Search results for 'tag:Idioms tag:Dates' matching tags 'Idioms' and 'Dates'

Re: Dispose of/off

Avangi — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:56:46 GMT

Ahaa! I see what you're talking about.

We use the idiom "sell off my assets" but I've never heard "dispose off my assets." I think perhaps because you may sell a few at a time, but to dispose of, or to liquidate assets refers to the whole package.

Well, that's not true either. I guess I really don't know why we don't say it. We don't say "liquidate off my assets either." (I don't think)

Re: so that and such that?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:22:58 GMT

so that

From dictionary.com

In order that, as in I stopped so that you could catch up.
With the result or consequence that, as in Mail the package now so that it will arrive on time.
so ... that. In such a way or to such an extent that, as in The line was so long that I could scarcely find the end of it.

All three usages date from a.d. 1000 or earlier, and the first two are sometimes put simply as so, as in I stopped so you could catch up, or Mail it now so it will arrive on time.
Source: The American Heritageï½® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright ï½© 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company

such that

From mathworld.wolfram.comA condition used in the definition of a mathematical object. For example, the rationals can be defined as "the set of all m/n such that n is nonzero and m and n are integers ." From dictionary.com

adj : of a degree or quality specified (by the `that' clause); their anxiety was such that they could not sleep

Examples

Take x to be a real number so that x² is non-negative. [Correct]
Take x to be a real number so that x²+1 is greater than 4. [Incorrect]
Take x to be a real number such that x²+1 is greater than 4. [Correct]
The subset H of the Lie group G is a discrete subgroup so that G/H is compact. [Incorrect --- not all discrete subgroups of Lie groups have compact quotient; this is from the Annals of Math., 107, p313.]

Briefly, if omitting the "that" from "so that" renders the sentence nonsense, then you should probably have used "such that".
You won't find "so that" among lists of commonly misused phrases because only mathematicians commonly misuse it. Probably the error arose from the influence of German, where the two are not distinguished.

Keas (CPE reading, selective cloze)

Tanit — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:30:32 GMT

From Paper 1 (Reading) of the CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English) of the University of Cambridge, Part 1. In this part candidates are asked to read three extracts and to answer a total of 18 questions, six per extract.

Here are some directions and suggestions given in the CPE handbook for this task:

Students should be aware of the different aspects of vocabulary tested in this part of the paper. They should read through each text carefully, not forgetting the title, to get a general idea of the text type and meaning before looking at the options. They could also be encouraged to think about the possible forms and meanings of the gapped words at this stage. They should be aware that the missing word(s) may form part of an idiom, fixed phrase or collocation, so they should always check the words around the gap carefully. The missing word(s) must also fit the whole context of the passage so they should also check that the completed sentence makes sense in the passage as a whole. This is particularly important in the case of linkers.

Are you ready to read the extract and decide which answer best fits each gap?

__________________________________

Keas - not just pretty parrots

[test]
Few birds are as "insatiably|hungrily|thirstily|unmanageably" curious as keas. New research shows how these New Zealand parrots channel that curiosity for maximum benefit: they "pick|take|lift|pull" up tips by watching each other. Keas are notorious for investigating and, in the "process|procedure|measure|technique", often destroying everything from rubbish bins to windscreen wipers. Ludwig Huber and colleagues from the University of Vienna have found that in keas, which live in family flocks, social learning affects patterns of curiosity. In their experiments, the keas' tasks was to open a steel box with a complete locking mechanism. Two birds were gradually trained as 'models' and then they "performed|enacted|staged|presented" the task again under the watchful gaze of keas who were new to the job. "Sure|Certain|True|Fair" enough, birds who had watched a demonstration had a much higher success "rate|proportion|percentage|occurrence" than keas who had never watched one.
[/test]

kayak

New2grammar — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:32:50 GMT

A: Let's go over there and see whether they rent kayaks.

B: It seems like nobody is guarding the booth. Maybe they are closed today. (what conjuction word/phrase should I use here). It has been raining for the past 3 days and there still are rain clouds in the sky.

A: We'll see. I really want to go kayaking. We've been here for 4 days and are going home tomorrow. I don't want to miss this opportunity.

B: We should have paid more attention to the weather when we picked the dates. It would have been a great vacation.

A: Cheer up. Seize the moment. (Can I use this idiom?)

<B sees a man lying in a hammock?

B: Are you the kayak operator here? Do you call the person kayak operator?)

Operator: Yeah. How can I help you?

B: How much for a kayak?

Operator: $25 per hour, 3 hours minimum.

B: How about $100 for half a day?

Operator: You guys are lucky. I'm in a good mood today. The deal is you stack the kayak on the rack after use and empty out the water, OK?

B: Sure will.

Operator: Also, don't cross the bouy line. Someone drown the other day and the new rules do not allow anyone crossing the line. Don't get me into trouble.

1. Are there any mistakes?

2. I have some problem finding the right phrase/ expression/words as mentioned above. Please help.

Thanks in advance!

to our end?

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:56:58 GMT

I was trying to write a formal english letter at my workplace.

And I was writing, pls send the document to our end at an early date.

Could someone help me if I used the right sentence? Or should I say, Expecting an early from your end.

And another question I would like to ask is, when it comes to a deadline of a shipment,

Can I say, Due to the departure is around the corner, pls send B/L at your earliest convenience?

I am not sure if I used the idiom, around the corner correctly.

Much appreciated.

Any suggestion is welcomed.

Re: Phase-out?

Avangi — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:08:40 GMT

"To phase out" is sort of an idiom for gradually eliminating something over a period of time. "We're in the final phase" is this case would mean we're in that phase which sees something finally disappear.

If something is currently phased out, then the "phase-out" period is over, and was successfully completed. IT'S GONE. Of course, it may be re-instituted at a later date.

If something is currently phased-out, this is really another idiom for, "it has been successfully phased out." That is, "phased-out" becomes an adjective. "That is a phased-out policy," quite different from "That policy is being phased out," which means it's still in force to some extent, but is being eliminated in stages.

Edit. GG's is quicker!

In your example, lower income taxpayers can still claim the exemptions for their dependents, and for being a person.

Re: it's ten of 5.00

Yankee — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:04:08 GMT

Hi Openmind

Have you ever considered changing your moniker to "DoubtingThomas"? (Just teasing you a little!)

To put it in the simplest possible terms, using 'of' instead of 'to' when telling time is basically simply a matter of replacing the word 'to' with the word 'of'.

Since of basically follows the same "rules"/pattern as to, I'd say an Ameican ESL teacher is likely to treat this usage of of a bit like an idiom since it is usually covered only after the basic mechanics of time-telling with 'to' have been mastered, and also because this usage is a special characteristic of American English. (By the way, the words til and before are also sometimes used instead of to). As I mentioned, I would not expect this usage to be covered in a beginner level lesson on telling the time. Therefore, by the time an American teacher presents the usage, there is no need to rehash all of the basics of how to tell time in English. If I went into all of the basic details of telling time with students who had already mastered the basics, they'd not only be bored silly, but would probably think I was nuts to boot. On the other hand, if I had a beginner-level group and attempted to teach them 'to', 'of', 'til' and 'before' all at once, they'd only end up totally confused -- and they'd probably think I was nuts, too.

This usage of 'of' does tend to be a spoken one since people normally use numbers rather than words when writing the time. In other words, in written English you're likely to see 5:45 instead of 'five forty-five' and '(a) quarter to/of/till/before six', or 2:55 instead of 'two fifty-five' and 'five of/to/till/before three'. However, if you read novels (by authors such as Steven King, for example) or spend time talking with lots of Americans, you will be able to see/hear this usage of the word 'of' in action.

Here is a German ESL site that mentions the use of 'of' instead of 'to':

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/vocabulary/time

And here are some more sites to look at:

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/08/telling-time-and-dates.html

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ask_about_english/pdfs/aae_ag_uk_us_070424.pdf

Re: multilingual Europeans

Cool Breeze — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:57:11 GMT

Koto
Why are European people so fluent in English?
People say it's becasue their languages are all derived from the same root as English but is this the only reason?
Was it easy to master English for you?

Hi Koto

I realise you may never read this but I'll post it just the same. Not all European languages are related. My native language, Finnish, isn't even an Indo-European language. It is related to Estonian and Hungarian but not to such Germanic languages as English, German, Danish, Swedish, Dutch and so on.

One reason many Finns have at least a working knowledge of English probably results from teachers of foreign languages having a very good education in the languages they teach and the teaching methods. The methods are extremely important. All language teachers are university graduates with 4 to 7 years of university studies behind them. As for English, everybody has studied it at school before entering a university, which is also an advantage. Also, the universities select the very best candidates from English-speaking countries to do the teaching. The professors are Finnish, though, and there are some Finnish lecturers as well.

I am mentioning this because I have noticed on my travels that quite a few people who tell me they are teachers of English have a rather fragmentary command of the language themselves. If a teacher doesn't know the language, he can't teach it. In many cases the student isn't at fault at all. There are amazingly incompetent teachers of languages in many countries. Some of the posters who claim to be teachers of English on these forums wouldn't pass the qualifying exams for would-be teachers at Finnish universities.

I have never mastered English. I have a fairly good knowledge of the grammar but my vocabulary could be much larger. Learning languages has always been easy for me; that is, learning the languages I have attempted to learn. I am not so sure how quickly I would learn Japanese or Thai, for instance. English spelling causes me the most problems. And of course any words and idioms I am not familiar with.

Cheers

Re: explaining "it"

Terryxpress — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:35:01 GMT

Thank you for making me actually think about some of the idioms we take for granted.
The meaning is the same as saying, The rumour is..." (Rumor is the American spelling, rumour is the British spelling) - and that is what people 'hear' when someone uses those words, rather than the individual words, especially the "it" part.
It actually comes from the expression "to have it", meaning "how one has understood something, grasped the meaning of something" but implying there is some doubt as to whether one is correct, as there may be different ways of looking at some situation. So, I might say: "Well, (as I understand the situation you are in from what you have told me)= (as I have it), you can either do (this) or (that). That's my opinion, (but someone else may see things differently.)"
So, in the idiom "rumour has it" from "to have it" ( I have, it has, you have, he/she has, they have) the "has it" would then literally mean, "rumour is of the opinion that she will marry soon (but until they actually announce the date we can't really be sure.)"
Hope that helps.

Re: meaning of phrase

Simi — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 11:35:58 GMT

Hey,

If you want to know the origin of this one, it was used in a very literal meaning.

Here...

Rain check: ticket for rescheduled event: a ticket or ticket stub entitling somebody to attend an event canceled because of rain at a later rescheduled time.

Here is the idiom in which one can use it in day to day life:

take a rain check (on something): to delay doing something until a later date or time

Sam: Let's go out and hang around at the coffee shop or watch a movie or something.

Matt: Oh, I'd have to take a rain check. My room mate is really sick.

Here, Matt is not turning down Sam's idea. He actually might want to go out with Sam some other time, keeping the offer still on.

Hope this helps.