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

Re: proofreading of funny article

Skrej — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:39:08 GMT

changeling
Hi everybody!

I was translating a kind funny recipe. Could you, please, check the following passages? Does it sound good? Do I need any improvement?

You will need eggs to make this apple pie. If you've run out of them, get dressed and rush out to the store. And get iodine, cleansers, soap, bandage and sticking plaster, too. On your way back, grab some flour, apples and sugar. So, you come back home and go to your kitchen right away. While unloading your purchases you will surely drop a few of eggs on the floor. Donât worry about that, just beat remaining 5 (put the number first - 5 remaining eggs) eggs into a bowl. C l (This is a typo, I think - delete it) Clean the kitchen floor, or else it will be slippery. Now follow directions carefully. Take your mixer and start beating eggs. Your mixer wonât work? Just try to switch it on. It did no difference? (use made, instead of did - It made no difference?) You probably have to place the blades. (Say 'insert' instead of 'place', or say "put the blades in" instead of place the blades. Also, you might want to say 'beaters' instead of blades) So now you can beat the eggs. When you finish splashing beaten eggs all over the place you will want to have a shower. Wash yourself very well and get the yolk out of your nose. And finally, wash your clothes.

You have three (Earlier you said 5 eggs in the bowl, now 3 - is this intentional? Does this mean the person splashed out 2 eggs?) beaten yolks in the bowl and that's enough to make our apple pie. Now find old newspapers and magazines and paste (I'd use 'cover' instead of paste) the entire kitchen with them. Cover your furniture with some waste blanket (Subject/verb agreement error here - either say 'some waste blankets' or 'a waste blanket) if you don't plan to buy new furniture. Take (Missing a definite article 'the' here) flour package and put about a cup of flour into the bowl. Gather the flour you spilt on a table (forget about the flour scattered on the floor) and put it back to the package. Make sure youâve pasted (Again, I'd use 'covered' instead of pasted) all the walls and the ceiling in the kitchen properly. Now blend the eggs with the flour.

You need a bath again. Wash all that beaten mixture (Simpler just to use the word 'batter' here instead of 'beaten mixture) off. Take a sharp knife. Well, that's where you need iodine, bandage (either 'a bandage' or 'bandages) and sticking plaster. Peel five apples. Apply iodine to your cuts and bandage your fingers. Stick (Use 'apply' here instead of 'stick' ) the plaster. Now, cut (Again, you're missing the definite article 'the' here) apples. Keep in mind, though, we need two apples for our pie, so feel free to eat the rest of them while cooking. (Consider rewording this sentence slightly. It's gramatically ok, but a bit confusing. I'd say use either one of these two options: (1) Keep in mind, though, we need two apples for our pie, so don't eat all of them. or (2) Keep in mind, we only need 2 apples for our pie, so feel free to eat the rest of them while cooking.) Pick up all apple pieces you dropped on the floor and wash them in running water. Add apples and sugar to the dough. Beat the ingredients. Clean up all those nasty spots on the fridge and windows, or else they will dry up which will make cleaning much harder.

Pour what's left in the bowl in a frying pan (A frying pan is for frying, but you're putting the pan in the oven to bake. I think you mean baking pan.) Forgot to coat your frying pan (baking pan?) with oil? That's ok, just pour the mixture back in the bowl. Now wash the frying pan, (baking pan?) towel it dry and coat with vegetable oil. Wash your hands and again pour the dough in the frying pan. (baking pan?) Place in the oven. If your pie still looks pretty much the same after an hour of baking, check if you turned the heat on. So now the heat is on and you can take a rest. As you wake up suddenly, open all windows, doors and your oven. Bring (Use 'give' or 'make' instead of 'bring'.) your apologies to your neighbors and convince them that there was no fire. Now that you've recovered from all that shock, call your darling and say you gonna make something special for the dinner. Make (Use 'go to' or 'head to/for' instead of 'make') for the store again and buy a cake and a bottle of wine, or even something stiffer. Unpack the cake and put it on the frying pan (Again, use 'baking pan' but you'll need to use the preposition 'in' instead of 'on. - Unpack the cake and put in the baking pan). Greet your darling!

Hi Changeling,

You did a pretty good job with your funny recipe, but I commented on a few minor errors. Feel free to ask for further clarification if my comments don't make sense.

Hope this helps!

Re: preposition quandary?

Cool Breeze — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:44:45 GMT

Anonymous
1.With which questions did you have most problems?

You need the most problems. Most + a noun usually means "a/the majority of": Most problems were easy for him. Most problems means more than 50 percent of the problems. I don't think that is what you want to ask.

Examples of most used in absolute superlatives:

I met a most interesting person yesterday. (The person is not compared with other people, that's why the isn't used.)

This little village is most charming. (There is no noun after charming, that's why no article is needed. Again, there is no comparison.)

Re: Grammar rules - check for correctness - a kind teacher please :)

Angle1 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:47:46 GMT

Well OK? I will write it down and send it soon

Could you please help me with some verbs ?
There are some verbs, which have the same preposition and particle. I have no problem to find a phrasal meaning, but I cannot find verbs which combine these two possibilities.

I need some examples for these verbs : drive, read, fall, care, stand - I wrote down a nice list of phrasal verbs - but .... I canÂ´t find prepositional using. Could you please give me some examples?

for example:

stand for - prepositional : true NewtonÂ´s laws on mechanics stood for over two hundred years
phrasal : to defend Stand for yourself and what you believe in.

something like this: http://www.eflnet.com/pverbs/phrasalverbs.php

but I am looking for examples and I cannot find any ..

could you please give me some expamples fromt the verbs mentioned above?

THX for help

Re: Could you review this article?

Grammar Geek — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:18:17 GMT

A lot of people get confused about prepositions, so don't worry so much about that.

People is more than one person. Unless you are an anthropologist, don't worry about using "peoples."

You do need to learn how to use the period correctly. It ends a complete sentence. Use a comma to join two complete sentences only if you also use a conjunction. In the little bit that I read, you had several complete sentences simply joined with a comma. That's completely wrong. See this: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_comma.html

Re: tense - why wrong?

26TMNTJG2PG — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:16:53 GMT

The past perfect tense serves only to place a narration in the "more distant past," without determining its particular time or duration, as follows: "He had risen early that morning and had drunk coffee earlier than usual. â Wikipedia. There are many ways to express an idea. Why must we choose a way that infringes grammatical rules? How do you do it?
Easy.
Yesterday we finished our lunch and then Tom arrived. Yesterday we finished our lunch. Then Tom arrived.
Are they not equally good, if not better?
Notice that I used 'Easy' above. I say it is a sentence or a paragraph. Do you agree?
You don't. Everybody knows that "A sentence must have a verb and can stand on its own"; but then so many famous writers use this so-called effective style of writing (at the expense of grammatical rules) in newspaper articles and books including reference books teaching their users to speak and write better English.
"A sentence must have a verb and can stand on its own" has become a schoolroom rule. If you engage yourself in formal writing or if you are a student, are you not inclined to follow this rule?A job applicant using the sentence, "I like employers that (instead of who) take good care of their employees", is facing a risk of his/her application being turned down should his/her prospective employer consider such use (of 'that') as inappropriate; and the applicant will be left with no chance to defend himself/herself since normally no reason will be given for the rejection. 'That' for human antecedent is a disputed usage. If I use the word 'unidiomatic' in my thesis for a degree, I am facing the danger of marks being deducted for such usage because 'unidiomatic' cannot be found in online dictionaries but it is used in Wikipedia. What I am stressing is that if you don't follow the rules, there may be a cost to bear.Coincidentally, there is an article titled "Position matters" by Dr Lim Chin Lam in the popular national English daily today which article somewhat talks about the importance of following grammatical rules and which article, however, has three disputed usages namely (1) 'that' for human antecedent (without any explanation), (2) split infinitive (with convincing reasonings) and (3) ending a sentence with a preposition (quoting Winston Churchill).
HTH. HAND.

Re: for all you techies

squish — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:11:01 GMT

He's Italian and he wrote the article in English. I'm trying to make his English more fluid English where possible so I have to understand (more or less) what he's talking about. What is more of a problem is making sure his adjectives are in the correct order and taking out some prepositions wherever possible.

Thanks!

CASE?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:55:05 GMT

Hi,

In the book named "Longman English Grammar" by L. G. Alexander in the section 8 named "Prepositions, Adverb particles, and Phrasal verbs," I saw this sentence. What does 'case' mean to you?

English uses more prepositions than most other European languages, partly because 'case' [>1.1] is no longer expressed by noun endings.

Also, what does 'adverb particle' mean?

preposition after "lash out"

Raen — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:07:51 GMT

is it "at" or "on"?

Here's a title of an article on AOL "Star lashes out at Walter". I have thought it was always "on", is "on" possible and grammatical? If yes, could someone give examples? Or has I always been wrong about it?

Thanks to anyon who would responds to my questions.

Raen

Re: GRAMMAR IN RHYME

Anonymous — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:56:04 GMT

A Grammar Rhyme
by David B. Tower and Benjamin F. Tweed

A noun's the name of anything;
As, school or garden, hoop or swing.

Adjectives tell the kind of noun;
As, great, small, pretty, white, or brown.
Three of these words we often see,
Called articles - a, an, and the.

Instead of nouns the pronouns stand;
John's head, his face, my arm, your hand.

Verbs tell of something being done;
As read, write, spell, sing, jump, or run.

How things are done the adverbs tell;
As, slowly, quickly, ill, or well.
They also tell us where and when;
As here, and there, and now, and then.

A preposition stands before
A noun; as in, or through, a door.

Conjunctions sentences unite;
As kittens scratch and puppies bite.

The interjection shows surprise;
As, O, how pretty! Ah, how wise!

Re: preposition+cds

CalifJim — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:20:04 GMT

sebayanpendam
So, what about this,' Do it in Microsoft Powerpoint or on Microsoft Powerpoint?'

in ... Powerpoint. in the newspaper, on the list.

in the newspaper (contents - meaningful writing)

on the newspaper (physical object)

I read an interesting article in the newspaper.

I set my coffee cup on the newspaper.

But there's often no logic to it.