A Hotel Made Out Of Sand

photo from photobucket.com

‘Made of’ and ‘made out of

By FADZILLAH AMIN


COULD you explain the difference between “made of” and “made out of”?

For example, should it be “The tiara is made of gold” or “The tiara is made out of gold”? What is the difference?

My second question is about the word “circa”. How should this word be used in a sentence or caption?

– Jessie, Kuala Lumpur

1. Both expressions – “made of” and “made out of” – mean the same thing, but “made of” is more commonly used. “Made out of” is sometimes used when something is made out of an unusual substance. Here are some examples:

“A hotel made out of sand in England”

(http://www.hotel-blogs.com/guillaume_thevenot/2008/07/a-hotel-made-ou.html)

“Fully recyclable, the bike made out of cardboard”

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4221806.ece)

2. “Circa” is a Latin word meaning “about” or “approximately” and often used before a date. It is more often used in captions than in sentences, where one can use the English word for it.

An example of its use in a caption is given in the Oxford English Dictionary:

“A curious photograph of a rustic family at work, circa 1390” (1861 National Rev. Oct. 307)

Sometimes “circa” is just abbreviated to “c” or “ca”.

source: thestar.com.my

Was or Were?

None was or were?

By FADZILLAH AMIN


WHICH is the correct answer for each of the sentences below? Can you explain why?

a) Don’t drink the water unless it (is boiled/was boiled).

b) None of the men (was/were) there.

c) When the firemen arrived at the scene, the shophouses (were/had been) burned to the ground.

d) The train to Kuala Lumpur (arrives/is arriving) in half an hour.

e) Nothing but rain and clouds (is/are) in the sky.

f) He washes his hands prior to (serve/serving) his customers.

– Seng Kong



a) The correct sentence is “Don’t drink the water unless it is boiled.”

Here, “boiled”, the past participle form of “boil”, is actually an adjective and indicates the state of the water. So it is used with the simple present tense verb “is”, and the sentence has a similar form to “Don’t drink the water unless it is clean.”, for example.

You can also use “boiled” before the noun, as in “boiled water”.

If you want to use “boiled” as part of a verb in your sentence, you could use the present perfect passive tense, as in “Don’t drink the water unless it has been boiled.”, which doesn’t indicate when it was boiled.

You can also use the past tense passive “was boiled”, but you’ll have to indicate a time, e.g. “Don’t drink the water unless it was boiled less than 24 hours ago.”

b) In British English, you use a singular verb in “None of the men was there.” in a formal style, and a plural verb “None of the men were there.” in an informal style.

If “none of” is followed by an uncountable noun, a singular verb is used, e.g. in “None of the fear was left in her.”

c) The correct sentence is “When the firemen arrived at the scene, the shophouses had been burned to the ground.”

The past perfect tense “had been burned” (here it is in the passive form) is used to indicate a time before another past time, i.e “ When the firemen arrived ...” The simple past tense “were burned” (also in the passive form here) is not used.

“Burned”, by the way, is the American English spelling for the British English “burnt”.

d) Both are correct. You can use the simple present tense or the present continuous tense to talk about a future event that is part of a timetable.

e) The correct sentence is: “Nothing but rain and clouds are in the sky.”

If the subject is a phrase consisting of “nothing but” followed by a noun, the verb agrees with the noun. If “nothing but” is followed by two nouns, whether of the same kind or not, a plural verb is used. In other words, “nothing but” noun phrases follow the usual rules of subject-verb agreement.

In your sentence, there are two nouns after “nothing but” — “rain”, an uncountable noun, and “clouds”, a plural noun. The verb is therefore plural. But let me give examples of some of the possible variations in subject-verb agreement:

i. Nothing but rain is in the sky. (“rain” is an uncountable noun)

ii. Nothing but an aeroplane is seen flying under the clear blue sky. (“aeroplane” is a singular noun)

iii. Nothing but rain and lightning are seen during the storm. (“rain” and “lightning” are both uncountable nouns)

iv. Nothing but an aeroplane and a large bird are seen flying under the clear blue sky. (“aeroplane” and “bird” are both singular countable nouns)

v. Nothing but clouds are seen in the sky. (“clouds” is a plural noun)

f) “He washes his hands prior to serving his customers.” is the correct sentence.

What comes after “prior to” (which means “before”) is a noun or a gerund (an –ing verb acting like a noun) and “serving” here is a gerund.

You can replace the gerund with a noun, in a sentence like “He washes his hands prior to a meal.”

source: thestar.com.my

Emergency Leave

No, I'm not on 'Emergency Leave'.

I just want to share this with all of you...

NORMALLY we only summit the emergency letter to the management is on the second day. Please comment on my emergency letter.

Date: 13 March 2009

To Manager,

RE: Apply Emergency Leave

I had apply an emergency leave on 12 March 2009 due to my grandmother sick and need my assistant.

I am sorry for the inconvenient caused.

Thank you.

I would appreciate it if you could comment on my letter. Thank you.

– Yean



First of all, you have to write “To the Manager” when addressing your manager and on the subject line, write “Application for” instead of “Apply” with no “RE”. before it.

I take it that you are applying for emergency leave the day after you were absent from work.

The first paragraph of your letter should read: “I could not come to work yesterday, 12 March 2009, because I had to attend to a family emergency. My grandmother was ill and needed my attention.”

Then the second paragraph should follow with: “I would therefore like to apply for emergency leave for that date.”

In the third paragraph, you should write “inconvenience” (noun) instead of “inconvenient” (adjective).

Your letter should look something like this, from the date onwards:

Date: 13 March 2009

To the Manager,

Application for Emergency Leave

I could not come to work yesterday, 12 March 2009, because I had to attend to a family emergency. My grandmother was ill and needed my attention.

I would therefore like to apply for emergency leave for that date.

I am sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Thank you.

I would also like to point out the following errors and correct them in your letter to the editor.

In the first sentence, you wrote “summit” when you should have written “submit”. “Summit” is a very different word from “submit.” Also, you don’t need “is” in that sentence.

In your last sentence, after your letter to your manager, you wrote: “I would appreciated if you could comment this letter.”

This should be corrected to: “I would appreciate it if you could comment on this letter.”

source:

http://thestar.com.my/english/story.asp?file=/2009/6/4/lifefocus/3984448&sec=lifefocus

muahahahaaa...

Surname,Given Name,Middle Name? huuhhh..????

This article is taken from The Star, Mind Our English.

QUITE often, we are asked for our first, middle and last names when filling up certain forms. Sometimes, they need our surname. At other times, they want our given name(s). What are all these?

If my name is Abdul Rahim bin Osman, which are the first, middle and last names?



Answered by Fadzilah Amin:

These forms don’t take into account people from cultures that don’t have family names, e.g. the Malays.

“Last name” and “surname” refer to one’s family name, such as Alattas (for an Arab), Lee (for a Chinese) or Brown (for an Englishman).

Since you don’t have a family name, just write your father’s name whenever you are asked to write your “last name” or “surname”.

The term “given name/names” refers to the name or names that you are given by your parents after birth. So, your “given name” would be “Abdul Rahim”.

“First name” refers to the first of your given names if you have more than one, or your given name if you have just one. Since “Abdul Rahim” is really one name, although it looks like two to those who don’t know what it means, your “first name” would be “Abdul Rahim”.

You don’t have a “middle name”, which is the second of your given names if you have two. So you can leave that space blank.

As for the “bin” in your name, I don’t really know where you should put it, since it is not really a name. Perhaps you should just leave it out, and if you’re visiting another country, explain to the relevant immigration officer what it means if he asks you.

But don’t be shocked if he calls you “Mr Osman”! I was called “Miss Amin” very often when I was a student in England.