Improve Your English: 290 [Archives:2006/942/Education]

Dr. Ramakanta Sahu
I. What to Say

Situations and Expressions (88)

Advertisement Idiom: Consumer non-durables

“Advertisement of consumer non-durables tend to be innovative, extra-factual, exaggerated and abstract in nature. They use larger-than-life images, use make-believe appeals and use all that is possible to hit the vulnerable areas of consumers to take the proposition offered. Purchasing decisions take place beneath our level of awareness.”

– Satisfaction beyond the price – more value to your money.

– It is not the engine of the future, but future of the engine.

– Reflections of your home… where every mode meets a perfect match.

– Kenstar: the promise of purity.

– Open your eyes. It's for real. Luxurious living now at affordable price.

– What to get is more than what you see. A dreamland covering every aspect of your life.

– You don't rent a family. So why rent a home.

– To love a home, you have to own one.

– A new chapter in style and luxury. Unveil the ever-loving life.

II. How to Say it Correctly

Correct errors, if any, in the following sentences

1. I'd like this parcel to send to India, please. How much will it cost?

2. I asked the way to him.

3. She said me goodbye.

4. 'Why isn't Ali coming to eat with us?' 'He didn't say he was very hungry.'

5. I suggested Moin that he should be more careful about his health.

Suggested answers to the previous issue's questions

1. I heard a bottle smash.

2. I told him where we should meet. (an object is necessary because 'tell' is a transitive verb)

3. She asked me the way to the city center. Or She asked me how to get to the city center.

4. She debated whether to tell her mother about the accident.

5. When I went to the dentist last week I had two teeth taken out.

III. Increase Your Word Power

(A) How to express it in one word

1. Cry out suddenly and loudly from pain.

2. Of a shop of the sort not found elsewhere.

3. Person who carries out what has been planned or decided.

4. Serving as an example or a warning.

5. Illustrate by example.

Suggested answers to the previous issue's questions

1. Stretch a description beyond the truth: exaggerate (vt)

2. Make or uncover by digging: excavate (vt)

3. Passage, extract, from a book: excerpt (n)

4. Government department in charge of public money: exchequer (n)

5. Government tax on certain goods manufactured, sold, or used within a country: excise (n)

(B) Words often confused

Bring out the difference in meaning of the following pairs of words

1. holly, holy

2. exercise, exorcise

3. credible, creditable

4. anxious, eager

5. immunity, impunity

Answers to the previous issue's questions

1. lassitude (n) (tiredness): Lassitude made him feel inactive at the function.

latitude (n) (distance north or south of the equators measured in degrees): You should know at what longitude and latitude Yemen is situated?

2. coalesce (v) (come together and unite into one substance): Experiences coalesce to help a person mature up.

collate (vt) (to arrange the sheets of a book in proper order): He collated the papers carefully.

collect (vt) (to cause to gather together): Please collect my books and put them in a pile on the table.

3. censer (n) (a vessel in which incense is burnt in a sacred place): The priest put the censer near the idol.

censor (n) (an official examiner of films, etc.): The film has been cleared by the censor board.

censure (n) (an adverse criticism or condemnation): The Parliament passed a vote of censure against one of its members.

4. immoral (adj) (corrupt, wicked): Desist from immoral practices.

amoral (adj) (not concerned with morals): Art is not moral or immoral, it is amoral.

(C ) Synonyms and Antonyms

(i) Synonyms

Choose the word that is closest in meaning to the one given at the top

1. parochial

a. pertaining to teaching b. limited

c. monastic d. universal

2. primeval

a. wooded b. savage

c. primitive d. swampy

3. abeyance

a. obedience b. suspension

c. servile humility d. lassitude

4. concomitant

a. that which accompanies or attends

b. agreeable friend

c. contestant d. collaborator

5. impetus

a. courage b. impatience

c. driving energy d. arrogance

Suggested answers to the previous issue's questions

Word Synonym

1. insatiable greedy

2. supercilious scornfully superior

3. infringe to encroach

4. accrue to accumulate

5. reticence tendency to keep silence

(i) Antonyms

Choose the word that is most opposite in meaning to the one given at the top

1. mellifluous

a. mutual b. common

c. hoarse d. contented

2. pejorative

a. critical b. down-graded

c. decorated d. meliorate

3. debilitate

a. strengthen b. rehabilitate

c. torture d. soothe

4. sparse

a. assault b. dense

c. point d. deficient

5. juvenile

a. senile b. trope

c. delinquent d. kneel

Suggested answers to the previous issue's questions

Word Antonym

1. harbinger follower

2. morbid healthy

3. pathetic farcical

4. endear alienate

5. voluminous slight

(D) Spelling

Choose the correctly spelt word

1. a. delivery b. delivry

c. delivary d. deliveri

2. a. defianse b. defyance

c. difiance d. defiance

3. a. dilogue b. dialogue

c. dialoge d. diylogue

4. a. dansuese b. danseuse

c. danseus d. densuace

5. a. enemity b. enimity

c. enmity d. enymity

(E) Phrases and idioms

Use the following phrases in sentences

1. more power to (someone's) elbow

2. make hay while the sun shines

3. look as though butter wouldn't melt in one's mouth

4. have a down on

5. ready to drop

Suggested answers to the previous issue's questions

1. get (something) off the ground (to get something started and operating successfully): The government planned a massive project for educational reform, but couldn't get it off the ground due to financial constraints.

2. have a fit (to become very angry): 'My father will have a fit if I return home late', said Aisha.

3. shake in one's shoes (to be very nervous or scared): The students shook in their shoes when the Dean interrogated them.

4. below par (not as healthy or well as usual): Dr. John left the lecture early. He has been below par since morning.

5. pull strings (to use personal influence or power to gain some kind of advantage): When he was transferred from his present position, he pulled a few strings to get back his former post.

IV. Grammar and Composition

(A)Grammar

Put the jobs listed below into any of these categories

forestry, fisheries, agriculture, education and librarianship, health, business and commerce, community and social development, technical trades, crafts and engineering

List of jobs

community workers town planners

computer programmers doctors

fishermen tree preservationists

teachers librarians

carpenters social workers

business entrepreneurs boat building

health educators computer analysts

agricultural engineers technical teachers

petrol mechanics building instructors

accountants tree surgeons

Suggested answers to the previous issue's questions

(mode of (type of (type of (route) (destin-

transport) journey) baggage) ation)

tube outing suitcase track harbor

taxi tour rucksack lane station

jet trip luggage way port

motorbike excursion briefcase path airport

hovercraft journey handbag route docks

liner drive hold all line quay

(B) Composition

Expand the central idea contained in the maxim

108: LIVES OF GREAT MEN TEACH US

TO MAKE OUR OWN LIFE SUBLIME

Suggested answers to the previous issue's questions

107: BEAUTY IS TRUTH

AND TRUTH BEAUTY

John Keats, in this beautiful poetic dictum, has enunciated a profound truth. The word 'beauty' doesn't connote physical charm, but anything that embodies the 'fragrance of goodness'. And goodness heightens beauty. In fact, beauty and goodness are cyclical. Beauty radiates goodness and goodness enhances beauty. R. W. Emerson defines 'beauty' as 'mark God sets on virtue'. Thus beauty which is but a natural superiority, refers to moral beauty and not merely animal charm and vigor. 'Whatever is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon also be beautiful', as Sappho puts it. Human life is enriched, enlightened and ennobled not only by perceptions of beauty, but by the pursuit of the path of virtue and nobility. Since beauty and goodness are complementary, each draws its sustaining spirit from the other, as much as it sustains the other. The noblest purpose in life is to realize the inscrutable kinship bond between beauty of thought, beauty of action and perceive it as manifestation of truth.

V. Pearls from the Holy Quran

“No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision; He is subtle well-aware.”

)S6:A103

VI. Food for Thought

“We create and destroy

And again recreate

In forms of which no one knows.”

The Holy Quran 56:61
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