STAR TS Translation Services Blog

The Young Scientist Exhibition opens today in the RDS. For those interested in languages there are 4 specific projects we recommend you visit.

Young Scientist Language Projects:

1. From Coláiste Eoin in Dublin “GAERLA” Language transfer and interference, a study of bilingual teenagers.
A topic worth discussing in light of the decline of the Irish Language.

2. Again from Dublin, Loreto College – St Stephens Green, Cryptography; a study of the Irish language.
This certainly looks like an interesting topic for us, original and of value.

3. From Coláiste Bhríde in Wicklow, Is abbreviated texting having a negative impact on our English language?
Again one close to our hearts. We believe texting is having a negative effect on the English Language, as too is the use of Facebook and Twitter on communication skills.

4. From Donegal based Loreto Community School, their project investigates whether Irish TV can help improve childrens Irish.

What do you think? Share your opinion with us on these topics.

This week I came across a little comma in the middle of a linguistic polemic.  It is amazing how many niche areas the English language can take you into. I thought I’d share this one as I found it interesting. Hope you do to.

The serial comma, also known as the Oxford Comma is the comma used before a coordinating conjunction which preceeds the last word of an enumeration (list, e.g: France, Spain and, Italy).

This punctuation rule, specific of the English language, is not used and accepted by all the English-speaking world. While it has become very common in the American and Canadian English and has been recognized by the Oxford University Press, it is still critized by purists.

In fact the main function of the oxford comma is a question of stylistics. It would improve the rhythm of the sentence and would resolve any possible ambiguity in the understanding of the sentance. However from a grammar point of view the coordinating conjunctions like “and” or “or”are precisely used to indicate the logical separation between words, and to mark the rhythm in the sentence. Thus the Serial Comma would be considered as redundant and useless. Moreover the journalist world is absolutly against making the comma redundant as they are constantly looking for an economy of space.

In short, it is interesting to see, that, a small comma that we might not have noticed, can emphazise the difficulty of the evolutions of a language as wide spread as English .

What do you think?

The following information provides a list of Suffixes which are common to the English language.

Suffixes are added to the end of a word to change its meaning.  Common Suffix word endings are:

-ant                                -ise                           -ful

-ent                                -ist                            -ness

-ible                               -fy                             -ism

-ing                                -ly                              -ment

- ize                              -able                          -ation

Adding a suffix may change the spelling of the preceding word. If a word ends in a y that is preceded by a consonant (happy, Beauty), the y changes to i:

happy               happiness

beauty             beautiful

But if the y is preceded by a vowel, the y remains: I envy your enjoyment of the situation.  It obviously caused you much merriment. And if the original word ends in an e, this is usually dropped: You are the most lovable but not at all sensible.

Abuse/Misuse/Disabuse

To abuse something means to treat it so badly that you damage it.

To misuse something means to use it wrongly.

To disabuse someone or something means to show them that their thinking is wrong.

Affect/Effect

Affect is a verb and effect is a noun. So you affect something by having an effect on it.  (The exception is if you effect a change; that is, cause a change to happen.)

USEFUL MNEMONIC:

RAVEN , that is: Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun

Among/Between

Use between for two things; among for more than two.

Between you and me, there’s no way we can divide these five loaves and two fishes among our five thousand guests.

Useful mnemonic:

beTween = Two

aMong = Many

Pluralizing words isn’t always a simple matter of adding an s on the end, and switching a word from masculine form to feminine form isn’t always a matter of adding -ess.

• The words alms, amends, cattle, clothes, doldrums, ides, pants, pliers, scissors, shorts, smithereens, and trousers are all plural but have no singular form.

Many words are both singular and plural.  Here are a few: Scissors, Species, you, pants, deer, moose, and sheep, are spelled and pronounced the same way in both their singular and plural forms.    Example: “There stands a sheep” and plural as in, “Look at that flock of sheep.”  More interesting words with this property are congeries, kudos, premises, shambles, series, and species. Fish can be both singular and plural, yet fishes is also a correct pluralization of the word.

• The words bourgeois, chassis, corps, faux pas, gardebras, précis, pince-nez, and rendezvous all have plurals spelled the same way but pronounced differently.

Dangling Modifiers, Misplaced modifiers are all expressions that grammarians toss into the conversation on purpose to confuse and embarrass the rest of us.  So what do they mean? Well consider a sentence such as:

Walking down the high street, the new shoe shop caught her eye.

We all probably know what is meant, but grammatically what this sentence says is that the shoe shop was walking down the street.  The participle is dangling (or misplaced or misrelated) because it seems to relate to the wrong part of the sentence.  As she was walking down the high street, the new shoe shop caught her eye is correct and unambiguous.  As is Walking down the high street, she was thrilled to notice the new shoe shop.

RULE 1:

The (unexpressed subject of the participle clause – that is, the person or thing that is walking down the high street – should have the same subject as the (expressed) subject of the main clause: she.

RULE 2:

The modifying clause or phrase (walking down the high street) should always come as near as possible to the noun or pronoun it modifies.

Careless positioning of all sorts of modifiers can cause amusement, confusion or actions for libel:

• John still attends his local church where he was married regularly.
• We will continue to sell goods to people in plastic wrapping.
• She was taken to hospital after being bitten by a spider in a bathing suit.
• The bride was given away by her father wearing her mother’s wedding dress
• Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

Another great example that I personally love is:

 ‘I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I’ll never know.’

Some words have a similar sound but have very different meaning. Here is a test to see how good your English really is.

Explain the difference between the following?

1.  abuse, misuse

2. adapt, adopt

3. affect and effect

4. agnostic, atheist

5. allusion, illusion

6. alternative, alternate

7. all right, alright

8. bare, bear

9. childlike, childish

10. compliment, complement

11. course, coarse

12. credible, credulous

13. cynic, sceptic

14. elemental, elementary

15. emigrate, migrate

16. except, accept

17. descent, dissent

18. dual, duel

19. fair, fare

20. flout, flaunt

21. gorilla, guerrilla

22. hare, hair, heir

23. heard, herd

24. heroin, heroine

25. it’s and its

26. licence, license

27. lose and loose

28. peak, peak, pique

29. poll, pole

30. principal and principle

31. refer, allude

32. simple simplistic

33. stationary, stationery

34. story, storey

35. You, Your and You’re

36. Their, there and they’re

So how did you do ? Are you an English Scholar or Did you just do “All Right” or should that be “Alright”?

I had a quick read through The Irish Independent and I came across an interesting article on William Safire’s rules for improving your English. William Safire writes columns for the New York Times and in one of those columns he drew up a list of rules for writers. Each rule is self-contradictory, That is, it violates the thing it tells the reader to avoid. Here are some that have stood the test of time.

1. A preposition is something never to end a sentence with.
2. Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
3. Don’t use no double negatives.
4. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn’t
5. Reserve the apostrophe for its proper use and omit it when its not needed
6. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
7. Avoid commas, that are not necessary
8. Don’t over use exclamation marks!!!
9. Hyphenate between sy-?llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens.
10. Write all adverbial forms correct.
11. Don’t use contractions in formal writing.
12. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
13. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
14. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
15. “Avoid overuse of ‘quotation “marks.””
16. Avoid clichés like the plague; They’re old hat; seek viable alternatives
17. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
18. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words then necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
19. Be more or less specific.
20. capitalise every sentence and remember always end it with a full stop

Its not what you say – its how you say it.

It pays to be especially careful when using words to describe someone. Often a very subtle wordchange can give a very different meaning and impact on what you say.

Some words carry an emotional punch. Take a look and see if you can tell which words press emotional buttons in each context. One word in each sentence evokes a favourable, even warm response; another word elicits a more wary, even negative reaction.

1. Michael is shy; Tom is introverted.
2. Mary is slim: Frances is thin.
3. John is firm; Brian is stubborn.
4. Deirdre has strong views; Emma is prejudiced.
5. Sam was courageous; Dan was foolhardy.

Alongside our translation services STAR also provides English language proofreading and design services.  For more information call us for a quote today.

The incorrect use of “lay” instead of “lie” is becoming increasingly common, but no less humorous. Unfortunately it seems that no one told Bob Dylan the correct usage.

-To lie means to recline.

-To lay is to put or place, and it is always followed by an object.

Remember, you lie in bed and a hen lays eggs. The past tense and past participle can cause problems, however.

To lie

• The present tense of lie (to recline) is lie or lying. I am lying on the beach. I lie on the beach.

• The past tense of lie (to recline) is lay. Yesterday, I lay on the beach.

• The past participle tense (have, has, had) of lie (to recline) is lain. I have lain on the beach for  hours. He has lain on the beach for hours. He had lain on the beach for hours.