English - Rise to the occasion

When the teacher enters the classroom, is it correct for the monitor to say “rise up class, good morning Miss Wong”?

2. Are these sentences grammatically correct? a) For many days, he neither slept nor ate until he found a solution to the position and b) He had painted many pictures of the landscape, but he did not take much pride in them.

3. Is the sentence below grammatically correct? For the subject of Chemistry, we are yet to be informed of what is going to be tested.

4. What are the differences between “something” and “some thing”?

5. Is it correct to say “ Every 120 day, the man will come to the island.”

– Isaac

No. “Rise” in that context should not be used with “up”. “To rise up against” means “to rebel against”. “Rise”, on the other hand, means “get up from a lying, sitting or kneeling position” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). The monitor should say: “Class, rise! Good morning, Miss Wong.”

2. Yes, they are both grammatically correct, but the word “position” in sentence a) should be changed to “problem”. We find solutions to problems, not to positions.

3. The phrase at the beginning of the sentence sounds rather awkward. Too many words are used, when only “in Chemistry” will do, and this phrase would sound better at the end of the sentence, which would then read: “We are yet to be informed of what is going to be tested in Chemistry.”

4. “Some” as a determiner is only used before an uncountable or plural noun. “Thing” is a singular noun, so, we don’t say “some thing”, but we can say “some things”. “Something” is a pronoun meaning primarily “a thing that is not known or mentioned by name” (OALD). There are other meanings of “something” but I won’t go into those here.

5. No. You need to use the plural form of “day”. The sentence would then read: “Every 120 days, the man will come to the island.”

Fewer words

Why is it that sometimes, an -ing must be added to the the first word in a question, but at other times this is not necessary?

For example:

(1) Wearing a T-shirt, Jenny walks to work.

(2) Put simply, he just wasn’t good enough.

– Senny Ng

First of all, sentences 1 & 2 are not questions. They are statements.

The –ing verb “wearing” at the beginning of sentence 1 is the present participle of “wear”, and part of the present participle clause “Wearing a T-shirt” which describes what Jenny wears when she walks to work.

The verb “put” at the beginning of sentence 2 is the past participle (not the base form) of “put”, and part of the past participle clause “Put simply” which describes the second part of the sentence, i.e. “he just wasn’t good enough.”

Participle clauses of both kinds (present and past) are often used in writing as “short cuts”, to use fewer words than other clauses. For example, sentences 1 and 2 would need more words if they don’t use participle clauses:

1a. Jenny wears a T-shirt when she walks to work. (“when she walks to work” is an adverbial clause of time)

2a. To put it simply, he just wasn’t good enough. (“To put it simply” is an infinitive clause)

Past tense OK

I refer to The Star’s report on June 10 titled “More brickbats than bouquets: Many object to making English a ‘must pass’ SPM subject”. There was a sentence that read “He said he was also shocked to learn that national schools no longer taught English grammar”. Is this correct?

– Ahmad Masyhur

Yes, the sentence you quoted is grammatically correct, because it is in reported speech and the reporting verb, “said” is in the past tense. So the verbs that follow, i.e. “was ... shocked” and “taught” should also be in the past tense.

One or two days

I refer to the answers given in Mind Our English on June 18 concerning the right tense in the conversion from direct to indirect speech. Shouldn’t an adjective or adverb expressing nearness be changed into one expressing distance?

Hence, shouldn’t the sentence “Tom said he had been singing last night” be “Tom said he had been singing the previous night or the night before”?

– Kengt

Thank you for pointing this out. I was concentrating on the tense of the indirect speech that the reader asked about. Regarding the point you raised, if the statement “I was singing last night,” is reported on the same day that Tom made it, there is no need to change “last night” to “the previous night” or “the night before”, because “last night” to Tom would still be “last night” to the person reporting his statement.

However, if the statement is reported on a day after Tom made the statement, “the previous night” or “the night before” should be used, because Tom’s “last night” would not be “last night” to the person reporting his statement.

- THE STAR