Don’t Say This

From Twitter

Don’t say:
There are two members in my family
I’m business/salary man
I live Saitama
I have a wife
My first son

Try:
I’m ① clerk.
I ② for Sony.
I live ③ Saitama.
I ④ married and ⑤ two kids. ⑥ ⑦ is Toshi; the youngest ⑧ Sawa.

Choose:
am
eldest
a
an
in
at
the
work
is
have

Answers
I’m ①
a clerk. We need ‘a’ because our name is not “Clerk.”
I ②work for Sony. We don’t our title unless it is a professional title.
I live ③in Saitama. We must use prepositions before locations.
④ I‘m  married and ⑤have two kids. ⑥ The  eldest is Toshi; the youngest ⑧is Sawa.
④ Married is something we are.
⑤ We have kids; we don’t say they merely exist.
⑥, ⑦, ⑧ We never list our children by the primacy of latency of their birth; we talk about age in relation to each child.

Image & Impressions

From Twitter

  1. What is your __ of the Japanese government response to #COVID19?
  2. My __ of the US is one of ethnic strife, freedom, lots of space.
  3. Toshi: What’s your __ of @GretaThunberg?
    Rie: Who’s that?
    Toshi: Do you live under a rock? She’s the most famous #environmental #activist on Earth!

    Choices:
    image
    impression
Do you live under a rock?
Image: Carlos Roso
Image: Markus Spiske

The Answer is ‘impression.’ Many Japanese say, “my image….” This doesn’t make sense. If you said, ‘the image I have/had,’ that would be okay. However, we don’t have our own permanent images in our minds.

Space Shot

From Twitter

Read
We__ been __ #Shuttle 31 years when it was __ in 2011. May 27 @ 5:33am Asia Pacific Time (4:33pm Eastern Standard Time) 2 @NASA astronauts launch on a @SpaceX #Falcon #CrewDragon to the #ISS. Watch @ http://nasa.gov.

Choose
had
has
fly
flew
flying
flown
canceled
cancellation

Answers And Explanations
1. had (because been is present)
2. flying (because had+ been requires a gerund)
3. cancelled (because the past tense is necessary after was in this context)

Photo Credit: The Verge
Apologies to @SpaceCoastDaily
for the image of @AstroBehnken
& @Astro_Doug
Hurley.

It’s Over

From Twitter

When I was young, my mother got aggravated if my things were __.

When we blew the mini-fireworks, confetti __.

I’m __ this TV series. It’s boring, now.

Jo: Do you wanna go get a beer?
Jay: Oh, dude, I’m __。

Choose:
over (“bored with,” “done with”)
all over (“everywhere”)
all over it (“into it,” “in love with it,” “loving it”)
flew all over (“dispersed in all directions”)

Answers
1. all over
2. flew all over
3. over
4. all over it

What Were You Doing When…?

From Twitter:

Read:
_____ drinking tea only ten minutes before the phone rang.

Choose:
have been
was
had been

Answers & Explanations
The answers are ‘had been’ (formal, correct and written) and ‘was’ (casual and spoken). ‘Have been” doesn’t work because it is in the present; we need a past answer dictated by ‘rang.’

Sarah Gaultieri

Freedom

From Twitter:

Photo: Katie Rodriguez

Answer
The answer is ‘shut them down.’ The meaning is akin to “stop,” “end,” “discontinue,” #terminate” and “block.” It’s not about causing someone to be quiet. The “shutting down” is of the event, in this case.

Photo: Michelle Ding
Photo: Mika Baumeister
Photo: American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC News)
Photo: ABC
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-06/china-braces-for-year-of-significant-but-difficult-anniversaries/10970346

If you would like to be part of the cause of human freedom, go to http://amnesty.org. Every language printed and spoken there.

Let’s Go Abroad

From Twitter
The corona virus has changed life on Earth for our race (the human one); many have died, more are sick. Social, economic, occupational and family lives have worsened–in some cases improved, but many yearn to travel again. I hope to __ after a vaccine is approved & available.

Choices
① in abroad (This has no meaning as abroad is not a place or location)
② go abroad (describes a type of travel–a condition, a state of being, like being happy; one is abroad in the same sense as one is happy.)
③ go in abroad

Answer
The answer is number 2.

#coronavirus

Photo: Anne Nygard

Do you Know him?

Frik: Do you know that guy?
Frak: I _

Frik: Do you know that guy?
Frak: I __ his face, but don’t __ whom he is.

Choices
remember
recognize
realize

The answers ‘recognize’ and ‘remember’ are interchangeable. You can use them in either space; ‘realize’ is not an option: This is the best arrangement:
I recognize his face, but don’t remember whom he is.

Causal expression of this statement would be:

I recognize him, but don’t remember who he is.
Or:
I recognize him, but don’t remember him.

To recognize is to know someone by his or her face or other features.
To remember someone is to know his or her name
(Generally. Some English speakers will argue with this distinction, but I think it is a convenient and accurate one).

Photo: Drew Hays

Get That Hair Cut!

In America, in the fifties and sixties, conservative fathers made their sons keep their hair short; they had them–or even made them have their hair cut. This was harder to do when the resistance to the American war in Vietnam started. This trend of young people keeping long hair also became popular as part of the hippy movement, inspired by flower power, free love, environmentalism, sympathy for the women’s liberation movement and the ubiquity of rock ‘n roll & rhythm and blues concerts–only exacerbated by the use of psychedelic drugs, used to alter consciousness and become more spiritual and relaxed, also known as tripping, feeding on’s head and tuning out.

From Twitter

Quiz
How do you say it correctly?

You know your friend went to the barber or hair salon, so you ask:
“Did you _________?”

Choices:
① cut your
② get your hair cut
③ get your haircut
④ r hair get cut

Answer and Explanations:
The answer is number get your haircut because unless we use an electric razor and shears (and do it ourselves) we get it done by another, or we:
*have it done by another (person)
*have it cut by another (person)

Furthermore, to cut your hair means to do it yourself, or by oneself.

Of course we can ask “did you cut your hair,” (using option number ①) but most people do not cut their own hair, so why ask this?

Number ③: get your haircut is incorrect, because it is about ownership, as ‘haircut’ (notice it is one word, and thus) is a noun following the possessive pronoun ‘your.’ Also notice the grammar is correct, here, but it generally doesn’t make sense; we don’t speak of haircuts as permanent things to own.

Number ④ r hair get cut–as in ‘Did your hair get cut?’ is wrong (not grammatically), but as it is passive (not mentioning a subject and missing a causative verb, such as get or have, which suggests a personal subject such as ‘you’, and thus sounds as if the haircut was performed against the listener’s will.



Not Sure About

From Twitter
I’m not sure _____ to class even if the Corona Virus State of Emergency ends. I prefer online study; it’s smarter, safer, easier and saves me money & time. (Both choices are grammatically correct, but one is useless and means something very different from the other.)

Choices:
to go
about going

In my opinion there are two reasons to offer here.

The answer is about going, because:
when we are or are not sure regarding something, we use ‘about’ as the preposition to connect the subject to the object we are discussing.

Examples:
I’m sure about this information. Trust me.
I’m not sure about this. We’d better check it on Wikipedia.
John is sure about the spelling; he looked it up in the dictionary.

Similarly, we use sure about with the ‘ing’ form of verbs as nouns (called gerunds).

Examples:
I’m sure about depending on this information. Trust me.
I’m not sure about trusting this information; we’d better check it on Wikipedia.
John is not sure about spelling this word; he couldn’t find a dictionary to use.

And the answer is about going because ② ‘not sure to’ means “not certainfrom the point of view of others, just as sure tomeans “certain” from the point of view of other people, not from the point of view of the speaker. Look:

It’s sure to rain.
Nature is not sure about rain coming–or happening. The situation is certain, or we are certain… that rain will come.

Bob is sure to be here on time. He is never late.
We are sure about it; Bob is not thinking about it.

We use about (meaning “regarding” or “concerning”, whereas sure to means “supposed to” or “expected to.”

After I’m not sure, we need a noun in this sentence, and about is the right preposition to precede a noun. We use about with true nouns and proper nouns all the time. Look:

I like books about traveling in space. Or... I like books to travel in space.

‘Traveling in space’ is not a verb, and it doesn’t look like a verb, either, but if we replace it with t0 travel in space, it looks like a verb and sounds like a verb and the whole meaning of the sentence changes to “I like books as a method of traveling in space. It’s like the speaker flies on books and not in spaceships!

So, About is used to mean regarding, “concerning” and “in the case of” and that is what we need after “I’m not sure.