German

S: the Story of a Letter

Niall O'Donnell 19 Comments

If you’re a native English speaker, you probably don’t think about individual letters too often. Why would you? You use them pretty much automatically. So if I asked you to talk about the letter s, you might not have much to say. But for people who have to learn English, it’s quite important, and can prove to be a tricky little customer.

The first area of confusion is with plurals. Most languages don’t add s to make a plural, like English does, so it can be very hard for speakers of those languages to remember to add the s. Even when some languages do add an s, it’s in a slightly different way. Portuguese and Spanish, for example, often add an s to a noun to make it plural. But, they also add an s to adjectives describing those nouns, leading a lot of Portuguese and Spanish speakers to do the same thing in English. French is similar, but the s is generally silent, meaning that a lot of French speakers don’t pronounce it even if they write it.

But the most common area of error is with third-person singular verbs. That might sound like gibberish, but let me demonstrate: Continue reading →

100

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

First, let me say a big thank you to every one of you reading this. Yesterday I got a lovely notification to tell me I that reached gained 100 followers on WordPress. Which was a lovely surprise. As I’m writing about quite an uncool, niche topic, and just sharing my own thoughts every day, without really planning things, I didn’t expect to attract too many followers. And yesterday was also my first time with over 100 views, which was a nice little instance of serendipity. These numbers may not be so big in the grand scheme of things, but I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read blog, so I’m delighted for every single person who follows me.

So if you’re reading this, and enjoying it, thank you so much, and I hope to keep your mind occupied with mindless trivia about this beautiful language. Continue reading →

Profound

Niall O'Donnell 14 Comments

Being a response to the Daily Prompt: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/249091/

Profound, and its more common synonym deep, are quite versatile words. There’s the literal sense of the words, measuring how far down something goes. Though we tend to use just deep for that. You’re hardly going to go to the profound end of a swimming pool, perhaps to discuss Proust and the films of Ingmar Bergman.

And then there’s the more abstract meaning of the words, to describe something with an important, valuable intense meaning. Someone can be a very deep person, or a novel can have a very profound meaning. You can feel something, deep down in your heart. We tend to use profound more often in this sense though. You might make a profound statement, or have a profoundly inspiring experience. What makes profound so special that we reserve it for when things are so, well… profound? Continue reading →

What Yacht?

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

Just  a short post tonight as it’s late, I’ve had three pints of delicious local Buried at Sea chocolate stout, and I’m quite tired after watching Ireland dramatically beat Italy in the European Championships to qualify for the next round.

I think those last two might be related actually…

Also, well done to Wales, Northern Ireland and England for also qualifying. And well done to Italy and my Italian friends who might be reading this: you still finished top of the group, though I’m not sure playing Spain is a fair reward for that!

Anyway, less football, more English. These last few days, there’s been quite a nice yacht in Galway docks and out sailing in the bay. Apparently it’s a superyacht, according to Google. Well. it’s certainly very nice. Seeing its mast over the rooftops of the Claddagh as I’ve walked to work in the mornings has made think again about how strange the word yacht is.

Yacht.

Look at it there, with a silent ch and not caring who knows about it! It’s the only modern English word with a silent ch.

Pronouncing ch as the old Greek /k/ as in charisma, character and psyche? No problem.

Or with a soft, swishy French /ʃ/ as in machine, chef or machete? Oui, bien sûr!

But a silent ch!? It takes a really special word to get away with that. A word like yacht. Continue reading →

Capital Idea

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

One of the most common corrections an English-language teacher has to make is when a student uses a lower-case letter instead of a capital letter.

For a language you need to use a capital letter.

When you’re talking about a nationality you need to use a capital letter.

A person’s name always begins with a capital letter.

You have to start a sentence with…etc. etc.

Mistakes with capital letters are common and understandable.

Continue reading →