20 June 2013

WHAT'S HAPPENING



June 21st—Summer officially begins as we celebrate the Summer Solstice.

 July 1st--Canada Day; this Canada Day celebration is not just a long weekend for many of us but the day we pause to think about all that Canada has to offer us.  Join the party and have fun. 

July 4th, our neighbours to the south, the United States of America, celebrate Independence Day—there is a lot of history behind this celebration.


WHAT'S NEW?



* Here are some colour related idioms that you will find interesting.
*What’s the big deal about the passive voice?
* Here's how the pronouns you choose influence the point of view in your writing.
* If English is not your first language, check out these rules for article usage.
* English has some interesting negative words as they don't seem to have positive counterparts.
* There is a close connection between time adverbs and verb tenses:
       Time adverbs (clues) with the present tense.
       Other tenses and time adverbs:

*If you are having trouble remembering grammar rules, consider the result of this study and sleep on it!



    PREVIOUS GRAMMAR QUESTION



    The exotic imported sports dark red car has been driving to fast when it'd skid of the road and the passenger too young women is injured serious.
    1. Adjective word order: There is a rule governing the order of adjective usage--opinion, dimension, age, shape, colour, origin, material. Given that order, the adjectives should be “exotic, imported, dark red, sports ”.
    2. Missing subject: who is driving the car--the car doesn’t drive itself; someone has to drive it. It’s possible to add “someone”.
    3. Passive voice: if we omit the subject from the first clause, then the verb should be in the passive--was being driven--then it is understood that someone was driving the car.
    4. Verb tense: if we have a subject and want to use the active voice, then the verb becomes “was driving”.
    5. Word confusion: ‘to” is a preposition; here the intensifier “too” is needed; it’s an adverb.
    6. Word confusion: don’t confuse “of” and “off”.
    7. Verb tense: “it’d skid” means “it had skid”--there is no such verb form. The simple past is “skidded”.
    8. Verb tense: the injury happened in the past, so use the simple past tense--was injured.
    9. Word form/order” “serious” is an adjective; the word describes the verb ‘injure” so the adverb “seriously” is needed. Also note that the adverb places between the two parts of this verb--was seriously injured.
    10. Punctuation: Adjectives in a series are separated by commas--the comma before the last one is optional. Also note that “two young women” is an appositive, so set it off with commas.
    Possible Answer: The exotic, imported, dark red, sports car was being driven too fast when it skidded off the road, and the passengers, two young women, were seriously injured.

    ACROSTIC



    In an acrostic, you start with a theme word and use each letter of that word to start another word or phrase that describes the theme word. The acrostic below is based on the theme word SNOW.
    ……………S Slippery
    ……………N Numbing
    ……………O Obliterating
    ……………W Wintery
    Write an acrostic based on one of the following “Canada” themes:

    CANADA DAY, or choose the name of any one province or territory in Canada.

    CINQUAIN POEM



    A cinquain poem is a five-line poem that is diamond-shaped. Start with a theme word (noun) and then use the pattern 1 noun, 2 adjectives, 3 gerunds, 1 full sentence, and finally a synonym for the first noun.
    SNOW
    .....................Snow.........................
    ..................Cold, white.....................
    ..........Falling, freezing, numbing..............
    ...........It chills fingers and toes.............
    .....................Ice..........................
    Write a cinquain poem based on one of the following “Canada” themes:
    CANADA DAY, or choose the name of any one province or territory in Canada.