanied by corrections and explanations. You can also visit their website http://www.learnglish.net/dictionary/
- https://twitter.com/wordspy Dedicated to neologisms i.e. new words and phrases. Their website is at www.wordspy.com
- https://twitter.com/grammarmonster As the name suggests, it is about English grammar. Their website is at http://www.grammar-monster.com/
- https://twitter.com/writing_tips Daily tips on grammar, spelling, punctuations and freelance writing. Their website is located at www.dailywritingtips.com
- https://twitter.com/apostropheabuse Gives examples of misuse of the apostrophe.
And why not visit this page to see how good your spellings are: Oxford dictionaries spelling challenge
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