sábado, 26 de octubre de 2013

HOW TO "ACTUALLY" SPLIT AN INFINITIVE...

The notion that the split infinitive is grammatically wrong is based on traditonal grammar books, which took their rules from Latin.
 A SPLIT INFINITIVE is just a grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb, comes between  TO and the bare infinitive of a verb.

See if these sentences could be expressed in a different way without changing the meaning:

 

YOU HAVE TO RELUCTANTLY DO YOUR HOMEWORK

I PROMISE TO NEVER PLAY ANYTHING ORIGINAL

SHE´S GOT TO REALLY WATCH OUT FOR THIEVES

I NEED TO IMMEDIATELY VISIT THE LOO

I AM GOING TO THOROUGHLY WASH THE DOG

THIS WAS MEANT TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE POEM

WE WENT TO AYO´S TO ENJOYABLY EAT PAELLA

I AM GOING TO TOTALLY PULVERISE HIM

WE ARE DETERMINED TO UTTERLY ERADICATE THE DISEASE

HE WANTS TO GRADUALLY GET RID OF PREJUDICES

THE POPULATION IS EXPECTED TO MORE THAN DOUBLE IN THE NEXT TEN YEARS

WE ALL WANT TO BOLDLY SPLIT INFINITIVES AT WILL

(famous Star Trek quotation) " TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE"

 


jueves, 24 de octubre de 2013

TOO + Adj + To Infinitive =

TOO + Adjective + To Infinitive = Not+(opposite adjective)+ ENOUGH + To Infinitive

If I say "too young to marry and not too young to die" (by Joyce Carol Oates) could be rephrased as
"not old enough to marry"...
Rephrase the following statements in the above way:

 TOO YOUNG TO DIE

TOO BIG TO FAIL

TOO LAZY TO STUDY

TOO FAST TO CONTROL

TOO COLD OUTSIDE TO SIT

TOO INFORMED TO VOTE PP

TOO EXPENSIVE TO BUY

TOO SHY TO SPEAK

TOO DANGEROUS TO DRIVE

TOO WIDE TO CROSS

TOO OLD TO LEARN

TOO OBNOXIOUS TO USE

TOO NOISY TO LIVE IN

TOO SHORT TO PLAY BASKETBALL

TOO MEAN TO BUY IT

TOO INFLEXIBLE TO SQUAT

TOO STUPID TO PASS THE EXAM

TOO  EASY TO SOLVE

TOO WEAK TO LIFT THAT BOX

 TOO WILD TO TAME

TOO TALL TO SLEEP ON THAT BED

 

lunes, 14 de octubre de 2013

EURENGLISH

After Spanglish and Franglais, it´s now the turn of Eurenglish, which is the" unofficial"  language of the European Union, where there are twenty-four official languages  to accommodate the differences between member states.

Jeremy Gardner (no connection with Howard Gardner) has compiled an anthology of offenses committed in Eurenglish , called "A brief list of misused English terms in the E.U"
Eurenglish is an office dialect which relies upon words that do not exist or are relatively unknown to native English speakers.
The E.U. documents are written by civil servants for whom English is a second, third or fourth language.
Here´s an example:

"When the interoperability constituent is integrated into a Control-Command

and Signalling on board or Track-side Subsystem, if the missing functions,

interfaces, or performances do not allow to assess whether the subsystem

fully complies with the requirements of this TSI, only an Intermediate statement 

of Verification may be issued."

Find more examples of Eurenglish on the web or on official EU documents.
This information has been gleaned from The New Yorker July 29th 2013

Find 4 or 5 famous French...

In this activity you´ll have to try to find four or five important people from different countries in the world.I´ll give you a short list of countries and you´ll have to think of some people who represent that country.They may be living or dead.
In Europe: France, U.K. Belgium,Italy, Greece, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc..
In America: U.S.A., Argentina, Brasil, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela,Cuba, Uruguay, Paraguay,etc..
In Africa: Morocco, Egypt, Libia, South Africa, Kenia,Algeria,etc.. 
In Asia: China, Japan,India, Vietnam, The Philippines,etc..

The most likely thing to happen is that after some research you come up with four or five male characters.
The task will get harder if you try to find five famous women from every country above-mentioned.

As a Spaniard and by way of an example let me give you a list and you´ll have to find out
WHO_ WHAT_WHEN_ WHERE_ WHY

CERVANTES

VELÁZQUEZ

GOYA

PICASSO

RAFAEL NADAL

Our culture is so pervasively male-dominated that it looks as if women had not contributed to our history, when in fact it´s the other way round.
Here´s the five famous Spanish women:

ISABEL LA CATÓLICA

TERESA DE JESÚS

AGUSTINA DE ARAGÓN

FERNÁN CABALLERO

MONTSERRAT CABALLÉ 

DO THIS PIECE OF RESEARCH RELATED TO OTHER COUNTRIES AND LET´S SEE YOUR RESULTS Instead of people, you can mention towns and cities, rivers, sights, famous monuments,etc..

 

martes, 8 de octubre de 2013

YOU ARE...AMAZING

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again...

You are a marvel, there has never been another person like you..     (Pau Casals)

DID YOU KNOW THAT

Your heart beats over 100000 ( a hundred thousand) times a day?

Your eyes can provide you with more information than the best telescope?

Your lungs inhale over 2000000(million) litres of air every year?

Your hearing is so sensitive that we can distinguish between hundreds of thousands of different sounds?

Your brain is more complex than the most powerful computer?

Your nose can differentiate thousands of different smells?

 YOU HAVE THE CAPACITY FOR ANYTHING: YOU ARE A MARVEL...TRULY AMAZING....A WALKING TALKING BREATHING THINKING MIRACLE...(that´s what you are indeed)