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English is one of the richest, most colourful and most subtle languages in the world. To speak or write good English – plain, lucid, jargonfree English– to have mastery of the language, is to have style. English speakers are blessed with the good fortune to share their language with some of the finest writers and orators of all time. As well as including hundreds of everyday examples of correct English, I have turned to great writers, from Jane Austen to Oscar Wilde, for inspiration. Imitating such masters, however, this is more easily said than done. This is where this book comes in. Everyday English is designed to help native and nonnative English speakers alike gain command of the language. Beginning with the letters of the alphabet, the book works its way, little by little, from the building blocks of written and spoken English–spelling, word order, punctuation, parts of speech– to tone of voice, pitfalls to avoid, and tips to ensure clarity, and even elegance.
[...]... news is that in this respect the English language is simpler than, say, French or German in that there are fewer verb endings to worry about The infinitive, however, is a bit of an oddity in the English language This is the purest form of the verb, without tense or person (see below), so its form does not change Most infinitives in other languages are one word, but English infinitives take a to before... time to time this is accompanied by fogginess in higher regions Wait for outbreaks of sunniness or snowiness after dark Foreign Nouns English has borrowed, on a long-term basis, an enormous number of words from foreign languages We have kept hold of the tendency to add English endings to all words, whether or not that is correct Paparazzi is already a plural in Italian (the singular would be paparazzo)... Monday’, but ‘I’ll see you at four o’clock’ and ‘I’ll see you at the weekend’? (Indeed there is an increasing tendency – possibly under the influence of US English – to say ‘on the weekend’.) When in doubt, consult a good dictionary or a book on English grammar This, That and the Other: Determiners Determiners are similar to pronouns and adjectives in that they give information about nouns Rather than... thrilling Good writing entails choosing the appropriate word and tone for the occasion Use adjectives when they add something to what you are saying Do not over-use them – a good rule in writing or speaking English is to keep it clear and simple first and foremost – add the extras, such as adjectives and adverbs, only where they serve to enhance what you have said or written Comparative Adjectives: For Better... trusted to lead us In speech, whom is nowadays often dropped in favour of the simpler who – possibly because people are uncertain about its application or feel self-conscious about using it, but in written English it is still the accurate construction if you are being formal Little Parts of Speech … All the Rest Prepositions: Over, Under, Sideways, Down repositions are words that express the relationship... words, a preposition tells us where (or when) something is in relation to something else For example: ‘The man on the platform’; or ‘He arrived after dinner.’ There are over one hundred prepositions in English, but those occurring most frequently refer to time or place: P Time prepositions include: before, after, during, at, by, for, since Place prepositions include: under, over, on, off, through, down,... it is permissible to end a sentence with a preposition Winston Churchill, whose mastery of the language was undeniable, demonstrated how clumsy that could make the language seem: ‘This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.’ However, it is now generally considered that if you need to put a preposition at the end of a sentence, then go ahead and do so If you apply common sense and your... Plurals Plural Origin algae Latin automata Greek criteria Greek gâteaux French indexes/indices Latin kibbutzim/kibbutzes Hebrew phenomena Greek stimuli/stimuluses Latin Irregular Nouns No discussion of English plurals would be complete without the group of nouns that are a law unto themselves They are known as irregular nouns That is to say, in order to get them right, we simply have to know them Luckily,... When nouns are used in this way, they allow us to generalize about them: ‘Home is where the heart is’; ‘Ink will stain your clothes’; ‘Anger is a destructive emotion.’ Conjunctions: Not Only, But Also English contains two main forms of conjunctions or joining words: coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions Coordinating conjunctions join together parts of the sentence that have equal... and buy) had to be joined by a conjunction It is a construction that is common in colloquial speech but should be avoided in formal writing Prefixes and Suffixes One of the various ways in which many English words have been created is by affixation: that is the addition of prefixes, which are attached to the beginning of a word, and suffixes, which are tagged on to the end While some prefixes simply . languages in the world. To speak or write good English – plain, lucid, jargon-free English – to have mastery of the language, is to have style. English speakers are blessed with the good fortune. this is more easily said than done. This is where this book comes in. Everyday English is designed to help native and non-native English speakers alike gain command of the language. Beginning with. invasion, the last of the runic Old English letters gradually disappeared, replaced by letters from the Latin alphabet. Old English had given way to Middle English. During this period the three