Improve Your English – 220 [Archives:2004/706/Education]

I. What to Say
Situations and Expressions (61):
Expression of love

Love is strong affection or deep, tender feeling for someone. To John Sheffield, “Love is salt of life”. The poet Cowper says “Society Friendship and Love / Divinely ordained on man.”
Benjamin Disraeli says, “We are all born for love; it is the principle of existence and its only end.” Love is the bridge between two young hearts. It is the elixir of life that gives to life its true meaning and significance. Two young hearts locked in the warmth of emotion naturally and spontaneously express their intensity of feeling for each other. In the west Valentine's day marks the celebration of the sanctity of love. We present below a selection of expressions capturing the essense of the elemental emotion that lurks in two young hearts.

– Your love is special to me. I can tell you anything, knowing you'll listen to me and try to understand and the way you open up to me, letting me inside, sharing with me your innermost thoughts and feelings. I love you and like you the most.
– Dearest Love is an ethereal experience, as it makes every moment spent in the arms of your beloved, blissful and a memory to be cherished for ever. You have made my life a blessing. With happiness is each hour spent together because you are so lovely with your caring ways. Your love makes every day so special.
– I love you, dearest! You've changed my life with your special ways, and made me believe in miracles, now and forever. Dearest! Your smile makes my day brighter, and adds a special touch to life. I believe in being with you forever.
– A life full of passion, affections, love, humanity, cares, celebrations, and strength. Sometimes, I need you to hold me; I need to feel your arms around me, strong and loving and warm to know that I am safe from the hurry and the hassles of the world for just a little while. Sometimes I just need to know you care, to know you're there, always loving me.
– Darling you're all I ever need. Emotions, a silken road of life, a huge balance, a great satisfaction, a desire for being a loved one.
– I want to walk with you hand in hand across the years to come, through all the hours a single life time could make… I want to grow with you freely and experience life to its fullest and truest measure… Look into my heart and find that I'm more in love with you than ever before.
– Valentine, I think you've got something that belongs to me. My heart! Have a very happy Valentine's day.
– Something tells me you already knew)on Valentine's day I'd be thinking of you.
– When I look at you all I see is love!

II. How to Say it Correctly
Correct errors, if any, in the following sentences
1. I saw the tigress was weak and was badly wounded, but still she runs very fast.
2. Unless you don't work hard, you will not pass.
3. She is more beautiful but not so intelligent as her sister.
4. What to speak of English, he cannot read even Arabic.
5. She is so proudy that she will not admit her mistake.

Suggested answers to last week's questions
1. There are one hundred and eight students in Level Four.
2. Bassam's and Ramzi's computer skills are praiseworthy.
3. This news was broadcast from BBC yesterday.
4. Both Radi and Abdu are intelligent.
Or: Radi as well as Abdu is intelligent.
5. All members of my family are in India.

III. Increase Your Word Power
(A) How to express it in one word
1. A great lover of books.
2. A man with a narrow, prejudicial views specially about politics and religion.
3. The act of speaking disrespectfully about sacred things.
4. A man of free and easy habits, one who is socially unconventional.
5. Something that denotes a fall from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Suggested answers to last week's questions
1. The other side of the globe: antipodes (n)
2. A person guilty of the criminal act of setting fire to property: arsonist (n)
3. Science of cultivation of trees or shrubs: arbori-culture (n)
4. Study of antiquities, especially of prehistoric period: archaeology (n)
5. The mistake of placing something in the wrong period of time: anachronism (n)

(B) Foreign phrases and idioms
Give the source of origin and the meanings of the following:
1. modus operandi 2. mon ami
3. Ominia Vinist Labor 4. par excellence
5. par example

Suggested answers to last week's questions
1. inter alia (Lat): among other things.
2. lingua franca (Italian): common language.
3. locus standi (Lat.): the right to interfere.
4. magnum opus (Lat.): the greatest work.
5. marriage the convenance: marriage from convenience.

(C) Words Commonly Confused
Bring out differences in meaning of the following pairs of words
1. silent, silenced 2. small, short
3. inability, disability 4. like, likes
5. ward, word

Suggested answers to last week's questions
1. fist (n) (hand when firmly closed): He struck me with his fist.
feast (n) (splendid meal): I was invited to a grand marriage feast.
2. foist (vt) (trick some one or something into being accepted): They didn't invite him to go out with them, but he foisted himself on them.
hoist (vt) (to raise up using ropes): The President hoisted the national flag on the Unification Day.
3. kill (n) (animal killed in hunting): The predator is feasting on its kill.
keel (n) (a wooden structure on which the framework of a ship is built up): The ship is on an even keel.
4. mist (n) (water vapor in the area, at or near earth's surface, less thick fog and not so light as haze): The distant hills are hidden in mist.
fog (n) (thicker than mist): Fog is a sailor's worst enemy.
5. flagging (adj) (weakening): His long absence from the lectures shows his flagging interest in studies.
flogging (n) (beating or whipping): The miscreant was punished with severe flogging.

(C) Idioms and Phrases
Illustrate the meanings of the following in sentences
1. to live from hand to mouth
2. to lose heart
3. to make up one's mind
4. to make both ends meet
5. to move heaven and earth

Suggested answers to last week's questions
1. to hang in the balance (to be undecided): The fate of the accused is hanging in the balance.
2. to hit the nail on the head (to do the right thing at the right moment): By exposing his real intention you have hit the nail on the head.
3. to have the upper hand (to have more say or influence): The Chairperson always has an upper hand in strategic decision making.
4. to hold water (sound logical): Your arguments do not hold water in the present context.
5. to have no stones unturned (to try one's level best): He left no stones unturned to get to the top.

IV. Grammar and Composition
(A) Grammar
Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the sentence printed before it.
1. 'Don't drive so fast', said the passenger to the taxi driver
The passenger asked the taxi driver ))-
2. 'Could I bring a friend along to the party?' Aisha asked Eiman.
Aisha asked Eiman ))-
3. He gave up cigarettes obeying the advice of the doctor.
He stopped )))
4. Few people in Yemen use English in general social contexts.
There aren't )))
6. My eldest sister doesn't speak English, nor does my other sister.
Neither of ))-

Suggested answers to last week's questions
1. It was difficult to avoid catching smallpox during an epidemic.
2. Most doctors agree that it is better to prevent a disease than to cure it.
3. People with infectious diseases should try and avoid contact with other people.
4. She was so frightened of injections that she kept avoiding going to see the doctor.
5. The vaccination will prevent you from catching cholera.
6. The government is trying very hard to prevent Chickenpox from spreading.
Remember: 'avoid' means to get away from or escape on purpose
'prevent' means to stop something from happening.

(B) Composition: Paragraph writing
Expand the central idea embedded in the saying
52. Courtesy costs nothing

Last week's topic
51. Charity begins at home
A child imbibes all noble qualities and virtues in his childhood from his home environment. His highly impressionable mind captures the ideals and values that his parents and others set before him as living examples to emulate. These sterling qualities take roots in the child's mind and blossom in course of time. Therefore, home is rightly called the first school for the child where he learns the first lessons of his life in terms of love, fellow feeling, cooperation, self-sacrifice and so forth. The child practices these virtues with his parents, brothers and sisters and gets trained how to cultivate these virtues in dealing with others. A child's home environment thus turns out to be a veritable training ground for the child and wields a tremendous influence on him during the formative years of his life shaping up his character. Lives of great men are luminous examples of how their budding qualities were nurtured in their childhood at home. So we must enrich our personal lives as parents and provide a congenial atmosphere at home conducive to the proper growth of our children's personality enabling them to prove themselves as worthy citizens of tomorrow.

V. Pearls from the Holy Quran
“Serve Allah, and join not
Any partners with Him;
And do good –
To parents, kinsfolk,
Orphans, those in need,
Neighbours who are of kin
Neighbours who are strangers,
The Companion by your side,
The way-farer (ye meet)
Ad what your right hands possess;
For Allah loveth not
The arrogant, the vainglorious.”
S4: A36

VI. Words of Wisdom
“All I know of love is that love is all there is”
)Emily Dickinson
——
[archive-e:706-v:13-y:2004-d:2004-01-26-p:education]