In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.

This week’s language tip helps with the noun knowledge.

Knowledge is an uncountable noun, so it is never used in the plural:
✗ Students don’t understand how to use these knowledges in real life.
✓ Students don’t understand how to use this knowledge in real life.
✗ We can exchange our experiences and strengthen our knowledges.
✓ We can exchange our experiences and strengthen our knowledge.
Knowledge is sometimes used with a, but only in the pattern a knowledge of something (or a good/deep/thorough etc. knowledge of something):
Effective use of language necessitates a good knowledge of grammar.
The usual preposition that follows knowledge is of. Don’t use the prepositions in or on:
✗ It takes more than just knowledge in a subject to succeed.
✓ It takes more than just knowledge of a subject to succeed.
✗ This is where you can gain a general knowledge base, and specific knowledge on the subject you have chosen to study.
✓ This is where you can gain a general knowledge base, and specific knowledge of the subject you have chosen to study.
The preposition about can also be used with knowledge, but it is much less frequent than of.

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In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.

This week’s language tip helps with the verb marry.

Don’t use the preposition with after get married or be married. Use to:
✗ A girl shouldn’t be forced to get married with a man she doesn’t like.
✓ A girl shouldn’t be forced to get married to a man she doesn’t like.
✗ Getting married with somebody you have just met can be dangerous.
✓ Getting married to somebody you have just met can be dangerous.
The verb to marry takes a direct object. It means the same as get married to, but is more formal:
Charles Darwin married his cousin and such marriages were quite common at that time.
Don’t say marry with someone:
✗ Most people marry with a person they love.
✓ Most people marry a person they love.

More language tips

Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.

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The weekly roundup on Friday carries a link to a story about the renaming of a well-known chain of British bookstores. It’s Farewell to Waterstones’s and Hello to Waterstones.

Losing an apostrophe won’t make any difference to the pronunciation, but nonetheless the name change has been greeted with some outrage by some of the more linguistically conservative commentators – the chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society was quoted as describing the change as slapdash.

In proper names, the presence or absence of an apostrophe seems to be somewhat arbitrary. One of the most famous shops in London has always been called Harrods, while one of the most famous supermarket chains is called Sainsbury’s – though of course the URL for Sainsbury’s won’t allow an apostrophe, so it’s sainsburys.co.uk. Both Oxford and Cambridge Universities have a St Catherine’s College, but while Oxford has college called The Queen’s College (presumably linked to one queen) Cambridge has a Queens’ College (presumably linked to more than one queen).

On the London Underground, (thanks to John Wells for these) you can go through Earl’s Court and then Barons Court; you need your apostrophe about you at King’s Cross, but not at Colliers Wood or Golders Green.

Given that in the spoken language there is no difference between Waterstone’s and Waterstones, and that there is never any apostrophe-driven ambiguity in speech, I’m inclined to agree with Gwyneth Fox that we might as well get rid of all apostrophes altogether.

In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.

This week’s language tip helps with key words which are used for talking or writing about jobs.

general
job: what you do regularly to earn money, especially what you do for a particular company or person.
A full-time job is a job that you do for at least the same number of hours a week as people usually work.
A part-time job is a job that you do for fewer hours a week than people usually work: My first job was helping in a pet shop. ♦ a full-time bookkeeper ♦ He works full-time for the council. ♦ a part-time bartender ♦ I teach part-time now.
work: something that you do to earn money, or the place where you go to do it: I’ve got a lot of work on at the moment. ♦ Dan’s at work.
career: the jobs someone does over a period of time that involve a particular type of work: a long career in the civil service ♦ a medical career
profession: a type of job that you need a lot of education or special training to do, or all the people who do a particular job like this: I’m a doctor by profession. ♦ the legal profession
occupation: (formal) your usual job: What is your current occupation and salary?
post: a particular job within a company or organization, especially a job with some responsibility: She applied for the post of Senior Marketing Manager at Cadbury Schweppes.
position: a particular job: used especially in advertisements for available jobs: a vacancy for the position of night watchman
getting a job
apply: to officially say, usually in a letter or on a special form, that you would like to be considered for a particular job
CV: a list of your qualifications and work experience that you send to someone who you are hoping to work for
job seeker: (formal) someone who is looking for a job
applicant: someone who applies for a particular job
candidate: someone who is competing with other people for a particular job
interview: a meeting with the people you are hoping to work for where they ask you questions and find out more about you
interviewee: an applicant who is asked to come for an interview
leaving a job
resign: to officially say that you are going to leave your job
quit: (informal) to leave a job
sack or fire: to tell someone that they must leave their job, especially because their work is not good or they have done something wrong: She’s been fired for not meeting her sales targets.
make someone redundant: to tell someone that they no longer have a job because they are not needed any more
retire: to stop working, usually because you are old
not having a job
unemployed or jobless: used for describing someone who does not have a job but who would like to have one: used also as a noun for referring to people in this position as a group: a jobless welder ♦ Her brother has been unemployed for over a year. ♦ measures to help the unemployed find work
out of work: used for describing someone who does not have a job but who would like to have one: She’s been out of work for six months.
retired: used for describing someone who is not working because they are old: a retired army officer

More language tips

Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.

Would you like to improve your vocabulary? Follow our daily tweets @RedEnglishWords or visit our Learn English Facebook Page.

In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.

This week’s language tip helps with used to.

Don’t confuse
▪  I am used to doing something
▪  I used to do something
If you are used to doing something, it is familiar to you because you have often done it before. Use the -ing form of the verb in this pattern, not the infinitive:
✗ Looking through the newspapers every day, we are used to read terrifying reports about crimes.
✓ Looking through the newspapers every day, we are used to reading terrifying reports about crimes.
You can also say that you get used to doing something:
Children soon get used to spending much of their free time watching TV.
If you say that you used to do something, you are talking about an activity or habit in the past which has now finished.
I used to play squash reasonably well.
This means that the speaker no longer plays squash well.

More language tips

Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.

Would you like to improve your vocabulary? Follow our daily tweets @RedEnglishWords or visit our Learn English Facebook Page.

In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.

This week’s language tip helps with the verb make.

When make means ‘to cause or force someone to do something’ and is followed by another verb, use the infinitive without to:
✗ What makes them to commit crime?
✓ What makes them commit crime?
✗ Advertising makes us to buy a lot of unnecessary things.
✓ Advertising makes us buy a lot of unnecessary things.
But when make is in the passive, use the infinitive with to:
I feel the American people have been unfairly made to pay for the government’s mistakes.

More language tips

Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.

Would you like to improve your vocabulary? Follow our daily tweets @RedEnglishWords or visit our Learn English Facebook Page.

In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.

This week’s language tip helps with the word who.

Don’t confuse who’s (the short form of ‘who is’ or ‘who has’) with whose (the possessive form of ‘who’, meaning ‘of whom’ or ‘of which’):
✗ Who’s view of the facts are we getting through television?
✓ Whose view of the facts are we getting through television?
✗ …an international organization who’s role is to keep peace and stability.
✓ …an international organization whose role is to keep peace and stability.
The short form who’s (‘who is’ or ‘who has’) is used mainly in spoken English and informal writing:
‘Who’s going to do that?’ ‘You, of course.’
Who’s been using my computer?

More language tips

Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.

Would you like to improve your vocabulary? Follow our daily tweets @RedEnglishWords or visit our Learn English Facebook Page.

It’s the Plain English Awards season again, as Stan Carey noted in his recent post, and across the country winners are basking in the glory of an award or ruing their luck in being singled out as exemplars of gobbledygook.

One of the recipients of a “Golden Bull Award” (for the year’s ‘best’ examples of gobbledygook) was the British Met Office. Their particular crime was to refer to ‘probabilities of precipitation’ rather than, say, ‘the chances of rain’.

In their defence, they pointed out that the word precipitation covers all sorts of things falling out of the sky, not just rain. There’s also sleet, snow, hail and even, apparently, graupel. Furthermore, as they point out ‘The same weather system could produce snow, sleet and rain across even quite a relatively small area’ so it is not necessarily helpful to specify just one of those. They have a point, but the trouble with precipitation is that it’s thought of as a slightly technical term, in a way that sleet or hail is not. All three are black words in MED, so not among the most frequent 7,500 words in the language, yet only precipitation attracts a subject label in the dictionary entry.

But to my mind, a much more culpable abuse of language was perpetrated by one of the other winners, a low-cost airline, in a letter responding to a customer’s complaint. The first paragraph, of approximately 60 words, reads:

I believe that what has not been explained to you is that it is not a £4.50 card charge, in the process of booking a flight, you will have a booking fee which is for a Credit Card (return journey), booking fee £4.50 and Credit Card supplement £1.00, for a (one way) booking fee £5.50 and credit card charge £1.00.

The second paragraph is even longer, at 83 words, and no more comprehensible.

Surprisingly, the winner of the “Foot in Mouth” award for public gaffes is Silvio Berlusconi – who as far as I know tends to speak Italian. Among other gaffes, he reportedly said ‘I am pretty often faithful’. A gaffe, indeed, but hardly one that transgresses the norms of English.

The “Kick in the pants” award went to an organization that we used to call the Inland Revenue but now have to call Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (informally still known as the taxman, a name that might have been a suitable topic for our gender English month) for the simple fact of having generated ‘an unacceptable amount of public complaints received by Plain English Campaign in 2011′. One wonders whether the complaints were really about the language or about the message.

But as in all years, there are also awards for the worthy. This year’s “International Media Award” went to China Daily ‘For the clear communication of business news to a global audience.’ Congratulations to China Daily, and indeed to all winners of this year’s awards.

In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.

This week’s language tip helps with the noun trouble.

Trouble is mostly used as an uncountable noun, so:
▪  it is not usually found in the plural
▪  it never comes after a or a number
✗ Most people who are in prison have had troubles with the law before.
✓ Most people who are in prison have had trouble with the law before.
✗ If they come face to face with a trouble, the first thing they do is cry.
✓ If they come face to face with trouble, the first thing they do is cry.
When trouble is the object of the verbs cause and get into, it is always singular:
✗ Young criminals should get in touch with their victims, so that they can realize the troubles they have caused.
✓ Young criminals should get in touch with their victims, so that they can realize the trouble they have caused.
✗ If children get into troubles, their parents must bail them out.
✓ If children get into trouble, their parents must bail them out.
The plural form troubles is used to refer to all the problems that a person has, and it is often used with a possessive determiner:
The prime minister seemed to be brooding over his troubles.
We all have our troubles and we must deal with them as best we can.

More language tips

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A new report on the potential of solar energy, by leading business consultants Ernst & Young,  tells us (p.11) that ‘increased efficiency of manufacturing and improvements in non poly silicon costs has lead to cost reductions overall’  Aaargh: the old lead vs. led problem: they sound the same (in some meanings, at least) but the past tense and participle of the verb ‘to lead’ is led.  But worse than this is the Executive Summary which the report opens with, where we read that:

Due to it’s relative simplicity as a passive asset, solar has been observed as an entry point for large corporates.

This should of course say ‘due to its relative simplicity …’.  Maybe I’m just being pedantic, but for me the authority of the report was somewhat diminished by these basic errors. Sure, there are plenty of texts where mistakes like this don’t really matter, but it’s reasonable to expect that a serious report, from an organisation whose motto is ‘Quality In Everything We Do’, should get these things right.

Having said that, it isn’t surprising that this is one of the commonest of all punctuation errors in English. The problem lies in the fact that we use apostrophes for two different functions: either to show either possession (a genitive), or to indicate the omission of one or more letters – but this simple ‘rule’ doesn’t apply in the case of the pronoun it. (Apostrophes are sometimes also used to form plurals, as in ‘the word committee contains two m’s, two t’s, and two e’s', or ‘in the 1960′s’,  but these uses are – or should be – very rare.) So we can say My sister’s baby (possession: the baby that belongs to my sister), or My sister’s a baby (omission: my sister IS a baby), or My sister’s had a baby (omission again: my sister HAS had a baby).

When attached to a noun (or to someone’s name) ‘S can have all these uses. But confusingly, this doesn’t happen when we’re using the word it. In this case, the ‘S can only be used to indicate omission (for IT IS or IT HAS: It’s been a hard day’s night), but not to show possession. To show possession, we use its without an apostrophe: It’s lost its handle. Why? There is no logic in this – but it’s a mistake to expect language to be logical. Indeed the OED reports that its was (as we would expect) formed from IT and the possessive or genitive ‘S

and [was] at first commonly written it’s, a spelling retained by some to the beginning of the 19th c.

So the form its is relatively modern and (says the OED) ‘does not appear in any of the works of Shakespeare published in his lifetime’.

I hope that clears things up, but perhaps all this is another argument for a proposal made in one of our earlier postings: that apostrophes should be abolished altogether, on the grounds that they cause more harm than good.