Two similar structures

English has at least two pairs of structures that are maddeningly similar, but mean very different things.

The first pair is: in case of vs in the case of; the second is: I used to vs I'm used to.

Let's look at the first one first.  

Part I

In case of (without the) is followed by a noun or noun phrase like fire or by a verb phrase.  Here are a few common examples:

In case of emergency, call 911
There's a fire extinguisher on the wall in case of sudden fire.
I carry a heavy sweater in the car in case I get stuck during cold weather.

In other words, if a certain situation occurs, something specific should be done or a certain piece of equipment should be used.

We sometimes use the phrase just in case without a specific noun or verb phrase; the idea of an emergency or some other extraordinary or special situation is understood.

Why do you carry that flashlight all the time?
Just in case.  [Just in case I need it.]

Here are some more examples:

Let's take the car just in case the busses aren't running.
If I were you, I'd bring her flowers, just in case she's still angry.
It's better to be careful, in case of a riot.

In other words:
In case of x = if/when x happens

We can substitute the event for case, but we cannot use the case, which is used only in the similar but very different structure that follows.

Part II

In the case of ... (or, sometimes, in a case of) means the same thing, and is used in the same situations, as the Polish phrase w przypadku czegoś.   It is sometimes contrasted with this case or that case, for example, in the following:

In this case, the director sacked the employee.  However, in the case of Henry Jones, the employee got only a reprimand and kept his job.

The formation In the case of, the words the and of can be replaced by using a possessive or other determiner:

In Bob's case, the deal fell through, but in Mike's case, they honoured the contract.

but we can also say

In the case of Bob ...     in the case of Mike ...

Some more examples:

In the case of public demonstrations, the police are less likely to use force.

The policy you're citing is only true in a case of employee insubordination.  This case is something else entirely.

Realising how to use realise

Before we get further into the speak/talk/say/tell issue, let's take a brief look at the English word realise (or realize).  Many Polish students assume it means the same thing and is used the same way as Polish realizować.  Well ... it's not that simple.  SOME meanings of realise are the same, but others are different.  And the English and Polish versions are not always used in the same way.

First of all, the most common meaning of realise today is closest to Polish zdać sobie sprawę--that is, as the Concise Oxford English Dictionary puts it, to 'become fully aware of as a fact; understand clearly.'

I didn't realise that the door was locked until I'd spent five minutes trying to push it open.

Finally she realised that I didn't speak Polish.

Realise can also mean to 'cause to happen', to 'achieve', to 'fulfil', to 'give actual or physical form to (a concept or work)'.  In these senses it is very similar to Polish realizować.  However, in many cases when we want to express one of these meanings, we will use another word.  For example, we don't generally realise things like research, experiments, or construction projects; we prefer terms like carry out, conduct, or complete.  The verb implement is frequently used for things like policies or strategies, meaning to put something into practice.

Very often Polish will use a phrase like realizować inwestycję, where English would naturally say 'complete a (construction) project'.  It's also important to understand that realise can also mean to 'convert (an asset) into cash'.  In this case, if we were to translate the Polish phrase realizować inwestycję into English realise an investment, it could be read as meaning 'convert an investment (in, for example, stocks) into cash (by selling the stocks)'. 

Once again, we're opening up a can of worms here; in the future, we also need to look at the words project and investment.  But for now, the most important thing to remember is that most people, most of the time, use realise to mean zdać sobie sprawę.

Tell him, say to him

In yesterday's post, we introduced a phrase including two common errors:

One of my teacher told to me ... 

We discussed the first error yesterday; the phrase should run

One of my teachers ... 

The second error involves the verb tell used with the preposition to. In most cases we don't use to after tell:

One of my teachers told me ... that I was failing his course.

Generally, when we use the verb tell to mean command, instruct, give information, etc., we do NOT use to.  Instead, we use the verb plus an indirect object, which in this case is usually a person's name, a noun, or a pronoun:

Tell John to get over here right away.
You should tell them to try another restaurant.
He told her what had happened.
Somebody needs to tell that obnoxious dog to stop barking.

On the other hand, when we use the verb say instead of tell, we should use to:

I said him that I was sick.  (WRONG)
I said to him that I was sick (OR I told him that I was sick.)

This opens up a whole can of worms (to use an English idiom!).  In other words, this introduces many new problems, such as the difference between speak, talk, say and tell; the different meanings of the verb tell; situations when we DO use to with tell; and what we should do with other verbs, such as explain, call, apologise, etc.  We'll look at these problems in the near future.

One of these days

I very often hear my Polish students introduce a topic by saying something like:

One of my teacher told to me ... 

We've got two errors here, but right now we're only going to talk about one.  The correct phrase in English is:

One of + plural countable noun.

So the phrase should be One of my teachers, using the noun teacher in its plural form.  We can think about this in several ways. 

I have many teachers.  I'm going to talk about one of them.  One of my teachers ... 

Or let's take a similar phrase in Polish.

Jeden z moich ulubionych miejsc ... 

In Polish, the word miejsc is in the plural form--plural genitive, to be sure, but still plural.  This is one of those rare situations in which the logic behind Polish and English grammar is the same!

Here are some examples of how people use this phrase:

One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces (This aggressive example is from a Pink Floyd number!)

This is one of my favourite books.

Pollution is one of the worst examples of mankind's influence on the environment.

Are you one of those stupid people who throws trash in the street?

One of those children is my son.

(Here, we remember that some nouns - person/people, child/children - have irregular plural forms that do not end in s.)

It's one of those films that makes no sense the first time you see it.

Not one of them is any good!  or None of them is any good!  (note that we use a plural pronoun here, and in the second example we use none, meaning not one).

One of us is crying, one of us is lying ... (from an ABBA song)

Next time we'll look at the other error in the original sample sentence.

And here's another thing ...

Here's another determiner to watch out for, because we use different forms depending on whether it goes with a countable singular noun, on one hand, or an uncountable or countable plural noun on the other.

This determiner is ... well, in singular form, it's the second word in the first paragraph.  Another. 

When used with an uncountable or plural noun, it's other.

Another is actually an other, put together to form one word.  Since we can only use an (which basically means one) with singular countable nouns, we can only use another with the same group.

I'll have another glass of beer.

She's not talking about The Sun Also Rises.  She's talking about another book.

The problem usually appears when we use an uncountable or plural noun, in which case the word is not another, but other.

We need to find other sources for our raw materials.

Laura is relying on other information.

Let's try some other restaurants next month.

Note that for plurals, and sometimes for uncountables, we can use some other instead of just other alone.  We can also use a few other, several other, etc.

Next time, we'll look at the difference between other and different.

These and Those

Generally, English, unlike other languages, does not change its adjectives to match singular or plural forms.

a good book
good books
a delicious meal
several delicious meals

Note how good, delicious, etc. are the same for singular and plural nouns.

However, there is a class of words called determiners which are similar in some ways to adjectives.  Some of these do change.  Here's an important example, which in my experience many Polish student of English are unaware of.

I like this book.    I like these books.

I don't know that man.   I don't know those men.

The plural form of this is these.  The word these rhymes with sneeze and please. 

We use this with countable singular and uncountable nouns, such as this money, this tree, this information, this milk, this television set, this stupid reality show.

We use these with countable plural nouns, such as these trees, these bananas, these crazy students, these days, these films, these drunken football hooligans, etc.

The rule is similar with that and those.  The word those rhymes with froze and chose.

I'm in love with that girl.   I'm in love with those girls.

I can't stand that idiot.   I can't stand those idiots.

Notice that we use this and these to identify things which are nearby, or are under consideration at the moment, while we use that and those to identify things which are more distant, or which we have already discussed and rejected, or which we view unfavourably.

I think you should take this one (here) and leave that one (there).

We shouldn't waste any more time on that solution.  This one is much more logical.

It's October

While we're at it [an English way to say, przy okazji], the same principle we wrote about in the last blog entry applies to time expressions like days, months, or years.  We don't say,

We have October

but 

It's October.

It's Monday.

It's 2013.

It's autumn.

And remember--the same applies when we're talking about our age, height, or weight:

I'm thirty-eight (years old), NOT I have thirty-eight (years)

I'm 194 cm [tall].   I'm 88 kilos  OR  I weigh 88 kilos.

It's forty degrees out!

It's been busier than ever here at Editing Perfection for the past few months, so blogging has had to be back-burnered.  (To back-burner something, or move something to the back burner, means to postpone it in favour of more urgent matters.  It's a metaphor based on a stove (UK: cooker), which has four burners--two in the front (for more urgent items) and two in the back.

Lately we've had a heat wave in southern Poland, with temperatures reaching up to 36 Celsius.  This seems like a good opportunity to point out that we DON'T say:

We have 36 degrees of Celsius.

We don't use have when talking about atmospheric temperatures.  We do use have when talking about our body temperature, but we use the following form:

He has a temperature [of 39.8 degrees].

When we're talking about the atmospheric temperature, we use it, as we do in many other weather-related expressions:

It's 36 degrees.

If we want to give the temperature scale, we add it after the number, without of: 

It's 36 degrees Celsius, or about 97 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sometimes we add the word out, to indicate that the temperature we are citing is the outdoor temperature, not the temperature in the house:

It's 36 degrees out.

Remember that we also normally use it to talk about current weather conditions:

It's hot and sunny.
It's hot, hazy and humid.
It's raining.
It's snowing.
It's cloudy and grey.

Here's a typical exchange about the weather:

She:  Have you been outside?  What's the weather like today?
He:  It's hot, hazy and humid.
She:  How hot is it?
He:  It's 36 in the shade.  (Here, we drop the word degrees, and specify that the temperature is measured in the shade, not in full sun).
She:  But it's not raining, is it?
He:  No, but it looks like we might get a thunderstorm later.

I'll be ...

A friend of yours is throwing a party (notice that we say throwing a party; we can also say organising or giving, but not making).  You want to assure him of your presence, so you say ... ?

Well, in Polish, we might say: Będę.  But in English, we can't just say, I'll be.  To an English speaker, I'll be means I will exist.  In this situation, we want to say: I'll be there.  In fact, "I'll Be There" was the name of a big Jackson Five hit back in 1970.  The word there doesn't have to refer to a specific physical location:

I'll always be there for you.   (Where?  Wherever you are.)

Normally, in fact, it makes no sense to say I'll be.  However, in some cases people do say it, usually stressing both syllables.  It's a short way of saying:

I'll be damned
I'll be dipped
I'll be a monkey's uncle, etc.

all of which are ways of expressing extreme surprise--to show that something has happened that you certainly didn't expect to happen.

You say SUSAN is a doctor now?  The same Susan I used to know?  Well ... I'll be.

It was vs There was, go out from vs leave

It's been very busy here at Editing Perfection lately, so we've had no time for blog entries.  Today, though, let's take a few moments to look at these small but important items:

It was so much snow that I couldn't go out from the house.

This sentence is clear and easy to understand, but it includes two common errors.  The first one is: 

It was so much snow.

True, we usually start weather expressions with It.  For example, we say:

It's snowing.  It's raining.  It's sunny.

But in this particular case, we'd say:

There was so much snow

meaning on the ground or on the property, just as we would say:

There was so much garbage or There was so much mud

using the construction There is ... , there are ... , there was ... , there were ... , etc.

The second error is using the expression go out from.  I assume this is a direct translation from Polish wyjść z but it doesn't work in English.  Instead of go out from, we usually say leave.  In certain cases, we might say get out of.

There was so much snow that I couldn't leave the house.

or

There was so much snow that I couldn't get out of the house.

Sometimes in informal use we can drop the word that and substitute a comma:

There was so much snow, I couldn't leave the house.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Today, let's look at meals.  In the English-speaking world, we have about six terms to designate certain kinds of regular meals in relation to the time of day.  These are: breakfast, lunch, supper, dinner, tea and brunch.

Generally, these are used without an article (a, an, the), as in the following examples:

It's one o'clock--time for lunch!
I had dinner yesterday with my best friend.
First he has breakfast, then he goes to work.
Would you like to meet Sunday for brunch, say, around 11?
What time do you eat supper?
Who's going to make breakfast?
Come over tomorrow for tea.

We use an article if we are talking about a very specific experience, or a special event, associated with one of these meals.  Examples:

Do you remember the breakfast we had together in New Orleans ten years ago?
I've been invited to a special dinner at the Ritz Hotel.
The lunch I had yesterday was really exceptional.

Breakfast is usually the first meal of the day, no matter what English-speaking country you are in.  Traditionally dinner, similar to Polish obiad, was served in the middle of the day and was the main meal.  In England, tea is a light meal served at the end of the work or school day.  The traditional English sequence was breakfast, dinner and tea.

However, in America the term supper was generally used for the evening meal.

Modern living has introduced some changes in the meal schedule.  With most people working or going to school all day, it is more common for them to take a light meal in the middle of the day and the main meal in the evening.  The light midday meal is usually called lunch, and the main evening meal dinner (although some continue to call it supper).  In the US, most people have lunch between 11 am and 2 pm, depending on their work schedules.

The most recent addition to the meal schedule is brunch.  This is a combination of breakfast and lunch and is usually a big meal (bigger than either breakfast or lunch taken separately) served between 11 am and 1 pm, generally on a Saturday or Sunday.  

In Poland, we often have what is called second breakfast (drugie śnadanie), but in the US this would be called either lunch or a mid-morning snack.  A snack is a small meal taken between normal mealtimes.

The same grammatical rule used for breakfast, etc. is applied to dessert, when we speak of it in a general way and we're not thinking of anything specific.  See these examples:

Okay, we've finished dinner--let's have dessert.
What's for dessert?
Jane never has dessert--she's trying to lose weight.

But:

This cake makes an excellent dessert.
I learned how to make a great dessert from a cooking show.
The dessert I had at Wierzynek was very rich.

First and next

There are three expressions in English that incorporate the word first:


first      at first     firstly


These expressions are often confused.  Each of them has a particular use.


We use first when we are talking about a sequence of events.


First, we opened the door.  Then, we let the dog out.  Finally, we brought the furniture outside.


We use at first to mean something like in the beginning or originally.


At first I didn't like her, but as time went on, I realised she was actually very nice.

Firstly is generally used to indicate the first, most important point in an argument or discussion.


Firstly, I think it's a bad idea.  Secondly, I don't think it will work.  Thirdly, we can't afford it.


Firstly can be replaced by first and foremost or the popular First of all.


Now, as long as we're on the subject ... When we are talking about a sequence of events, we usually use the word then (where Polish would use potem), NOT next or after.


First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.


Next is more commonly used in instructions, such as recipes or directions how to use a device or piece of equipment:


First, mix two eggs.  Next, heat some water in a pot.  Next, ... 

Politics and Politicians

Something else that often gets confused in the transition between Polish and English is the subject of politics and the people who work in this field (notice that in English we say field and not branch).  Politics is generally treated as an uncountable noun, which means we say politics is (NOT are). It refers to a sphere of activity, usually connected with governing something, such as a country or organisation.  


Like most abstract nouns, we do not use an article (a, an or the) with politics when we are talking about it as a general subject.


I think they're arguing about politics.
There are three subjects one should never discuss in mixed company: religion, sex, and politics.


We sometimes use the when we are talking about a specific kind of politics:


The politics of international environmentalism can be very complex.


The word politic without the s is an adjective, NOT a noun.  It means something (an action or a statement) that seems sensible under the circumstances:


He made a very politic gesture to the Russians.


Or it can be a verb, meaning to engage in political activity. 


The senator is out politicking again.  (Note the added letter k.)


The people who are involved in the activity of politics are called politicians--NOT politics.  Because Polish uses polityk as the word for a person who is involved in this activity, it is very easy to assume that politic is the English equivalent.  But this is a mistake--the word is politician.


I don't trust politicians--they're only interested in money.
A group of German politicians came to Poland for a conference.


The adjective we use to refer to the activity of politics is political.


I think this is really a political question--not an economic one at all.

Relax and Relaxation

Here's another example of confusion between parts of speech--in this case, the verb to relax and the noun relaxation (uncountable).


Polish students often say that something--a vacation, a day in the pool--is a wonderful relax.  However, we cannot use relax as a noun in English.  We need the noun form: relaxation.  Still, we cannot say that something is a wonderful relaxation, because the noun is uncountable and thus a relaxation is incorrect. Normally, then, we say something is a wonderful form of relaxation.


To relax is a regular verb.  We say I relax, you relax, she/he/it relaxes, adding an extra syllable for the -es ending.  The other forms are relaxing and relaxed (the -ed ending is NOT pronounced as a separate syllable).  We can also use relaxed as an adjective.


Here are some examples of sentences we might use:


You work too hard.  You need to relax more.
He has a very relaxed way of teaching, so nobody gets too stressed.
For me, reading is the best form of relaxation.
John?  He's relaxing out in the yard.


This is probably a good place to point out that many nouns end in -ation, such as relaxation, examination, demonstration, etc.  In many cases, these nouns are associated with verbs that end in -ate, such as demonstrate (demonstration) and calculate (calculation).  However, there are also many of these nouns associated with verbs that do NOT end in -ate.  One example is relax/relaxation.  Here are a few others:


perspire/perspiration
organise/organisation
administer/administration
examine/examination

Jeśli chodzi o ...

One of the most common idiomatic phrases in Polish is chodzi o ... or some variation.  Phrases like this are called "discourse markers."  They don't give us new information; instead, they give us cues and clues as to where the speaker is going with his speech--for instance, what the subject is, or what we should pay special attention to.


I have had elementary level students who tried to translate the Polish phrase directly into English:


To chodzi o obiad  ----->  It walks about dinner.


As with most idioms, translation is not the best solution.  There are many better ways to translate the various forms of this expression.  Here are a few of them:


To chodzi o X              It's a question of X   OR   It's about X   
                                       OR  I mean X   OR  I'm talking about X


Chodzi mi o X             (same as above)


O co chodzi?               What's it all about?  


Jeśli chodzi o X ...       If it's a question [matter] of X  OR  If it's about X   OR  If you mean X


Nie o to chodzi            It's not about that  OR  That's not what I'm talking about 
                                      OR  That's not what I mean   OR  It's not a question of that.


Wiesz o co chodzi       You know what I mean  OR   You know what I'm talking about


Here's a short dialog that shows how some of these are used in English:


She:   I need to talk to you.
He:    Okay.  What about?
She:   I'm tired of your games.
He:    What are you talking about?  If it's a question of golf, I'll never give it up.
She:   It's not about golf.  I'm talking about us.  You know what I mean.
He:    If you're talking about my secretary, there's nothing going on ...
She:   It's not a question of something "going on."  It's about honesty.

True vs The Truth

Now that we know the difference between a verb, a noun, an adjective, etc., let's take a look at a confusing issue.


We have two words in English that students often confuse.  One is truth and the other is true.


Using them correctly is fairly easy once we realise that truth is a noun (which can be countable or uncountable) and true is an adjective.


In other words, something can be true (or its opposite, false) just as something can be black or white, large or small, beautiful or ugly.


Is the story about John true? 


But we don't always use the adjective true.  Sometimes we use the noun truth, as in the following examples:


Tell the truth.  (Whatever you say should be true.)


I'm looking for the truth.  (I want to find out what is true in this situation.)


Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?  (This is used in courts of law in the U.S.  When the court "swears in" a witness, it wants that witness to talk about the incident in question--to say what is true, to leave nothing out, and not to add any false statements.)


We cannot say, Tell me the true, or This is a truth story, because we would be mixing up the functions of a noun and an adjective.

Nouns, Verbs, etc.

Before we go any further, it might be a good idea to look at some of the technical terms we use when talking about English grammar.  Take a look at the glossary below.  The English word is on the left, the Polish equivalent on the right.

noun                  rzeczownik

verb                   czasownik

determiner       zaimek wskazujący

conjunction     spójnik

pronoun           zaimek

adjective          przymiotnik

adverb              przysłówek

preposition      przyimek

article               przedimek

You don't have to know these words--either in English or in Polish--to use English correctly.  But if you need help using English, it's sometimes a lot easier to use these words than to give 1,000 examples.  We'll be using these expressions in future posts.  

We want him to ...

Here's an example where English uses a different grammar structure than we might expect.


Most Polish students tend to say something like this:


We want that he doesn't give us homework.


This is a translation of Polish grammar, and it seems to make sense.  How else would we say it?  Unfortunately, it's not correct. The structure we use in English goes like this:


We don't want him to give us homework.
OR
We want him not to give us homework.


When we speak in English about our wants, desires and intentions for other people, we use the form


I want, you want, he wants, etc. + object pronoun (i.e., me, you, him, her, it, us, them) or noun + infintive verb


So we can say any of the following:


I want her to marry me.
She wants me to leave her alone.


They want their elder son to set a good example for his siblings.
He wants them to let him live his own life.


We want you to go to university and get a good education.
You want us to stop interfering with your decisions.


Negatives can be made either by changing I want, etc. to I don't want, or by adding the word not before the infinitive verb.


We don't want you to drop out of school.
We want you not to drop out of school.


The first structure is a bit less awkward, but sometimes we need to use the second.  Very often, though, instead of using a negative version of this structure, we prefer to use a different structure:


We'd prefer you didn't drop out of school.

I don't think so, do you?

Happy new year!  Here's a simple but important one.  I hear many Polish students of English answering questions like this:
  
I think yes.
I think no.
I think I won't pass the exam.


All of these are clear enough--but not natural English.  In the case of the first two examples, native speakers are more likely to say:


I think so.
I don't think so.


Note that we say this only in isolation, that is, if we're only going to make a short response to a question, or a fact or opinion that was already stated.  For example:


--Is it getting colder outside?    --I think so.
--I bet he's got a lot of money.    --I don't think so.


We do not use this form when we're introducing an opinion or a fact.  We don't say:


I think so that it's getting colder outside.


In that case, we'd just take out the word so and say:


I think that it's getting colder outside.  


When we are expressing a negative opinion, that is, saying that we disagree, we are more likely to use this form:


I don't think I'm going to pass the exam.


instead of:


I think I'm not going to pass the exam.


In other words, we move the negative (not) so that it applies to the verb think. 

Lectures and Readings

Today's entry is about vocabulary confusion caused by something called a "false friend."  That is, a word that looks similar in two languages, but does not mean the same thing.  We've got a lot of these in English and Polish, and we'll be looking at quite a few of them.  Today's example is the word lecture.  It looks like lektura, so many students assume there's no difference, and use one as they would use the other.

However, English lecture does not mean "something we have to read for school (usually something long and boring)."  The word for that is reading--very often called required reading.  For example: in many American schools, the Constitution is required reading.  In this case, reading can be a countable or an uncountable noun.  We might say, for example: I've got five readings to do this weekend OR this lesson contains a dialog and a reading (countable).  But we can also say: My literature teacher assigned a lot of reading for this semester (uncountable).

A lecture is what we call in Polish wykład--that is, somebody giving a talk or a speech, usually about an academic subject.  For example: today a professor at Jagiellonian University is giving a lecture on economic theory.

The words lecture and lektura, by the way, both come from the Latin word for read, but have taken slightly different paths in their evolution.