Ask the English Teacher

Speak or Talk?

Doug writes:
Recently a friend and I got into a bit of an argument on the usage of the words "Speak" and "Talk". The specific argument being when are they NOT interchangeable.

My friend had used the word talk in the following sentence:

"Last I checked, people in Indiana didn't talk like that."

I corrected him and said that he should have said:

"Last I checked, people in Indiana didn't speak like that."

We would like to know which of us is correct. He doesn't believe me, and wants me to provide specifics / the English rule that says when these two words can and cannot be used interchangeably. I have looked and looked online and in my own English resources but have not been able to find anything that specifically spells it out. Can you help and point to a specific rule that says which of us is right?

Super question!

Doubt

Michele writes:
I'm a TESOL graduate student and am trying to figure out why my teacher considers "Sam doubted which man came to the party" grammatically incorrect.

I consider that usage incorrect also, and here's why: In this sentence, "doubt" means that Sam's state of mind was unconvinced or mistrustful. But the sentence itself implies that Sam was uncertain, not unconvinced. We might write:

Sam doubted that either man came to the party.
Sam doubted that either man would come to the party.

—and "doubt" would be the correct verb. But the original sentence implies uncertainty, so it would be preferable to write:

Sam wasn't sure which man came to the party.

By the way, we get the word "doubt" from the Old French douter, but some medieval smartypants had to show off. He knew the word came originally from the Latin dubitare, so he put that silent "b" in the word. We have been stuck with it ever since. English teachers don't always make life easier for their students.

Subject-Verb Agreement

Ticktock writes:
I have a question involving subject-verb agreement. Is it "one of two things happen" or "one of two things happens"? (or ?") I googled with the quotes: "one of two things happen" had 7000 results and "one of two things happens" had 10,000 results.

Good question. A lot of people have trouble with subject-verb agreement, especially in sentences like the ones you mention. It should be "one of two things happens," and here's why:

Incorrect Usage?

Combeing in China has written again:
The following collocations are taken from a Chinese TEFL textbook for university students. They are listed as unacceptable.

promote the skill/the reputation/the knowledge
enhance the skill/knowledge/the product
develop the knowledge
improve the reputation

You know, many China-made exercises are not in very natural English language. So I am uncertain about them. I need some confirmation from the native English speakers.

Correct or Not?

Combeing writes:
The bracketed words in the following sentences are considered as incorrect options in an exam of EFL. But I searched google for similar phrases or groups of words, and I did find some. So now I am not so sure about them. I'd like to hear your judgement.

1. She began her (occupation) by singing in a pop group.

2. She began her (profession) by singing in a pop group.

"Began" implies a chronology, but "occupation" and "profession" are not chronological. I would say, "She began her career by singing in a pop group." If I absolutely had to use one of the given words, I would use a preposition: "She began in her occupation..."

Punctuation in Abbreviations

Bill asks:
When abbreviating something, such as the United States, when did it become acceptable to abbreviate it to US instead of U.S.?

Abbreviations can be shortened versions of words (etc.) which we pronounce in full (et cetera); they can be acronyms, which are pronounceable (UNESCO, AIDS); or they can be initialisms, which require us to pronounce every letter. In common acronyms and initialisms, the periods tend to drop out: F.B.I. becomes FBI, R.C.M.P. becomes RCMP, and so on.

This is a matter of changing usage, and it's still perfectly OK (or O.K.) to keep the periods in. But in our impatient age, when every keystroke counts, many people prefer to drop the periods.

This is not universal, however. The Canadian Press Stylebook, used by many journalists here, recommends keeping periods in geographical abbreviations and initials of persons:
B.C., U.S., L.A.; J.R. Ewing, E.T.

But it also acknowledges that well-known public figures may become known by initials without periods: JFK, FDR, W.

Doubled Subjects

This is a question I'm asking myself:
Why do so many people use doubled subjects in their speech?

The doubled subject is the practice of needlessly supplying two terms for the subject:

My wife, she's a great cook.
Me, I'm not a very good cook.
The election, it's on Tuesday.
Blogs, they're a remarkable phenomenon.

We hear this all the time, at least in North America, and often from educated people who should know better. Political pundits here in Canada are fond of looking serious and saying: "The Prime Minister, he's facing a serious crisis."

Why can't we just say, "My wife is a great cook," and "The election is on Tuesday"? And why don't we do it when we write?

A Question of Style

Vun writes:
I would be grateful if you could kindly correct the follow passage for me.

'Many of us can easily forgive someone who has wronged us. Sometimes when we forgive, we would only say it from our mouths but our hearts are still storing those hurts. Children forgive one another easier and faster. They quarrel or fight this moment and the next moment when they say sorry, they become friends and again they begin to share and play with what they have. We adults would find it so much harder even if our enemy has really repented, even when we see him changed completely. This sentence "it is easy to forgive but hard to forget" is very common among us and it has made genuine reconciliation impossible.'

Till and Until

Tao Wu asks:
Would you let me know the usage of "till" and "until"; what is the difference between them?

My dictionary sees no difference. For "till," it gives the following:
preposition:
1. to the time of; up to; until. He slept till noon.
2. before: with the negative. I can't go till noon.
conjunction:
1. up to such time as; until. Till death do us part.
2. before: with the negative. They couldn't go till he came.

For "until," the definitions are the same. The origin is the Old English word "til," meaning "to." "Until takes an Old English prefix, "un," meaning up to, as far as.

Fixed?

Craig writes:
I hope you can settle a debate among several of my friends. A line in a recent newspaper story reads
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The word in question is fixed. One camp says that the word is being used as in to fix a race but the other camp says it is being used as in to attach.

I'm glad you said "among," which implies a debate involving more than two persons!

Without seeing the whole story, I'd read "fixed" as meaning "attached." That is, the intelligence and facts were being used to support the policy. If the sentence had been written otherwise, however, I'd suspect something crooked:

"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed to suit the policy."

UPDATE, May 12: I've now read the "Downing Street Memo" from which the above quote is clearly taken. The whole paragraph reads:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Given that context, "fixed" clearly means "deceitfully altered to suit the policy" of launching a war.