Series of question about English

First question: How to make my above words more polite?

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Re: Series of question about English

quiet sunshine wrote:

When searching some info by google I found this nice forum, then I registered and hope to improve my English here.
As a self-study student, I'm learning the course of advance English right now and will take test [on] in Oct., in order to [arose] raise my interest I'd like to post all my questions in this thread, any help will would be appreciated.

1. First question: How to make my above words more polite?

Welcome Quiet Sunshine. In English we make our requests more polite by using modal verbs, [eg. could, would, can, will]. The historical past tense forms, eg. could and would are more polite than the historical present tense forms because their conditional sense makes them less direct, therefore more formal, hence more polite.

Examples are in 2 and 3.

You can see where I've added 'would' to your request above, [in bold]. This is an example where using the historical past tense form 'would' makes your request less direct and therefore more polite.

2. How can I make my request, above, [words] more polite?

3. How could/would I make my request, above, more polite?

Another way to make things more polite is to use indirect questions which means we add an extra question to basic 'wh' questions. See 4 & 5.

4. Can you [please] tell me how to make my request, above, more polite?

5. Could/Would you [please] tell me how to make my request, above, more polite?

Another way is by adding layers of speech. Here in 6 you see that I've added the phrase, "I was wondering". This is a further form of indirectness.

6. I was wondering if you would/could tell me how to make my request, above, more polite?

Good luck on your upcoming test.

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L1
She has had a (grudge, malice)against me ever since I turned down her unreasonable request.
When to use grudge and when to use malice? I can't distinguish the two words. Mentioning of "distinguish", I have another confusion: I always dont' know the difference of "distinguish, discriminate, differentiate", could anyone give some examples and make explanation? Thanks!

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Hello Sunshine,

First of all, Americans don't require this kind of "politeness" the same way that some other cultures do. Your original post was perfectly polite.

JTT is correct, there are ways to make request less direct and at times this is appropriate, but this is usually not necessary.

I would suggest you continue to make your requests in English direct, adding a simple phrase like "any help would be appreciated". I know that American English speakers are much less concerned with formal politeness than Spanish speakers. I don't know, but it may be that Chinese has more formal rules on politeness.

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The correct sentence is

"She has had a grudge against me ever since I turned down her unreasonable request."

This is a very American sentence.

This sentence is also correct...

"She has shown malice towards me ever since I turned down her unreasonable request."

First notice that I changed the structure a bit. Malice is not a single thing. While I can talk about "a grudge", you can never say "a malice".

Also while this use of the word "malice" is correct, American's would not use it this way. I think the word "malice" is much less common than the word "grudge" (I don't remember using it in a normal setting). If I use it, it would be for something more important, perhaps a judge would act with malice toward the defendent (meaning she should be fair, but is not).

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ebrown_p wrote:

I think the word "malice" is much less common than the word "grudge" (I don't remember using it in a normal setting).

Here is the sentence in my textbook: These exercises in malice never fail to boost my spirits--but only for a while.

Ps: Thanks for the correction, JTT, your reply is really helpful. And also many thanks to you ebrown_p. Smile

Hm, after having access to PM, I'll express my thanks though it as I don't want to interrupt these questions and replies.

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a grudge is a long-felt resentment against somebody: "I have had a grudge against Martin ever since he copied from my papers in the exam"

malice (uncountable noun) is general nastiness, enjoying making someone suffer: "The damage was done out of malice". Synonym: spite

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Choose the right word:
The whole nation watched the two candidates(arguing, debating)the issue of raising taxes on TV.

Why choosing "debating" here? I searched on dictionary, both their synonyms are "discuss". What's their difference? Question

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Similar question again:
Some people watch television so much that they cannot(conceive, imagine)of living without it.
Is it because "imagine" can't combine with "of" here?

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Could you please help me correct the following passage? Thanks.

Rock music rose since late 1950s in America. It's not only a new type of musical form, furthermore is a forum for American youth to express their perspectives towards world and life. On this forum singers sang out youth's attitudes to civil rights, war and peace, their disaffection towards society, and a range of emotions between love and hate. All in all, the youth gave a bran-new explanation of their belief and emotion towards American society. The main representatives of early rock music are Elvis Presley, the singer and poet Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. They are all culture heroes adored by young people.

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quiet sunshine wrote:

Choose the right word:
The whole nation watched the two candidates(arguing, debating)the issue of raising taxes on TV.

Why choose [ing] "debating" here? I searched [on] IN THE dictionary, both their synonyms are "discuss". What's the difference?

'debate' connotes a more structured discussion, one that has formal rules or it can also mean that the parties discussed the issue in a respectful and even-handed fashion.

'argue' connotes more of a free for all, like a verbal fight.

=======================

Similar question again:
Some people watch television so much that they cannot(conceive, imagine)of living without it.
Is it because "imagine" can't combine with "of" here?

JTT: You hit the nail on the head, QS. That's precisely the reason.

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quiet sunshine wrote:

Could you please help me correct the following passage? Thanks.

Rock music rose since late 1950s in America. It's not only a new type of musical form, furthermore is a forum for American youth to express their perspectives towards world and life. On this forum singers sang out youth's attitudes to civil rights, war and peace, their disaffection towards society, and a range of emotions between love and hate. All in all, the youth gave a bran-new explanation of their belief and emotion towards American society. The main representatives of early rock music are Elvis Presley, the singer and poet Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. They are all culture heroes adored by young people.

I will do the first two sentences.

Quote:

Rock music rose since late 1950s in America.

1. When referring to a specific period of time, use the definite article (the 1950s, the 60s, etc.).
2. Your choice of preposition, "since", has the meaning "ever or continuously from (a specified time, etc.) until now" and thus, in context with "rose", suggests that the music continued to ascend (its popularity, its volume, or what?) If you were trying to convey that rock music had its beginnings in the late 1950s, there are better ways to express it, such as "originated in" or "arose in".

One possible improvement for the first sentence would be:

Rock music arose in America in the late 1950s.

Quote:

It's not only a new type of musical form, furthermore is a forum for American youth to express their perspectives towards world and life.

1. Have your verb tense agree with the first sentence (past tense). I have already confused one Chinese student of English with my guidelines on verb tense, so I will not restate them here. (If you are interested see this thread http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1294494&highlight=#1294494
2. Consider the similarities between "type" and "form" in this sentence and ask yourself if having both adds anything to the meaning.
3. "Furthermore" does not work well here as a correlative conjunction to "not only". "But also" is preferred (It's not only a...,but also a...), but I would also argue that the conjunction is not absolutely required (It's not only a..., it is a...).
4. "Perspectives on" is the preferred collocation, not "perspectives toward".
5. "World" takes the definite article as it refers to a specific thing.

So, with the grammatical changes mentioned above, and other unexplained stylistic changes, we have one possible improvement:

It was not only a new musical form, it was a forum for young Americans to express their perspective on the world and on life.

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Many thanks to you, Valpower. Smile

I know I have lots of mistakes in my English, but never has anyone to indicate them, so I'm seldom aware of where my problems are, and just keeping all my mistakes. Razz

To correct those mistakes should be a gradually process, I hope I could have enough patience to continue my learning. Smile

By the way, is there any online dictionary that differentiate and analyse words? I think I should try to find answers by myself first, right? I don't want to bother you too much with same kind of questions, So please recommend one if anyone knows. Thanks!

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quiet sunshine wrote:

Many thanks to you, Valpower.
I know I make lots of mistakes in my English, but since I never have anyone who can point them out, I'm seldom aware of where the problems are and [just keep making the same mistakes.] or [just end up keeping the mistakes.]
Correcting those mistakes should be a gradual process, I hope I have enought patience to continue learning.
By the way, is there any online dictionary that differentiates and analyses words? I think I should first try to find answers by myself, right? I don't want to bother you too much with same kinds of questions, so please recommend one if you know any. Thanks!

There are a number of online resources. Here are some of the free ones:
Dictionaries
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
http://www.m-w.com/
http://dictionary.reference.com/
Dictionaries search (good for finding phrases that contain a certain word)
http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary.html
http://www.google.com (type "define: " and whatever word you want to define)

QS, when you are looking up a word, make sure to consult as many dictionaries as you can. Like with any fact, the more sources you have, the more reliable it is. By comparing sources, you can often learn a nuance from one source that the others may omit.

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Thank you for the links and advice! Now I often use the cambridge onlie dictionary. Smile

Quote:

paddle one's butt just for sucking one's thumb

I just saw the above sentence at another place, what does it mean?

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I read the following sentence in my book:

Quote:

Television lives on advertising to an even greater extent than newspapers, and since advertising is big business, advertising is by nature Republican.

Why advertising is by nature Republican? What's the inevitable relation of being big business and Republican?

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quiet sunshine wrote:

Thank you for the links and advice! Now I often use the cambridge onlie dictionary.

Quote:
paddle one's butt just for sucking one's thumb

I just saw the above sentence at another place, what does it mean?

Paddling the butt is a form of punishment; a spanking. Sucking the thumb is a habit of small children who find it a pleasurable or soothing activity. Thumb sucking is mistakenly believed by some to be a sign of deeper psychological problems (though in reality, it can have adverse effects on tooth development and speech), so they may resort to unnecessarily extreme measures to eliminate it.

I've not heard this phrase you quoted, but without the actual context I can only guess that it was trying to convey the idea of administering excessive punishment for a minor infraction. I hope that helps.

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i am not good at english,either

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Valpower wrote:

I've not heard this phrase you quoted, but without the actual context I can only guess that it was trying to convey the idea of administering excessive punishment for a minor infraction. I hope that helps.

Your reply did help a lot and not only just for me, thanks! The original asker posted the context later, the sentence was from a joke, here it is:

A husband and wife and their two sons are watching TV. She looks at her husband and winks at him, he gets the message and says, "Excuse us for a few minutes boys, we're going up to our room for a little while."

Pretty soon one of the boys becomes curious, goes upstairs and sees the door to his parents bedroom is ajar. He peeks in for a few minutes, trots downstairs, gets his little brother and takes him up to peek into the bedroom.

"Before you look in there," he says, "keep in mind this is the same woman who paddled our butts just for sucking our thumbs."

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