English

When Do I Include “the” in a Country’s Name?

Niall O'Donnell 15 Comments

Naming countries in English is generally pretty straightforward. You just say the name and, well, that’s it. France, Germany, Ireland etc. But while having a look at where my blog visitors came from yesterday (I’m always intrigued by where you all come from), I noticed a few cases of country names that require just a little bit more grammar. Those were: the Netherlands, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates. Not a huge difference, but obviously, these countries are always preceded by the.

You can probably think of a few more similar names: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, and so forth. But why do these countries get special treatment? Continue reading →

Sic Burn!

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

If you’ve read enough, you’ve probably come across sic. And you probably also have a good idea of how it’s used. If you’re not familiar with it, or you’ve seen it used but aren’t sure what it means, no worries. It’s not something that’s taught much in schools, and it’s not something most of us ever need to use in our lives. It might be mentioned in a style guide at university, especially on a course with a strong focus on writing, such as journalism. But generally, it’s not talked about much. Which is a bit of a pity, as it can be quite a powerful weapon. Continue reading →

Isn’t She Lovely?

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

Isn’t she wonderful?

The radio seems to be inspiring me a lot at the moment. While listening to the above Stevie Wonder classic this morning, the phrasing of the title struck me as a little odd. It might not initially seem too strange, as all native speakers at least are quite used to it. But performing the slight change of doing away with the contraction, makes it seem quite different:

Is she not lovely? Is she not wonderful?

Is it not a lovely day?

Is that not a great idea?

First of all, it now feels a lot more negative, because we can see and hear the full not. And to me, it seems a lot more like a question. When we use the normal, contracted phrase, it’s technically a question, but of course that’s not what we actually mean. What we’re basically saying is: She’s lovely. She’s wonderful. We don’t really expect disagreement. Why use a question then? And more specifically, why use a negative question? Continue reading →

Cover Version

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

No matter how well you’re learning a language, and how confident you feel in handling the basics, encountering it in a natural context will always throw something at you that you just can’t figure out. You can look at it, try to figure out its meaning from the context, guess at its meaning from its spelling and similarity to other words, but it simply defies understanding. This is of course especially difficult if you hear the word or phrase spoken, when you don’t have the luxury of analysing it to any great degree.

I was thinking about this this morning in the car on the way back from a lesson. I was listening to “The Man Who Sold the World” by David Bowie, and thinking about the fact that the cover version by Nirvana on MTV Unplugged is probably better known. So much so, that people might assume that it’s the original version. In this regards it’s similar to other songs such as “All Along the Watchtower” (Bob Dylan – 1967, The Jimi Hendrix Experience – 1968), and “Tainted Love” (Gloria Jones – 1964, Soft Cell – 1981).

This time though, I didn’t think too much about this. Instead, I was more concerned with that term – cover version. Continue reading →

A Blogger’s Style Guide

Niall O'Donnell 1 Comment

Following on logically from yesterday, I thought it’d make sense to provide a general style guide for writing blog posts. As I said yesterday, you can feel free to do your own thing, especially as there are different conventions for doing certain things. I just want to write about what works for me, and should produce writing that’s easy to read and intelligible. If you want something more detailed, have a look at the many respected style guides online such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and Oxford (which I think is the one that’s accessible and logical for most people). If you’ve already got used to a particular style guide from university, then of course feel free to stick to that. Continue reading →

How to Write a Title for Your Blog Post

Niall O'Donnell 15 Comments

This is something that occurs to me now and then: what are the conventions for writing a title, specifically a blog title, which will be most relevant for most of you reading this. It mainly occurs to me while I’m writing my own titles and thinking about whether I should capitalise a word or not.

The first thing to be aware of is that these are just guidelines. If you’re writing an academic work, then you have to respect the style guide of the institution where you’re studying. But for blog posts, there’s no body issuing guidelines, so you can do what you want. That being said, I find following the general rules for writing titles of essays, articles etc. works well for blog posts too. So let’s get into it. Continue reading →

Quintessential

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

Recently I read something or other which featured the word quintessential, and was struck by that prefix. Quint-, as in five. The word doesn’t seem to have an obvious link to the number, so I went looking for more information. Continue reading →