Tag Archives: English grammar

You might be thinking that this post is too simple for you to read, that you learned this in kindergarten. However, if your mother tongue is something other than English, please read on.

Outside of reading my students’ work, I sometimes find myself reading English written by Dutch speakers on the internet or in a book. I wince in embarrassment for the author when I see half of a sentence with a period after it.

Complete sentences in other languages are not necessarily complete sentences in English. This statement is especially applicable to Dutch speakers–many will look at half an English sentence and think that it would sound right in Dutch, so what’s the problem?

The problem is your colleagues and clients might be judging your harshly for writing in half sentences because it makes your writing look childish. In short, this can be an embarrassing mistake for a professional to make. Are you alarmed? Let’s correct this.

Part I: You need two things

To form a sentence in English, you must have two things:

1. a subject

2. a main verb

(Actually, you also need a capital letter.)

If you are missing either of these two things, then you are not looking at a sentence, you are looking at a phrase.

These are not sentences, but phrases:

a vase of roses

a very interesting life

as fast as possible

under the couch

These are sentences:

A vase of roses was sitting on the hall table when I walked in.

He led a very interesting life.

The race car driver drove as fast as possible.

They hid my keys under the couch.

Part II: You can put sentences together in different ways

A sentence can be composed of one or multiple clauses. A clause is just a part of a sentence with a subject and a verb. A simple sentence, like

Ice cream has a lot of sugar.

or

Kids love ice cream.

only has one clause. It’s independent because it can stand by itself and and makes sense. This is your typical English sentence: subject-verb-object. (Ice cream-has-sugar.)

I can put both independent sentences together using the words for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (FANBOYS):

Ice cream has a lot of sugar, so kids love it! OR Ice cream has a lot of sugar, and kids love it!

Part III: All ways to combine sentences are not equal

What if I add a different word to the beginning of the sentence?

Because ice cream has a lot of sugar.

“Because” is a word that connects two sentences together, but it causes the sentence to become dependent. It’s called a subordinator (other subordinators are since, after, although, when, that, who, or which). This sentence is now dependent because it starts with a subordinator. What is it dependent on? It is dependent on another sentence. It cannot stand by itself. It needs to be joined to an independent clause to be considered a sentence.

Kids love ice cream because it has a lot of sugar.

Taa-daa! Now it’s a sentence again. This is called a complex sentence because it has an independent part (Kids love ice cream) and a dependent part (because it has a lot of sugar). These two parts of the sentence are not balanced. The first part can stand by itself but the second part cannot.

Part IV: Examples from Dutch

The root of the problem among Dutch speakers seems to be that it is ok to use dependent clauses as complete sentences in Dutch. For examples, you can have a sentence like this in Dutch:

Zodat wij al die bezoeken aan de musea kunnen blijven betalen.

which translates to this in English:

So that we can continue to be able to pay for all those visits to the museums.

The Dutch sentence is correct (I assume, since I see it everywhere) while the English sentence is not actually a sentence. Why not? They both have a subject and a verb. The problem is that “so that” in English causes the sentence to be a dependent clause.

In English, only this sentence is correct:

We need to continue to subsidize the museum card so that we can continue to be able to pay for all those visits to the museums.

More examples…

1. The mortgages are granted by banks who profit from these deals greatly.

Although there are voices stating that plenty of banks back up their mortgage deals with a mix of real and imaginary (or ‘multiplied’) money.

This is only half a sentence–it’s only the dependent part. An independent part needs to follow the dependent part. Here is an example with “although”:

Although what constitutes as a militia has been up for debate, the supreme court upholds the idea that a militia is the general population.

2. Dealers usually have a whole assortment of wares you might be interested in.

So it’s easier to start experimenting with other drugs.

Here is the correct version:

Dealers usually have a whole assortment of wares you might be interested in, so it’s easier to start experimenting with other drugs. 

Do you have any other examples of only half a sentence when translating from Dutch to English?

Ever wonder why sometimes you see “center” and other times “centre”? Sometimes you see “fulfill” and other times “fulfil”? Many students of English have no clear notion of what exactly makes British and American English different, hence this post. I hope to clear up your confusion.

British

Some people call this “proper English” but it’s actually composed of many different people speaking many different dialects, only a small percentage of which is “received pronunciation” or BBC English. How small? Estimates show that 3-5% of British native speakers actually speak with this accent. So, please, let’s not worry about the accent.

British English is characterised by

• additional silent letters, like the “a” in paediatric, anaemia, orthopaedic and aesthetic or the “o” in edoema, foetus and manoeuvre;
• “our” in words like flavour, favourite, endeavour and honour;
• an additional “l” in words like counsellor, labelled, or traveller;
• “ise” in words like authorise, characterise, organise and accessorise (though “ize” is becoming more accepted);
• “yse” in words like analyse, catalyse and paralyse;
• “re” in words like centre, theatre, calibre and litre;
• “gue” in words like dialogue, catalogue and prologue.

British English also uses the semi-colon after each bullet point and the full stop at the end of a list, where American English uses no punctuation with bullet points.

American

Americans have stereotypically “worse” speech, but that depends highly on where a person is from. Many people tell me they find American English to be easier to understand, but whether that is because they are more familiar with the accent through the American media or because Americans use fewer rare and complex words, I don’t know.

American English is characterized by

• deletion of those pesky silent letters, like the “a” in pediatric, anemia, orthopedic and esthetic or the “o” in edema, fetus and maneuver;
• “or” in words like flavor, favorite, endeavor and honor
• a single “l” in words like counselor, labeled, or traveler
• “ize” in words like authorize, characterize, organize and accessorize
• “yze” in words like analyze, catalyze and paralyze
• “er” in words like center, theater, caliber and liter
• “g” or “gue” in words like dialog/dialogue, catalog/catalogue and prolog/prologue

Fortunately, most differences in British and American English are in the spelling or everyday vocabulary domain and so should not have a dramatic impact on research or professional situations.

This is by no means an exhaustive list (though this is a pretty exhaustive list), so use the dictionary and spelling function on each document–choose UK or US English and just follow the dictionary’s recommendations.

 

 

The difference between less and fewer is actually really easy!

Use less with things that you can’t count:

There is less violence in the world today.

Less time is wasted on silly things.

He’s got less money than he had a year ago.

Use fewer with things that you can count:

Strong verbs are easier to read and use fewer words.

Fewer and fewer people know how to use this correctly.

And the most famous:

Frequently in elementary school, well-intended teachers make you ask permission to go to the bathroom using “May I…?” rather than “Can I…?” (which is what everyone wants to say), leaving grammatically-inept children looking like this:

Now the OED has given the final word on the correctness of “Can I go to the bathroom?” in their post Can or May?

The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) says that “the ‘permission’ use of can is not in fact incorrect in standard English. ”

I love the British, but for my poor American ears, can we say this more clearly?

not + incorrect = correct (two negatives, right?)

So, “the ‘permission’ use of can is in fact correct in standard English.”

They go on to say that using can in an “asking permission” context is more informal, whereas using “may” is more formal.

Thank you, OED, for giving us the final word word on the topic. If anyone tries to correct you now (I have a certain annoying high school geography teacher in mind, or a number of elementary school teachers), you can just say that the OED says it’s fine. So it’s fine.

So let elementary school children ask away: “Can I go to the bathroom?” and don’t make them sit there and wait while they repeat the “correct” sentence back to you (“May I go…”)

Little kids have tiny bladders.