tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post5905923320833682360..comments2013-04-18T08:21:41.641-04:00Comments on English Proper: Using "the" and "a" (or "an")DocGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359004200002936544noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-10152667508063248572011-05-10T03:15:10.157-04:002011-05-10T03:15:10.157-04:00HI DocG
Nice blog. I live in Pune, in the western...HI DocG <br />Nice blog. I live in Pune, in the western part of India. Your blog is useful to people like us. We do not belong to an English-speaking country. So we tend to make mistakes. Also our sentences and phrases are sometimes aukward and clumsy. <br /><br />I also write a blog. Once I encountered an Indian celebrity's aukward sentence, which I corrected as part of my blog post. You can read this post here:http://jugshree.blogspot.com/2010/09/celebritys-clumsy-sentence.html<br /><br />ThanksShirishhttp://www.jugshree.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-31595030298736155682011-01-29T11:04:38.374-05:002011-01-29T11:04:38.374-05:00Sorry, Manju, I definitely confused you with Maju ...Sorry, Manju, I definitely confused you with Maju -- and yes he would be annoyed! :-(<br /><br />He could also use some help with his English, but may not want to admit it. :-)DocGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17359004200002936544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-12601008042917411822011-01-29T10:18:57.838-05:002011-01-29T10:18:57.838-05:00Greetings, Gioiello. In reference to your first co...Greetings, Gioiello. In reference to your first comment, I am confused. Do you feel that I was being disrespectful to Prof. Cruciani by pointing out some errors? That was certainly not my intention. I simply went through some of the many papers I've collected over the years to look for interesting examples to discuss. I didn't pay any attention to who wrote them.<br /><br />Professor Cruciani is a recognized authority on population genetics whose work I greatly respect and admire. However, if he is, in fact, the author of the passage on the Mbuti Pygmies that I quoted, then he has some problems with the English language. So what? So do many others like him. It's not at all unusual and is no reflection on his abilities as a scientist or teacher.<br /><br />In reference to your second post, regarding your English, then I must say yes, I see several problems. "I think not doing" is not only incorrect but also confusing, because there is no subject for the verb "doing." So we don't know who it is that is "not doing." You might think that the "I" in this sentence serves as the subject for both verbs, but this is not the case, so you must repeat the "I" to make the phrase clear. "I think I am not doing" is correct but also a bit awkward sounding. Better would be: "I don't think I am doing . . . "DocGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17359004200002936544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-89665303158453081072011-01-29T00:38:56.972-05:002011-01-29T00:38:56.972-05:00Thank you DocG. By the way, it's manju and not...Thank you DocG. By the way, it's manju and not Maju...I suppose Maju would be bit annoyed :-).Manju Edangamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-65381029214062414482011-01-29T00:12:47.926-05:002011-01-29T00:12:47.926-05:00Have you anything to say about my English? I am a ...Have you anything to say about my English? I am a teacher of Italian, Latin, History and Geography in the High School, and was criticized by a colleague of mine who teaches English for having said "I think not doing": may we accept it for an ellictic form of "I think I am not doing"?Gioiellohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13578860964923773647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-30579183073034879392011-01-28T18:43:49.720-05:002011-01-28T18:43:49.720-05:00I think not doing anything unsuitable in publishin...I think not doing anything unsuitable in publishing this letter of Prof. Fulvio Cruciani which is the response to the first two posts of this thread sent to one of his colleagues, Prof. Rosaria Scozzari.<br />This isn’t in recognition of me, but of everyone of us who has something to say on this matter, who did exams at his own expense putting the results at everybody’s disposal. Prof. Cruciani (and his colleagues) is one of the most esteemed researcher worldwide, and not like many others who either for ideology or other have written papers that I, but others too, have enjoyed myself to dissect and practically to thwart. His V-series has given fundamental contributions to deepen the origin of many haplogroups, above all E and R, because he practises the science, and this science (like every other one) is made by proofs, in this case by new fundamental SNPs. After there are the interpretations, and for this it isn’t said that the specialist is advantaged. Who of us knows a dozen of languages (ancient and modern ones), has cultivated Glottology, History, Geography and many other disciplines perhaps he too has something to say.<br /><br />Caro Gioiello,<br />Rosaria Scozzari mi ha girato la sua email.<br />I vari post sui blog di antropologia rappresentano per noi una ricca fonte di informazioni su cui riflettere.<br />Circa le tue ipotesi riportate in questa mail, non mi sento né di contraddirle, ne di appoggiarle, ma le terrò in considerazione.<br />Spero che in futuro si arrivi ad una comprensione più chiara del nostro passato attraverso gli studi sulla diversità genetica.<br />Cordiali saluti<br />Fulvio Cruciani<br /><br />Fulvio Cruciani, PhD<br />Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie "Charles Darwin"<br />Sapienza Università di Roma<br />P.le Aldo Moro 5<br />00185 Rome, Italy<br />(…)<br /><br />(Dear Gioiello,<br />Rosaria Scozzari forwarded to me your email.<br />Many posts on anthropology blogs are for us a rich source of information to be minded.<br />Re. your hypotheses reported in your mail, I don’t feel either to contradict them or to support, but I’ll take them in consideration.<br />Hope that in the future we’ll be able to reach a clearer understanding of our past by studies on genetic diversity.<br />Kind Regards,<br />Fulvio Cruciani)Gioiellohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13578860964923773647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-6772696080796414072011-01-28T15:17:59.777-05:002011-01-28T15:17:59.777-05:00Hi Maju. Nice to see you posting here. You are my ...Hi Maju. Nice to see you posting here. You are my first "customer." :-)<br /><br />You are right, that statement has some problems. For one thing, you repeat the word "point," which is stylistically weak. Also, "is how do you connect" is a bit awkward. Here's how I would write it: <br /><br />"But now the main question is, how to connect those points to your arguments." Some people might object to beginning a sentence with the word "but." But this doesn't bother me. :-)<br /><br />You shouldn't be too upset if you have problems with articles, because almost every non-native English speaker does. And when I try to think of what rule to use, I realize how confusing it can be. I can spot the problems right away, but I can't always explain why they are wrong. There ARE guidelines, however, which can be very helpful, and I'll be discussing them soon.DocGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17359004200002936544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8621502747120812422.post-42560779607308828252011-01-28T14:06:05.643-05:002011-01-28T14:06:05.643-05:00Thank you for this blog. You can expect many queri...Thank you for this blog. You can expect many queries from me :-).<br /><br />The articles are my biggest enemies (I guess mainly because Dravidian languages don't have the concept of articles, and probably with the exception of Brahui).<br /><br />Now to my first question. Somewhere I wrote;<br />"But now the main point is how do you connect those points to your arguments."<br /><br />I feel that statement is not very natural.Manju Edangamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com