Messages

46

Advocacies / Re: Dealing with Persons with Disabilities (PWDs)

« on: April 08, 2013, 08:30:07 AM »

I desire to have a PWD as my wife, but the problem is that there are very few of them who seem to have the same level of education as I have. My worry is that if I play that factor down and go ahead and tie knotty with any disabled woman regardless of her education status, there's a risk of her life becoming overshadowed by that of mine. I want to have a partner who'll feel free to express his feelings to me in the same way as I will.

[Due to a technical problem, the reply below by Miss Mae to this posting was inadvertently deleted. I am therefore reposting the reply verbatim--Joe Carillo]

A disabled woman is different from a woman with a disability, Mwita Chacha.

Calling a woman disabled denotes disability to the whole being of that woman. But describing her as someone with a disability implies ‘possession of a particular disability’ only. This was what I had understood when Jose Carillo explained to me why the lawmakers in the Philippines bothered to distinguish 'disabled persons' from 'persons with disabilities' in the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons.

Most women with disabilities in Tanzania have studied primary school. But only few have studied in colleges or universities because, as a research found out, (1) students with behavioral disorders and learning disabilities cannot really study, (2) there is negative attitude towards letting a woman finish her education in your country, (3) parents of women with disabilities are overprotective, (4) there is lack of conducive environment or facilities for women with disabilities, and (5) there is no one to look up to.

This is one of the reasons why learning sign language is necessary, beneficial, and practicable even for non-PWDs. Sign language could facilitate access to literacy that the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania maintains. It could address the “social problem” physical disability has come to be, particularly for the women, in your country. And, lastly, it could boost more appreciation in Tanzania once it develops a PWD-friendly culture.

The best way to understand the literacy needs of people with disabilities is to listen. Listening to individuals with disabilities, as well as organizations that represent them can help everyone to understand the relationship between literacy and disabilities.
~Literacy and Disabilities (a paper by the Movement for Candaian Literacy)

47

You Asked Me This Question / A little and little, a few and few

« on: April 08, 2013, 07:32:17 AM »

I have lots of problems telling the usage difference between ''a little'' and ''little'' as well as ''a few'' and ''few.''

48

Use and Misuse / Re: Not until Usage

« on: April 08, 2013, 07:25:00 AM »

It has indeed clarified things for me. There are some grammar books strictly insists that once the main-clause verb is in past tense the subordinate-clause verb must always be in past tense. My sympathy goes directly towards those who are not Forum members and who, like me hours ago, believe that's the truth what is said by those books.

49

Site Announcements / Re: More stringent procedure for accepting new Forum members

« on: April 08, 2013, 12:27:18 AM »

I wonder in what way the prior screening will be carried out and how effective it will be in differentiating normal from abnormal potential members.

50

Site Announcements / Re: Our apologies for the Forum’s momentary outage on March 27, 2013

« on: April 08, 2013, 12:20:02 AM »

Sir, I think you shouldn't have waited until the last sentence to unveil the main idea of the paragraph. For the sake of clarity, the making of apology was supposed to appear smack in the first sentence, followed by sentences detailing reasons for it. Delaying it has made it appear as though the going off of the Forum was more important than apologizing to members for inconveniences given rise to.

51

Use and Misuse / Re: Not until Usage

« on: April 08, 2013, 12:04:40 AM »

So you suggest ''I failed to attend the meeting yesterday because I'm ill'' is grammatically correct as long as the writer was still ill at the time he was making the sentence? It's for the first time I hear that.

52

Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Re: It’s terribly insensitive, obtuse to say that seeing a doctor is pleasurable

« on: April 04, 2013, 02:29:04 AM »

Sir, what makes you reckon doctors are among the most English-proficient people? I'm a medical student, and I don't remember attending a lecture without catching a professor failing to deliver his or her message by virtue of poor English. And this applies equally to both local and imported (American) lecturers. So if asked for an opinion, I will quickly respond that doctors are among the leading less-knowledgeable people in English. There is no argument, of course, that to become a doctor you've to go through a relatively lengthy, sometimes demanding course; however, that doesn't necessarily guarantee becoming at home with English.

53

Use and Misuse / Re: Not until Usage

« on: April 04, 2013, 01:42:39 AM »

If I'm not mistaken, grammar rules require that when the main clause is in the past tense, the independent clause also should be in the past tense. So my revision sentence would further be ''Not until I requested for my GSIS claim this March did I find out that my service record had not been closed yet because your office had not received the endorsement letter.''

54

You Asked Me This Question / Distinguishing between subjunctive and second conditional sentences

« on: March 28, 2013, 05:21:58 AM »

(Spinned off from “How do we incorporate ‘that’ clauses in second conditional sentences?”)

I think I've understood everything you've explained except I find myself having misgivings about the grammar of the sentence ''If you were not my wife at the time, I would have said you were crazy.'' Were I you, I would write it as ''If you had not been my wife at the time, I would have said you were crazy.'' ''Were,'' as I understand it, is only reserved for present unreal conditional sentences--subjunctive sentences in this case. But when talking about events of the past, the linking verb ''had been'' is what becomes appropriate. 

55

You Asked Me This Question / How do we incorporate ''that'' clauses in second conditional sentences?

« on: March 11, 2013, 10:47:18 PM »

Which is correct between ''If you were not my wife, I would say you're crazy'' and ''If you were not my wife, I would say you were crazy?''

56

You Asked Me This Question / Re: ''English Plain and Simple''

« on: March 11, 2013, 10:32:58 PM »

I'm most grateful, Sir, for the response; it has really been an eye opener. Before this, I had always been confused by adjective-following-nouns constructions. From now on I'l try whenever possible to construct my noun phrases in that way, assuming there are no ''rules hard-and-fast'' that govern such positioning of adjectives.

57

You Asked Me This Question / Re: Simple present tense wrongly applied

« on: March 11, 2013, 10:15:12 PM »

I see!

58

You Asked Me This Question / Simple present tense wrongly applied

« on: March 06, 2013, 01:48:56 PM »

This question is related to this newspaper sentence: ''Two people are killed after their car veers off the road and crashes into a roadside lamppost.'' When I saw it, it struck me outright as grammatically wrong for its use of a simple present tense where a simple perfect or simple past would be appropriate. So why do you think the writer of the story was so careless as to not remember that we never use a simple present tense for an action as already completed as the death of those two people? 

59

You Asked Me This Question / ''English Plain and Simple''

« on: March 06, 2013, 01:30:24 PM »

We are always told that in constructing a noun phrase, an adjective must precede the head noun. Now how this clearly poorly constructed noun phrase has qualified to be a book title?

60

Use and Misuse / Adjective or verb complement?

« on: February 25, 2013, 10:20:23 AM »

In the sentence ''I am committed to provide whatever it takes to meet the students' need,'' the infinitive phrase ''to provide whatever it takes to meet a students's need'' is:
(a) an adjective complement or
(b) a verb complement?