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.