Modals

What are modals? Modals are auxiliary verbs used to restrict or enhance the meaning of verbs to a certain extent. Below are the most common English modals:

• can
• could
• may
• might
• must
• should
• will
• would

How do these modals make the meaning of the verb they moderate different? Read sample sentences below to analyze the difference they make in the sentences.

• She reads my book. (declares a fact; no modal used.)
• She can read my book. (expresses ability to read)
• She could read my book. (expresses possibility of reading the book...if)
• She may read my book. (expresses permission to read the book)
  
• She might read my book. (expresses possibility of reading the book)
• She must read my book. (expresses strong obligation to read the book)
• She should read my book. (expresses mild obligation to read the book)
• She will read my book. (expresses future intent or plan)
• She would read my book. (In this case expresses reservation..if)

Reminders:
Modals are followed ONLY by the base form of the verb.
ex. Janice could ran fast. (WRONG)
Janice could running fast. (WRONG)
Janice could run fast. (CORRECT)
To show politeness, modals can be used to make requests.
ex. Open the door for me. (IMPOLITE)
Would you please open the door for me? (POLITE)

Fewer versus Less

Is there a difference between 'fewer' and 'less'? I noticed a lot of people get this wrong even native speakers at that. However, you need not worry, because the difference between these words is very simple and is very easy to learn.

Fewer is used for things you can count individually.
ex.
fewer people
fewer horses
fewer bags

Less is used for things you CAN'T count individually. It is used for measuring uncountable nouns such as liquid, gas, grain, etc.
ex.
less water
less air
less flour

That's the difference between 'fewer' and less'.

Bored versus Boring

In my years of teaching the English language, I met a lot of instances when I heard some foreign students say, "I'm boring," when what they actually meant was, "I'm bored." Thus, I thought of writing a post about it in order to clearly differentiate one from the other.

Both 'bored' and 'boring' are adjectives. However, 'bored' refers to someone who feels rather unhappy or annoyed because he or she can't find or think of anything interesting to do. When you feel like this, you should say, "I'm bored". Don't say "I'm boring," for it means you yourself are not interesting. 'Boring' refers to something not interesting. For instance, you don't think playing chess is fascinating for you to do, then, it is 'boring'.

A Blog Carnival of English Learning-February 11, 2009

Welcome to the February 11, 2009 edition of a blog carnival of english learning.

Ian presents Erin McKean: Redefining the Dictionary posted at LexiBlog - The Official Blog of Leximo, a World Social Dictionary.

Jim McGuire presents You Don't Want No . . . posted at The Reading Workshop, saying, "A lunchtime experience with the destruction of the English language."


English Subject presents Learn English - English Speaking Tutorial » Blog Archives » Understanding Business English and Etiquette posted at Learn English, saying, "One of the most often cited reasons for learning to speak English is career advancement."


Rani presents How to write a personal letter- Congratulations posted at Rayray's writing, saying, "Learn how to write another personal letter."

Rani presents How to write a personal letter- Condolence posted at Rayray's writing, saying, "Learn how to write a letter of condolence"


Britannica Blog presents Impatience with Bad Teaching posted at Britannica Blog, saying, "“I am sick to death of all the people who come here and say they’re going to make this school better but nothing happens. It’s a disgrace.”"

OnlineCollege presents Walden, and 99 other Free Online Books posted at Universities and Colleges.


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Suffixes

The following are the most common and most useful English suffixes:
Suffixes

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Prefixes

The following are the most common prefixes in English:
Prefixes

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Morphemes

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. A word can have one or more morphemes. It doesn't necessarily follow that the longer the word, the more morphemes it has. A word can be short and be made up of more morphemes than a very long word. For instance, the word "undo" has two morphemes-'un' and 'do' which by themselves have meanings, whereas the word 'symphony' has only one morpheme. This concept of morpheme is needed to easily understand affixes which would be the topic of my next post.

Homonyms versus Homophones versus Homographs

What's the difference between homonyms and homophones? I remember my younger sister asked me that before.^^However, in this post,I will also add homographs. Actually, there is some confusion about the meanings of these three. This post is based on linguistics.

Homonyms are words that have the same spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings. For instance, rose (which refers to a kind of flower) and rose (which is the past form of rise) are spelled and pronounced the same way.

examples:
brief (short span of time) and brief (men's underwear)
bright (opposite of dark) and bright (smart)
stalk (to harass by following) and stalk (part of a plant)

Homophones on the other hand are words which have the same pronunciation regardless of their spelling. If the spelling of the homophones are also the same, they are at the same time homonyms and homographs. For example, miss (failure to hit something) and miss (the state of loneliness when a loved one is away) are homonyms (because of the same spelling and pronunciation)and at the same time, homophones(same sound) and homographs (same spelling). However, to, two and too are all pronounced the same way but have different spellings. They are NOT homonyms, but they are homophones. Homophones which have different spellings are heterographs.

examples:
book (something we read) and book (to reserve) are homophones, homonyms and homographs
principle and principal are homophones
they're, there and their are homophones

Homographs are words which have the same spelling no matter how they are pronounced. If homographs are pronounced the same, they are also homophones. The first given example 'rose'(noun) and 'rose'(verb) are homographs, homonyms and at the same time homophones. If the homographs are pronounced differently, they are called heteronyms. An example of this is bow(weapon used with arrows) and bow (to bend). They have the same spelling, but they differ when it comes to pronunciation.

examples:
bass (type of fish) and bass (low voice) are homographs, homonyms and homophones
minute (tiny) and minute (measure of time) are homographs
wound (past form of wind) and wound (injury) are homographs, homonyms and homophones

Those are the similarities and differences among homonyms, homophones and homographs.

Palindromes

What is a PALINDROME? A palindrome is a word, phrase or number which can be read the same way when you read it from left to right or right to left (regardless of the spaces and punctuation between words). Below are some examples of palindromes:

Words:

• level
• civic
• noon
• racecar

Phrases/Sentences:

• Step on no pets.
• No lemons, no melon
• Was it a cat I saw?
• Madam, I'm Adam.
• Never odd or even

Number:

• 101
• 424
• 2002
• 353
• 7997