Search results for 'tag:Writing letters tag:Grammar' matching tags 'Writing letters' and 'Grammar'

Re: Participles vs Gerunds

Cool Breeze — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:03:42 GMT

I have noticed that my way of analyzing English differs to an extent from what is taught in the Anglo-Saxon countries. This is how I see your examples:

There was never any stopping it. Stopping is a gerund. It is used (without a verb immediately before it) after a form of to be (was), and that is typical of gerunds. Stopping also has an object (it) in the sentence, which is quite common for a gerund.

He has the gall of a shoplifter returning an item for a refund. Returning is a present participle. He has the gall of a shoplifter is a complete main clause. By that I mean it has a subject (He), a finite verb / a main verb (has) and an object (the gall of a shoplifter). It qualifies as a sentence on its own; it is in no way incomplete. Returning an item for a refund is not a sentence or a clause because it has no finite verb. Returning connects it to the preceding clause and the meaning is thus made clear.

In traditional European grammar returning is said to begin a clause equivalent, but I know that that term is not used a lot in the UK and the USA. In your sentence we could have a subject and a finite verb instead of the participle: He has the gall of a shoplifter who returns an item for a refund. Participles are very often used to replace all manner of subordinate clauses. Some examples:

When turning a corner, I saw a lorry hit a car. (= When I was turning a corner, I saw a lorry hit a car.)

Although living in Spain for years, he didn't learn Spanish very well. (= Although he lived in Spain for years, he didn't learn Spanish very well.)

That's a good car compared with mine. (= That is a good car if it is compared with mine.) Compared is a past participle, not a present participle because the clause is in the passive voice.

He could never see a belt without hitting below it. Hitting is a gerund. This is perhaps the easiest of your sentences for a layman to analyze because without is a preposition and all prepositions must be followed by a gerund. Examples:

He had an opportunity of visiting his uncle. We succeeded in reaching our destination in time. I'm accustomed to getting up early.

Wrestling with words gave me my moments of greatest meaning. Wrestling is a gerund. It is the subject of the clause/sentence. Gave is the finite verb. A present participle cannot act as the subject of a clause. Similar examples:

Swimming is great fun! Reading detective stories was one of his hobbies. Writing letters isn't what I like.

Cheers, CB

Re: Please check the short text.

Hungry — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 01:43:26 GMT

Goodman wrote:

Hi Matt,

I was merely sharing with you my perspective of your letter. I did say âI got the ideaâ; didn't I? Since you âbeggedâ so sincerely, so I gave you my honest opinion. Responding to your comments, Iâd say this. Writing letters aside, if we ask a few people to describe an object, or to deliver a detailed account of some kind, the same topic may show up in different shades of colors, tones and clarity. The point of my comment was, the intended thoughts or contents by one author may or may not be the same as the rest and therefore the delivery will be perceived respectively. The difference is in the thought composition, rhetoric, fluency and clarity in the delivery. If I had caused you any mental anguish, or irritated feeling by comments I made, please donât take it personal. There are good advices and not so good ones in any forum. You are the one to decide which good ones to keep and discard. But responding to the helpers with an attitude wonât advance your cause. Iâve learned through experience, defensiveness is an unfavorable quality.

My Dear Goodman,

There seems to be a great misconception. Let me take it to its grave. You did NOT say anything that would cause me any mental anguish, or irritate me in any way. In fact, I respect and appreciate your comments and perspective from the bottom of my heart. To me attitude just means a personal view of something, it can be positive or negative. However, I always try to keep it positive. I can be a little casual at times but don't mean any harm. At work I like to have a healthy skepticism about the management. It keeps me from taking them serious and thus prevents me from getting too upset about their stupidity.

The advices you have offered me are very precious, and a very few people offer such advices. You people are the precious gifts of God, and I dare not disrespect you ever. I apologize, if you think I have offended you in some way.

By the way, I did NOT "beg". I just made a request, because I think "begging" can be irritating.

So, shall we get back to the letter now? Could you please tell me if there are ANY grammar mistakes in it?

Thank you,

Great regards,

Matt

Please check my grammar and give me some advice on my essay. Thank you!!

S2monica — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:52:00 GMT

Hi everybody, This is my first "post" in here.
Please help me correct the grammar. Thanks!

Communication has always been an important part of our everyday lives. Many of us have composed a letter before, perhaps a note to a loved one or a memo at work. In the past, many of these messages might have gone through the postal system, but with the invention of the internet, people increasingly prefer to send their messages through e-mail. Indeed, once people can access internet, communication to anyone is more efficient and reliable, and the difference between e-mail and writing letters were cost, speed and convenience.

E-mail holds several advantages over traditional post. One of these is cost. A person who sends a letter by post will need to buy paper, an envelope, and stamps. By comparison, the digital ones and zeroes making up an e-mail message essentially cost nothing. Although an individual letter may only cost cents, the cost can add up for larger volumes. For many businesses, effective communication with clients is often critical to success. This can translate to a large amount of print material being mailed out. Sabina Chen, an Insurance agent and regular e-mail user, âE-mail is cheap, by using e-mail our expensive of postage onto envelopes, labels and advertising prints. It decreased almost 50% than before.â

The second advantage of e-mail is time. Sent and received an e-mail only takes a few seconds for the destination of around the world, and using e-mail service is available twenty-four hours and seven days a weeks with no restriction on the office hours like post office collecting time. For many businesses, E-mail becomes prevalent, send a hundred of clients about their new products information within seconds. Unlike using the postal service it must take more than a days or even weeks for delivery and its can limiting the time for waiting line inside the post office. Indeed, use postal mail peoples must be collecting their mail from the home-basis address or Post office box. By using e-mail people can avoid wasting time. Sabina said, âNowadays almost everyone has an e-mail address. Why spend time to prepare an hundred of envelopes, labels and letters than make a special trip to post office?â

Another advantage of the e-mail is the convenience. Everyone has experience to write a letters to their friends, family, and business parties, using correction tape cover a mistake words or wrong spelling is very common. E-mail allowed people delete text, add text, center it, indent it and change the font size and color, and checkups spelling/ grammar, all with the click of a button. Using traditional pen and paper would take me forever to write all those out and hopefully the viewers will able to figure out a bad handwriting. Sabina said, âE-mail has a power features that regular letters do not have.â

In conclusion, these advantages by using e-mail as our communication tools, this makes contacting people a lot effective for everyone. Unlike wiring a letter, using e-mail allows us to enjoy all the benefits from lowered the business costs, no time zone distance with friend, and easier to change something in the document avoid the minor mistake. Communicate to almost every corner of the world with the push of a button.

Re: Some confused english grammar problems...

paco2004 — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 22:12:59 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

I dare to ask Mr. Paco how the sentence "I have been writing letters all morning." can insinuate the notion that s/he is continuing to write a letter even if it is assumed to be morning. I dare to ask Mr. Paco for further edification.

Hello Anon

If we are not given any other context, I'd take the sentence as you say, i.e., "the person is still writing a letter".

I feel English speakers are using the present perfect continuous tense in two ways. For example, take a sentence "He has been drinking", then I take it as either of the two as follows
1. He has drunken for a time in the past and he is still now drinking.
2. He is not drinking now, but he still has a result of continuously drinking in the past.

We have to know from the context in which usage a speaker is using the present perfect continuous tense. For example, suppose in night Johnny wants to play with his father who has been sleeping since he got back home in late evening and suppose his mother tells him like "Don't wake up him, Johnny! Dad has been working all the day". This "Dad has been working" means "Dad has still a result of continuously working in the day time", i.e, the second meaning.

paco

Re: Some confused english grammar problems...

CalifJim — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 18:08:17 GMT

With regard to I have been writing ..., you end your post with the question

so you mean i I have done six letters

The answer is "No". When I explain have been writing in terms of were working on, I don't mean have done; I mean have been doing.

Maybe a point of confusion lies with the progressive tenses - the ones with the -ing forms.
If we can say that we were writing letters, and we continue writing them up to the moment of speaking, we can say we have been writing letters.
If we can say that we wrote letters, we can say that we have written letters.

were writing does not mean wrote.
have been writing does not mean have written.

were writing and have been writing both say that an activity was in progress, not that it finished.
wrote and have written both say that the writing finished.

CJ

Another post continue"Some confused english grammar problems".

MIA6 — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 18:00:07 GMT

The usages of the present perfect tense are: 1.Actions which started in the past and are still continuing 2.Actions which happened at some unknown time/unspecific time/unfinished time in the past,which means
it's important to say that something happened (or didn't happen).3.Actions which happened in the past, but have an effect in the present. But I am not sure if the negative present perfect sentence has the same usages as the present perfect statement's. Like,I have eaten chicken,it means i ate chicken. I haven't eaten chicken. what does it mean? it means i didn't eat chicken before (usage 2/3) Or I didn't eat chicken and not continuing,not eating now(usage 1) Or it depends on the context?

Who knows the difference between "this morning" and "all morning" if i use those two phrases in two present perfect sentences.Is "this morning" a duration-from the past to now or it tells it is an unspecific time in the past? i think all morning is a duration-from the past to now. In my last post, I have been writing letters this morning. Is that right? it is present perfect continuous tense, so it must stay with duration, but here "this morning" is duration? I have written letters this morning. what does "this morning" here mean? a duration or unspecific time in the past? What's the difference between "I have written six letters all morning" and "I have been writing six letters all morning" if Writing six letters is an accomplishment that can't happen all morning.,Both sentences can't work. (notice in those sentences,suppose it is 9:00 A.M now,it is still morning,not finished---according to the usages of this tense). Hope you can answer my questions, thanks a lot.

Re: Some confused english grammar problems...

MIA6 — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 17:34:12 GMT

Thanks for your replying, but I have some questions about them:

I have been writing letters all morning.

This says what activity you were involved with all morning, that is, during the entire morning. It is still morning and you may still be writing letters or you may have decided to stop now. In either case, the sentence just says what activity you were involved with up until this moment of speaking. Here you used "you were involved...",you used past tense,so i am not sure what are you trying to say.

I have been writing six letters all morning.

This is a strange sentence. It says the activity you were involved with was the writing of six letters. It gives the distinct impression that you were working on all six at the same time. I envision you stopping one letter for a while and writing part of another, then stopping that letter and working on one of the others, and so on, and continuing from one to another all morning. Here you used "you were involved...","you were working on..." you used past tense, so you mean i have done six letters?

Re: Some confused english grammar problems...

Demetrius — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 12:20:44 GMT

CalifJim has written an excellent summary here. May I just add a couple of observations of my own.

CalifJim wrote:
You may be driving yourself crazy trying to make every sentence with a present perfect tense fit into one those three categories!

I have written six letters this morning.

This means that during the morning you finished the task of writing six letters. You are not still writing the sixth letter. You are not writing anymore. You are now just sitting there, perhaps, looking at what you have accomplished during the morning and you see the six letters on the desk. You are saying where you stand with respect to letter-writing at this very moment. You are saying that at this moment you have six letters before you, all written.

I think it's important to make it clear here that we should only use the above sentence in the present perfect tense if it is still "this morning". In other words, there must remain the potential for me to write more letters this morning. If it is now evening, I must say "I wrote six letters this morning" (in the imperfect tense) because I cannot now write more. This is the 'present' element of the present perfect tense: it is "this morning" now, when I say it. The 'past' element (and it is a past tense despite what some confusingly claim) is that the writing was done in the past, and is now finished (present perfect) or continuing (present perfect progressive).

CalifJim wrote:

I have been writing letters all morning.

This says what activity you were involved with all morning, that is, during the entire morning. It is still morning and you may still be writing letters or you may have decided to stop now. In either case, the sentence just says what activity you were involved with up until this moment of speaking.

This is the present perfect progressive tense, and it is subtly different. As Jim says, the letter-writing started in the past, but I am implying that it may still be continuing. Again I can only say this sentence this morning, not this evening, because I am referring to this morning as the time I write the sentence (not the letters).

CalifJim wrote:

It's easy to see how this topic can become very confusing!

It would be better to ask shorter questions by dividing this up into several posts.

CJ

Re: Some confused english grammar problems...

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 09:27:06 GMT

I dare to ask Mr. Paco how the sentence "I have been writing letters all morning." can insinuate the notion that s/he is continuing to write a letter even if it is assumed to be morning. I dare to ask Mr. Paco for further edification.

Re: Some confused english grammar problems...

paco2004 — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 22:30:12 GMT

Hello MIA6

Are you a native speaker? If so it's very interesting to me. I'm a Japanese, who have learned English rather for a long time but still find it tough to catch the exact sense and usage of English present perfect tense. I'm afraid you might feel ill to hear about the grammar of your native tongue from a foreign person who is learning it, but if you don't mind, please read with a laugh wondering in what a queer way an English learner from Orient understand your mother tongue.

As far as I have learned and as far as I have understood, the basic notion of the English expression "I have done something" is "I now have the result of an experience that I did it in the past".

So "I have written six letters this morning" is "I have now the result of an experience that I wrote six letters this morning". It means you have already finished writing all the six letters. "I have been writing letters all morning" means "Now it is still morning but this morning I wrote some letters and still I am writing a letter".

"I have been writing six letters all morning" sounds a bit weird. "Write letters" can be used to express an activity of writing some letters in a generic sense but "write six letters" sounds to be any specified activity such that you should know what letters the six letters are. So, if I hear "I have been writing six letters all morning", I take it as "This morning you began writing six letters in parallel and you are still continuing the six paralleled activities of writing a letter".

"I haven't eaten chicken" may be commonly taken as "I have the result of an experience that I never ate chicken in the past". Suppose your mother asked you in the kitchen "did you snitch the chicken?" and suppose you answered like "No, I haven't eaten the chicken". This means "I didn't yet eat the chicken this time". The use of THE before "chicken" gives to "eat" a notion of a specified activity.

paco

[PS] When I finished this writing, I noticed CJ had already posted a much better answer. But I will dare to post it hoping it can be served as a material for you and other native speakers to know what understanding an ESL student has about English present perfect tense.