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Messages - Mwita Chacha

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31
You Asked Me This Question / Should we capitalize all job titles?
« on: July 04, 2013, 10:28:13 PM »
I'd like to know what grammar rules are saying about capitalizing job titles.
I the other day had a 'fierce' argument with my Australian professor, who apparently felt demeaned that I wrote her title as 'dean of faculty' rather than as 'Dean of Faculty' in one line of my letter asking for permission to attend the wedding ceremony of a relative in a distant town. She refused to approve the letter unless I modified the phrase. But confident I hadn't committed any grammar mistake, I wasn't comfortable about making the change she wanted, challenging her to show me one grammar rule demanding all job titles be capitalized. Reddened and shaking with rage, she crumpled the letter in her hand and tossed it in a dustbin, forcing me out of her office while shouting ''I am not available to disputant students.''
Do we really have to capitalize every job title in sight as the professor suggested?

33
Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Re: Re the use of the Oxford comma
« on: June 30, 2013, 11:42:55 PM »
How about "or"? Is the Oxford comma also necessary before it? How about when using the other members of the FANBOYS (there is still for, nor, but, yet, and so)?
It appears you're confusing an Oxford comma with the other traditionally used commas. It's important to understand not every comma in a piece of writing is an Oxford one. He has made that distinction very clearly, and you might want to re-read his posting to fully comprehend that.

34
Use and Misuse / Re: Starting a sentence with "because"
« on: June 30, 2013, 11:31:54 PM »
Your elementary school teacher either was not very conversant in English grammar or deliberately intended to mislead you. But now that you're in the right place, I'm positive you'll slowly unlearn all wrong ideas stuffed in your mind by incompetent trainers like this one.
As you might be aware of, the word ''because'' belongs to a group of grammar terms in English language known as subordinating conjunctions. Subordinating conjunctions are words or phrases that join an independent clause (a group of words that has a subject and a verb and expresses a complete idea) to a dependent clause (a group of words that has a subject and a verb but doesn't express a complete idea) to form a compex sentence. The function of a subordinating conjunction is basically twofold: To provide the necessary transition between ideas in the sentence and to reduce the importance of one idea so that the reader understands which between the two is more important than the other.
But you ask if it's correct to start a sentence with the subordinating conjunction ''because.'' The answer to that question is absolutely YES. The only convention to follow in such usage is to put a comma at the end of a dependent clause if ''because'' introduces a complex sentence. On the other hand, comma is uncalled for if the independent clause comes before the ''because'' dependent clause. So ''Because I'm ill, I failed to attend the meeting yesterday,'' but ''I failed to attend the meeting yesterday because I'm ill.'' Important is to note that the rule applies not only to ''because'' but to all other types of subordinating conjunctions.
I hope I've helped in some way to allay your confusion. Partially prepared teachers can really create very serious problems for their students.

35
I've found myself increasingly developing an interest in the journalism field despite the fact I'm a medicine student. Coming across such jounalism terms as 'lede,' 'byline,' 'inverted pyramid' has really been fascinating.
As I was yesterday Thursday browsing the Internet editions of newapapers published in Senegal, where President Obama has just completed his visit, I bumped into a caption explaining a photo of him and his family arriving at an airport that read ''U.S. President, along with his wife and daughters, gets off his plane at Dakar international airport on Wednesday.''
It has struck me as abnormal that the sentence applied a present-tense verb (get off) along with a past-tense time element (Wednesday), and I've wondered if that is the appropriate way journalists have to do in writing photo captions.

36
Thank you for a useful and relevant piece of information, Sir. (The need to avoid officious stock phrases when writing or speaking) I agree that the best way to effectively get our ideas across is by making our sentences as precise as possible. But as a beginning writer, I sometimes feel reluctant to use one word more than two times in the same writing. That's why I'm sometimes tempted to alternate, say, ''about'' with such unpleasant bureaucratic phrases like ''with regard to,'' ''with reference to,'' ''as regards.'' Admittedly, they sound standoffish and tend to get in the way of clear communication, but I think they help in many ways eradicate repetition in the prose. Is there any better tactic of getting rid of repetition?

37
Thank you, Joe. My apologies for not being able to return to this topic. My internet connection, since coming back from Portugal is still bad. :(
It's interesting your Internet connection, like a human being, can travel abroad to Portugal and then return back to you.

38
The problem, which strikes me as unusual, is that you've focussed on the sentence instead of the question I asked: Is it precise for verb ''to-fail'' to be followed by a passive infinitive? Having said that, I'm still adamant the sentence ''He failed to be seen by his teacher, cheating in the exam room'' has both its grammar and syntax undeniably correct. It's one that uses a participial phrase to modify the subject, and anyone raising questions over its perfectness must be not familiar with how verbals are positioned.

39
First, you haven't answered my question.
Second, you've failed to explain why that sentence is grammatically incorrect.

40
Use and Misuse / Re: yesternight
« on: April 20, 2013, 11:47:07 PM »
I'm pleased, Sir, that you have admitted wrongly using the past-tense verb ''used'' in that sentence. Anyone would tell you such a sentence decisively falls into the group of unreal conditional constructions. As to the applications of ''would'' and ''will,'' I don't think I've much trouble telling how to apply them correctly and circumspectly.

41
Can the sentence ''He failed to be seen by his teacher, cheating in the exam hall'' said to be correct? One may argue people fail to achieve something only after they've ever attempted to accomplish it. It's a fact that in the great interest of any cheating examinee is to NOT be spotted by the invigilator.

42
Can the sentence ''He failed to be seen by his teacher, cheating in the exam hall'' said to be correct? One may argue people fail to achieve something only after they've ever attempted to accomplish it. It's a fact that in the great interest of any cheating examinee is to NOT be spotted by the invigilator.

43
Use and Misuse / Re: yesternight
« on: April 14, 2013, 04:02:57 PM »
Two corollary questions Sir:
First, is there any problem for someone to sound, as you've put it, Shakespearean?
Second, why have you decided to use the unreal conditional sentence ''You'd sound decidedly Shakespearean if you used it in your spoken or written English today'' instead of the real one ''You'll sound decidedly Shakepearean if you use it in your spoken or written English today?'' The use of unreal conditional constructions, as far as I know, is restricted to those actions that have never happened or will never happen at all--imaginary situations. You'll agree with me that there's nothing guaranteeing that the person who asked the question has never used the word under discussion or never will he or she use it in his or her potential conversations or writings.

44
It's tough to tell, Sir, why it has taken me this long to realize there's something fatally erroneous in ''my wife Elean.'' Of course, if the objective was signal to Forum members that you're married to more than one wife, I apologize for being too searching. But if my assumption is correct that you're a monogamist, I don't want to imagine how angrily your supposedly sole better half might react after coming across the phrase in question. She'll rightly infer you're practicing polygamism secretly.

45
Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Re: Redundancy
« on: April 08, 2013, 08:47:05 AM »
Not all redundancies are as bad as you argue. Sometimes even formidable English writers or speakers deliberately make pleonastic statements for the sake of adding emphasis and highliting their points. So don't always be automatically opposed to such constructions, but take time to see whether by making a repetition the writer or speaker has managed to argue the case more cleverly. I think you'll agree with me that ''I saw a speeding car hit a bicyclist with my own eyes'' is more emphatic than ''I saw a speeding car hit a bicyclist.''

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