Improve Your English – 269 [Archives:2005/832/Education]
Dr. Ramakanta Sahu
I. What to Say
Situations and expressions (76):
Job advertisement (Vi)
The message of the advertisement is a product of negotiation between the text and the decoder. The decoder is the negotiator. The negotiation takes place as the reader brings aspects of his cultural experience to bear upon the text. Each of the communicative variables such as encoder, channel, message is treated as persuasive factor since each of them in the perception of the negotiator contributes its part in the total construction of the discourse.
– Want to be a part of Revolution in the field of infrastructure constructions in a progressive, growth oriented, and professionally managed enterprise?
– To your high flying ambitions, we add confidence, identity and status. (Air Hostess Academy)
– 'I'm ignited by complexity. I envision the next generation. I architect excellence.' At )), experience the challenge of creating innovative products.
– Give wings to your career.
– Before you join, please be warned that the job is back-breaking. After all, the pats come every 15 minutes.
– File, smile and go. (Income Tax Returns)
– Life is our life's work. (A pharmaceutical company)
– Life – it is the underlying purpose of everything we do at )) . Our core values: customer focus, performance, team work, integrity, leadership, respect for people, innovation, community, quality. We are a company that's powered by intellect, driven by values. We lead by example and by our thinking. In a knowledge economy, it is insight and imagination that combine with skill and speed with which we apply them, which sets us apart.
– With us you have only one way to go.. UP
– Courage, truth, growth A few reasons to join us.
– Most wanted: the sharpest and deadliest minds in the industry. Get ready for the BIG LEAP!
II. Correct errors, if any, in the following sentences
1. Queen Victoria was the famous Emperor of the British empire during the nineteenth century.
2. The Earl and the Earless were present at the coronation ceremony.
3. We are about beginning the function.
4. We have a house over the lake in the forest.
5. We want every child to develop in his or her own way.
Suggested answers to the previous week's questions
1. He has been living here since the death of his mother.
2. My father brought many presents for us from Dubai.
3. The students are taking their examination from next week.
4. Many passers-by stopped at the restaurant for refreshments.
5. You should have good relationship with your brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.
III. Increase Your Word Power
(A) How to express it in one word
1. The quality of being full of happiness and excitement.
2. Not following any one system or set of ideas, but using parts of many different ones.
3. The pattern of relations of plants, animals, and people to each other and to their surroundings.
4. Feeling of great joy and spiritual uplift.
5. Improvement of character or the mind.
Suggested answers to the previous week's questions
1. Inability to read: dyslexia (n)
2. Looking keenly at something: eagle-eyed (adj)
3. Taking life easily: easy-going (adj)
4. To listen secretly to other people's conversation: eavesdrop (vi)
5. The flow of the sea away from the shore: ebb (n)
(B) Words commonly confused
Bring out differences in meaning of the following pairs of words
1. upbeat, offbeat
2. guts, grit
3. minister, minstrel
4. dyspepsia, dyslexia
5. verbal, oral
Suggested answers to the previous week's questions
1. ail (vt) (trouble): What ails him?
(vi) (be ill): He is always ailing.
ale (n) (light colored beer): The European are lovers of ale.
2. literal (adj) (exact, word for word): Can you give me a literal account of the conversation?
literary (adj) (concerning literature): He has a rich literary sensibility.
3. everything (pron) (all things. It is used in the inclusive sense. It is always singular): Everything is so expensive here.
every thing (each thing. It is used in a distributive sense): Every thing I gave him is disliked by him.
4. hear (vt) (perceive sound without any special effort): I heard someone coughing.
listen (vi) (make special effort to hear something): I tried to listen but couldn't hear anything.
5. last (adj) (coming after all others in time or order. It implies the end): Last week I paid a visit to Al-Naser school in Mahweet.
latest (adj) (coming at the end. It covers the sense that this is not the end of a particular activity): Have you heard the latest news?
(C ) Phrases and idioms
Use the following phrases in sentences
1. lead a charmed life
2. shift one's ground
3. put (someone's) back up
4. set one's sight on (something)
5. go to sleep
Suggested answers to the previous week's questions
1. sweat like a pig (to sweat a great deal): The boy sweated like a pig after running to school.
2. be up in arms (to be very angry and to make a protest about something): The players were up in arms against the decision of the referee.
3. be on the up and up (to be doing very well, especially financially): Things have been on the up and up for my friend ever since he went abroad.
4. an angel of mercy (a person who appears and brings help when they were particularly needed): At a critical moment, when I was financially broke, he appeared like an angel of mercy with his firm assurance of help.
5. walk on air (to feel very happy): Ayesha has been walking on air since she won the prestigious award.
IV. Grammar and Composition
(A) Grammar
Report the following short dialogues using ask if, ask to or tell to
1. 'Would it be all right for me to come to work a little late tomorrow?' she asked her boss.
2. 'Is it Ok if I borrow your motor bike?' Bassim asked Abdullah.
3. 'Do you think you could turn the music down a little?' Ramzy said to his son.
4. 'Would it be Ok for me to use the phone to call my parents?' he said to Mr. Parkinson.
Suggested answers to the previous week's questions
Sentences with same meaning:
1. I haven't had a letter from my wife for three weeks. It's for three weeks I haven't had a letter from my wife.
2. The builders haven't done any work on the house for over a week. The last time the builders did any work on the house was more than a week ago.
3. It's more than six months since I went to the dentist. I haven't gone to the dentist for more than six months.
4. The last time I saw her was in January.
I haven't seen her since January last.
5. It's ages since we went out for a meal together. We haven't gone for a meal together for ages.
6. She hasn't phoned me for over a week now.
It's for over a week now she hasn't phoned me
7. I saw her such a long time ago. I can hardly remember what she looks like. It's such a long time since I saw her last that I can hardly remember what she looks like.
8. I haven't been to England since 1990. The last time I went to England was in 1990.
Remember: We use for with a length of time, we use since with a specific point in time except it's (been) a long time since + Past Simple
(B) Composition
Expand the idea contained in the maxim
The crown and glory
of life is character
The previous week's topic
93. It's never too late to mend
'To err is human'. Every one, regardless of maturity of age or mellowness of vision, is prone to make some error at some point in the highway of life. However, realization of the omissions and commissions and unleashing of sincere efforts to rectify the wrongs committed advertently or inadvertently may make partial or total amends to the loss sustained. As the maxim aptly suggests, there should be no time limit to institute remedial measures for any error committed in the past. Of course, the sooner the mistake is identified and damage control efforts initiated, the better it is. What is of crucial importance is the sincerity of purpose to undo the wrong done. However, there are some people who take the convenient plea of branding the past mistake as a stale issue that doesn't merit attention at present. But a healthier attitude is not to dismiss the issue, but to set it right sooner or later. Time is certainly not a constraint in the matter of remedying a past error. It is better late then never.
V. Pearls from the Holy Quran
“Praise be to Allah, Who
created the heaven and the earth,
and made the darkness and the light.”
S6: A1
VI. Food for Thought
Life is a gamble at terrible odds)if it was a bet, you wouldn't take it.”
)Tom Stoppard
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