Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects[…]
A lot of Singaporeans pronounce “colleague” as ke-league. This is inaccurate. Read it as “call-league” /ˈkälˌēg/
“Imprisoned for 38 years, supporters believe activist leader was framed for murder by police in tumultuous early ’70s.” Oh dear. How would you interpret this headline? It seems to imply the supporters were imprisoned for 38 years! Adjectives that end with -ing and -ed are called participles. When you use such participles with no proper[…]
It’s fine if you “talked about” something or “spoke about” something. Correct: We talked about this performance. Correct: We spoke about his experience. However, you shouldn’t “mention about” something. WRONG: We mentioned about his mistakes to the teacher. RIGHT: We mentioned his mistakes to the teacher.
I always advise writers to be concise. This is not easy and I write redundant words too if I’m not careful. In an earlier post, I wrote “past experience” when “experience” could have sufficed because experience is something that has happened. Here are other examples: bright flash of light huge skyscraper Free gift Old antiques[…]
Do you know there’s a difference between “stay” and “live”? To “stay” in a place is to live in it temporarily, whereas to “live” somewhere is more permanent. For instance: 1) Your friend could be going to New York for a holiday. You can ask him, “Where are you staying in New York?” instead of[…]
“I went to recce that place, it was very suitable for holding the field camp.” In Singapore, we use the slang “recce” during NS to refer to the act of visually observing a location before the actual operation. Do you know the full word is “reconnaissance”? For example: We did a reconnaissance of the enemy’s[…]
“I went to recce that place, it was very suitable for holding the field camp.” In Singapore, we use the slang “recce” during NS to refer to the act of visually observing a location before the actual operation. Do you know the full word is “reconnaissance”? For example: We did a reconnaissance of the enemy’s[…]
We had mentioned in previous posts about avoiding “word echos” when writing your compositions, i.e. try to refrain from using the same terms in a paragraph. For example: That group of old boys from XXX school look really old. Better: That group of old boys from XXX school have really aged. While you are trying[…]
When do you use the word “like”? 1) The obvious mistake Youngsters these days enjoy using “like” as a filler to replace “uh”, “erm”. Examples: I was, like, so angry. My boyfriend is ,like, the best ever. This is a simple correction. Just remove the word “like”. Correct: I was so angry. My boyfriend is[…]