My brother-in-law was astonished when I said I was getting Clare a beamer for Christmas. An SUV or a soft-top?
Category Archives: Advanced
The singular ‘they’
“If the patient can’t sleep, ask them if they need pain-killers.” This usage is perfectly acceptable.
Performance
“Performance” is the noun that comes from “to perform”. But it’s not the right word to use for carrying out tasks or doing work: the overtones are too confusing.
“Check out the brain on Brad”
You’ve only got one brain, even if you’ve got a lot of brains. Uh?
A black-and-white issue?
You’d think colours are pretty elementary and there ought to be no mistakes there. But there are still pitfalls when colours are combined.
A new threat
Dutch doesn’t have words that end in D. Or rather, the pronunciation is the same as a final T so they have a hard time distinguishing the two.
Dear, dear…
Try to avoid using “Dear” at the start of a message or e-mail unless you know the person’s name. Imagine you’re actually speaking to them, face to face.
Passive avoidance
You may have been taught to avoid passive verbs. They have their place, however, and avoiding them mustn’t distort the meaning.
Highlighting borrowed words
A brief aside for translators: if the author has italicized something merely to emphasize that it’s borrowed from English, there’s no need to take that formatting across!
Psychic distress
Anything to do with the psyche – the human mind or soul, after the goddess of the same name – has to be referred to as “psychological” or “mental”, not “psychic”.
Advanced Dunglish 