Ask the English Teacher

P.S.

Carol asks:
Please refresh my memory regarding the punctuation of the abbreviation P. S. (post scriptum). Is it followed by a comma, colon, hyphen? I can't remember!

Usage varies. Some people drop all punctuation after the abbreviation, and many use a comma. A few may use a dash—not a hyphen—which gives the postscript some dramatic flair. My preference is for a colon.

p.s.: You can also write it with lower-case letters.

Happy?

Frank in Taiwan writes:
One of my students wrote: "It's happy for me to play the piano". I don't know if this sentence sounds strange.

I think your student means: "I feel happy when I play the piano" or "Playing the piano makes me happy." We would almost never say "It's happy." We might say, "It's a happy surprise that we met!" In this case we're using the original meaning of "hap": something that occurred by chance and not by intention.

So when we're happy, we're lucky. But "hap" has some negative meanings also:
A mishap (mis-HAP) is an accident or setback.
A person who is trigger-happy always wants to fire his gun.
A boxer who has been hit too many times may be slap-happy—he can't think well or speak clearly.

Lay and Lie

Callie writes:
I am constantly trying to improve my writing skills and the usage of the English language. So can you help me out with the correct usage of Lie and Lay. What is the best way to not confuse these verbs?

This may be one of the hardest problems in English! When I try to explain it to my students, I see little question marks form over their heads. Well, let's give it another try.

LAY means to put or place: Lay the book on that table.
LIE means recline: All he does is lie around watching soap operas every day.

The past tense of “lay” is “laid”: He laid the book on the table. The chickens laid six eggs today.

The present continuous is “laying”: He is laying the book on the table. The chickens are laying a lot of eggs this week.

The past tense of “lie” is “lay”: Dave and Susan lay sunbathing on the beach all day.

The present continuous is “lying”: Dave and Susan are lying on the beach all day.

The past perfect tense of “lie” is “lain”: They had lain sunbathing on the beach all day.

You can see why people are confused: Lie/lay, lay/lain. Even worse, many people have simply stopped saying "lie"; they prefer to say "lay" for both "put or place" and for "recline."

When we hear this error so often, it's even harder to remember the correct ways to use "lie" and "lay."

My New Book

International Self-Counsel Press has published my Writing for the Web 3.0, the third edition of a book that first appeared in 1999. I've placed links to the publisher's website in the lower left-hand column. If you're interested in the subject, I'd be delighted if you buy a copy.

Have You or Haven't You? Yes or No!

Andrew writes:
Suppose that you and a friend are discussing a movie that you have not seen, and your friend, thinking previously that you had seen it, says, "You have not seen the movie?"

It would make sense to me to say, "Yes," because the implied question is, "(Is it true that) you have not seen the movie?" However, nearly everybody would do the complete opposite this situation. To me, this seems like illogical nonsense. I would appreciate an explanation. Thank you.

You're right—we'd say, "No, I haven't seen the movie," and it would be illogical. But the question itself anticipates a negative answer, just like a question using "any": "Do you have any bananas?"

And way back in the 1920s, a hit song was "Yes, We Have No Bananas." It was a gentle joke about the misplaced logic of immigrants trying to master illogical English.

When a question implies a negative answer, the answer itself will be negative: "No, I haven't seen it." It's illogical, but it's English usage!

This Monday or Next Monday?

Tom writes:
Which day is referred to by someone using the phrase "this Monday" vs the day referred to when using "next Monday"?

I have always used "this Monday" to mean the coming Monday, or the next Monday to occur on the calendar. So, if it is Tuesday and I say "I will be ready for this Monday", I mean I will be ready on Monday the following week. "next Monday", then, refers to the second Monday occurring on the calendar in my usage.

Is there a rule or generally accepted principle on this?

This is a very big problem, and I'm not sure that native English speakers even understand how big it is.

In the Premises or On the Premises?

Mini writes:
What is the difference between in the premises and on the premises. For instance, what would right usage warrant in the following sentence: The new health facility is located in the PHI premises or on the PHI premises?

"The premises" means a piece of real estate, or a building. But I'd never considered Mini's question before.

Well, I googled both phrases, and found 1.8 million hits for "in the premises" and 7.6 million for "on the premises." So the second expression is clearly more common. In the example given, I'd say "on the PHI premises." But if I were talking about someone who owns part of a building, I'd say: "She has a financial interest in the premises."

Questions from Korea

Suan in Korea has some interesting (and complicated!) questions:
As I study English more and more, I have more questions. Here is the first question.

In Korean school, we are taught that 'make, have, let' are special verbs only if they have the meaning that 'make somebody or something do or persuade somebody or something do'. In my country, in case the verbs are used, we call them the pattern 5.  That pattern consists 'subject + transitive verb + object + objective complement'. 

The verbs are special because when they are used in the sentences in pattern 5,  'bare infinitive' is used in that sentence.

For example,

               My mother let me go there.
               The boss made me clean the office.
               He had me sing a song in front of the crowd.

But I found the sentence like 'He had his audience listening attentively' in a dictionary.

Present participle not bare infinitive is used in this sentence. Can this sentence be right?

               He had me singing a song in front of the crowd.

Yes. In this usage, "had me singing" means "caused me to sing, even if I didn't want to!" We have many such expressions:

I had him eating out of my hand. (He was like a dog taking food from me.)
She had them cheering and laughing. (She made them very happy.)
You'll have them begging for more. (The audience will want more of what you give them.)
        
And how about these sentences?

              The boss made me cleaning the office.
               He had me singing a song in front of the crowd.

The first one is wrong: It should be "The boss made me clean the office." The second one is like the ones above.

And 'get' is a special, too. That's because 'get' is used with 'to infinitive' only.

But I also found the sentence 'Can you really get that old car going again?' in a dictionary.

Can 'I got my men doing that' be used like 'I got my men to do that'?

"Get" is a difficult word for new English speakers, because it can do so many things! It can mean "obtain": I must get his new book. It can also mean "cause" or "persuade": Get her to drive you to Busan.

And yes, you can use it with "ing" verbs also:
Can you really get that old car going again? (Can you make it run?)
I got my men doing that. (I ordered them to do it.)
I'll get cracking on this assignment. (I'll do this job very quickly, right now.)
The teacher got them thinking about the problem. (The teacher made them think.)

And teach me how native speakers in Canada and the U.S use this form.

The examples I've given are the way that native speakers would use "get" and "got."

Here is another question. This is lighter than the above. I saw this sentence in the reference book published in Korea.

'My aunt brought up me.'

Isn't this sentence incorrect?   I think that 'My aunt brought me up' is right. Which is correct, I or the reference book?

You're right.
 
And the last question:

These sentences are from your reply.

We Koreans love it because not only it is delicious but also it is good custom.
CK:
We Koreans love it; not only is it delicious, but eating songpyeon is also a good custom.

Why are 'it' and 'is' exchanged in position in this sentence?

And is the form 'V+S' used more frequently? In Korea, we haven't seen this pattern.

We use "inverted sentence order" in questions ("Are you studying?" instead of "You are studying."). We also use it to make a point very strongly.

Here is the sentence in subject-verb order: "It is not only delicious; it is also a good custom."
Here is the sentence in inverted, verb-subject order: "Not only is it delicious, it is also a good custom."

Notice that in subject-verb order, we need a semicolon because we have two independent clauses. We have two independent clauses in the inverted order also, but we use only a comma (I'm not sure why!).

In the inverted order, the sentence starts with "Not only." Words at the beginning of a sentence get more attention, so we pay more attention to the "not only"—and it prepares us for more information: "it is also." A native speaker will see "not only" and expect to learn even more:

Not only do I speak Korean, I also speak English and Japanese.
Not only is Ewha a women's university, it's also world-famous.

A or An?

Irene asks:
Which is proper?
You are an harvest of blessings. OR
You are a harvest of blessings.

Standard British usage for a long time has preferred "an" before words beginning with "H" if the first syllable isn't stressed: an ho-TEL, an his-TOR-ian. But if the stress falls on the first syllable, we go back to "a": a HOR-rible sight, a HOWL-ing wolf.

So "HAR-vest" would always take an "a." And in North America we use "a" in every word beginning with "H" as long as the "H" is pronounced. So we say "a Hummer" but also "an honour."

Try and or Try to?

A reader in the UK asks:
Which is correct:
I'm going to try and climb over that wall
I'm going to try to climb over that wall?

"Try and" is very common usage, but it doesn't make any sense: Now I'm "trying," whatever that means. Now I'm climbing over that wall. Trying is not a separate activity from climbing.

So the preferable usage is "I'm going to try to climb over that wall."