Search results for 'tag:Articles tag:Constructions' matching tags 'Articles' and 'Constructions'

Re: Worth...

Blink — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:41:52 GMT

Mister Micawber, I've got two more question to you.

Which one of these two construction (is worth attention/is worthy of attention) is more frequently used?

Do we use the indefinite article before the abbreviation like (an) MBA essay or (a) GCSE coursework?

Many thanks.

Re: "any"-defining

Fandorin — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:18:36 GMT

Kooyeen

You can do that too, but it is not common, it's only used sometimes for emphasis. It's easy to build odd sentences that way, so I personally prefer to avoid using it that way, as a learner. When talking about one thing, using the article "a" (or "an") is the common way to say it...
Do you have a sister? Is there a hospital near here? I don't have a sister, you must be mistaking me for someone else...

I didn't consider uncountable nouns because they are not usually used in the plural, so they weren't part of our problem. I didn't consider idioms or exceptions either... I can think of a couple of them right now:
Is there any reason why you are not allowed to do that?
There isn't any way to find out the truth, I'm afraid.

The singular seems to be the idiomatic choice in those cases.

Yes, it's odd way not to use "a". Indeed, "any=some" implies itself plural noun to be used. So the difference in translation some of constructions in English seems to be slightly smoothed between two meanings you mentioned above. At least it's so in my language.

Re: Comma confusion

Clive — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:18:10 GMT

Hi,

Have I used the commas correctly, and is the sentence construction satisfactory (esp. article usage)?

With the growing popularity of the venue, the frequency of exhibitions and the drastic rise in the number of visitors to events led to the expansion of Earlâs Court One, with the addition of another single large hall, Earl's Court 2, which, too, was built with the provision of conference facilities.

The growing popularity of the venue, the frequency of exhibitions, and the drastic rise in the number of visitors to events all led to the expansion of Earlâs Court One with the addition of another single large hall, Earl's Court 2, which was also built with the provision of conference facilities.

Clive

Comma confusion

Vijay Marathe — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:01:14 GMT

Dear Friends,

Have I used the commas correctly, and is the sentence construction satisfactory (esp. article usage)?

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

With the growing popularity of the venue, the frequency of exhibitions and the drastic rise in the number of visitors to events led to the expansion of Earlâs Court One, with the addition of another single large hall, Earl's Court 2, which, too, was built with the provision of conference facilities.

Thanks,

Vijay

adjective and article

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:45:44 GMT

Hi,

1. Are these natural in terms of their constructions to you?

Christian-background believers
Los Angeles-area Starbucks

2. Can we ever use the article "a" with something that denotes one's feeling? Maybe in poetic writing situations?

What a gladness and what a great peace I am feeling today.

Re: Is this sentence correct

Mr Wordy — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:17:44 GMT

wholegrain
So, society is countable or uncountable depending on the definition we use.

So, for example when we speak of society as the totality of social relationships among humans, it is uncountable.

But when we speak of society as a group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture, it is countable?

Yep, that's pretty much it.

(Nitpick: uncountable "society" does not always have to be the totality of all social relationships among humans; it can, while still having a "general" meaning, be narrowed down by context. For example, you could talk about "pre-war British working-class society" in an uncountable way.)

wholegrain
Do you think the words church and state can be uncountable?

"Church" can be uncountable in the sense of "attending church" or "what happens in church". Randomly Googled example:

They say vaguely that church is dull, and that they don't want it; then someone makes rather hectic efforts to "brighten" services ...

I can't think of an instance when "state" is "uncountable". It's true that you can say, for example (again randomly Googled):

Miss Aloni was quick to underscore that separation of religion and state would be proper not only from a legal and democratic point of view...

But to me this is not really an "uncountable" use, it's just a special type of construction where the article is omitted. Otherwise you could cite endless examples such as "They arrived by horse and cart" or "In the library I flitted from book to book" and claim that "cart" and "book" can be uncountable, which seems silly. You'd need to ask someone more expert than me exactly what these types of usage are called.

Review articles in the sentence

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:59:21 GMT

I would be grateful if you read the sentence and check my articles (if something else is wrong-i would be grateful for all your comments)

India has a network of large and navigable rivers, free from the freezing effects of a severely cold climate. She has also a wealth of forests, abounding in strong timber which might be readily utilised for the construction of ships and boats.

Re: logic behind using 'the'

Musicgold — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:25:02 GMT

Mister Micawber and CJ,

A related question.

I found the following para in a report. Note that the author does not use 'the' before 'tenant demand' and 'new construction', though it is assumed that the reader knows what the author is talking about. Being a non-native English writer, I would rather not omit any article, to avoid any serious mistakes.Would the sentence sound awkward if I put 'the' before the highlighted words?

Even as the economy experiences a slowdown, the good news is that commercial real estate
fundamentals are remarkably healthy. While tenant demand is likely to soften as a result of
slower economic growth, new construction is generally modest with only a handful of
exceptions.

Thanks.

Re: A question about Style

Ant_222 — Tue, 13 May 2008 06:36:38 GMT

Hello, mr. Micawber

Looks like I have to provide some further explanations.
In a traditional text adventure the player enters text commands which are parsed/interpreted by the game's engine, and gets the result in the form a textual description. In the example above the commands were marked with ">" (a common symbol to denote command line prompt), and followed by possible responses from the game. The language parsers in early games were quite primitive, so the player interacted with the computer via simple constructions like command+object, and articles were usually ignored. Even modern games of this genre inherit the syntax of the elder games, although with some improvements.

If I haven't explained it well, all I can do is refer you to Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_adventure

And an example, of course: The End Means Escape (http://www.wurb.com/if/game/1016)
(plus you'll need the TADS inerpreter to open the game file: http://www.tads.org/t3dl/pksetup.exe â just in case you really want to try)

EDIT: Maybe I didn't formulate my question clear enough: Will the present tense in item descriptions (i.e. after EXAMINE) peacefully coexist with the Past Tense used to desribe the hero's actions (for commands GO, TAKE, USE, REST, ATTACK, TALK and so on...) in a diary-like form.

Re: as

Avangi — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:33:27 GMT

Maybe one last shot at this: When you take the sentence in isolation, you have to give some weight to the introductory prepositional phrase. But if it's from a news article, as you say, the "shrinking hours and rising food costs" may have already been thoroughly discussed. The author may have considered this a bridge, or transition to the gas price thing, wishing to show the connection but not intending to emphasize it.

He might have said, "And furthermore, gas prices are - - - - - as he drives etc."

Or, "Shrinking hours and rising food costs are not the only problem. Gas prices are - - - - - - as he drives etc."

Or, "In addition to shrinking hours and rising food costs, here's another item. Gas prices etc."

IMHO the error is in constructing the sentence in a way that makes hours and food part of the subject.

Something that's new to me here at EF is the approach of treating long constructions as modifying other long constructions. If you take the approach that "In addition to shrinking hours and rising food costs" modifies everything which follows, instead of just the subject, my objection seems to melt away. What do you think?